The Least Popular Subject

BY Gail Collins
New York Times
19 October 2012

Let’s give a cheer for Nina Gonzalez, the woman who asked Mitt Romney and Barack Obama about gun control at the presidential debate.

People, have you noticed how regularly this topic fails to come up? We have been having this campaign since the dawn of the ice age. Why wasn’t there a gun control moment before now?

 

True, the candidates were asked about it after the horrific blood baths last summer in Colorado and Wisconsin. But there have been 43 American mass shootings in the last year. Wouldn’t you think that would qualify guns for a more regular mention?

 

“I felt very empowered,” said Gonzalez, a 57-year-old mental health practitioner from Long Island. We were talking on the phone a few days after the debate. She had been fielding calls from strangers who were eager to give her their opinion about guns, and she still couldn’t quite understand why the candidates were less enthusiastic. “What’s the problem?” she asked.

 

Democrats running for national office are terrified of the whole subject. Party lore has it that passing the assault weapons ban in 1994 cost them control of Congress and Al Gore’s election. (There is ample evidence that this isn’t true, but that’s what makes it lore.)

 

So President Obama, a vocal gun control supporter in his Chicago days, is now a gun control nonmentioner. And, when it comes to legislation in Congress, a nonhelper.

 

Republicans are usually eager to bring up gun control, the better to denounce it. But Mitt Romney has — surprise! — a complicated history of policy molt on the issue. He was once on the same page as Ted Kennedy, and then the page turned.       

 

For purposes of running for president, Romney is against new gun laws. And he would rather not have any discussions that lead to a mention of his pre-molt state. Or the fact that he once unsuccessfully attempted to woo rural voters by recounting his skill as a hunter of “small varmints.”

 

Into all this stepped Gonzalez, who was haunted by the Colorado theater shooting in July that killed 12 people. The gunman carried a 100-bullet assault rifle. The ban on assault weapons, which allow you to fire as fast as you can keep pulling the trigger, expired in 2004. Congress has been afraid to renew it because, you know, there’s the lore.

 

“What has your administration done or planned to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?” Gonzalez asked Obama.

 

“You know, we’re a nation that believes in the Second Amendment,” Obama began. “And I believe in the Second Amendment. You know, we’ve got a long tradition of hunting. ...”

 

When in doubt, say something nice about hunters.

 

The president signaled that he favors renewing the ban by saying that weapons designed for soldiers at war “do not belong on our streets.” Then he swerved away to the importance of better law enforcement, good schools and faith groups that work with inner-city children.

 

That was pretty much it for the guns, except that Obama did call for getting “automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing numbers out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.” Actually, automatic weapons, like machine guns, are already heavily regulated. Although, in a different world, we would be discussing why they’re in the country at all.

 

Mitt Romney wasted only 42 words on assault weapons before veering off into the importance of good schools. When it comes to gun control, both presidential candidates are strongly in favor of quality education.

 

Romney followed up with a long disquisition on the virtues of two-parent families. (“But, gosh, to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone — that’s a great idea. ...”)

 

It was about here that he lost Nina Gonzalez. “Single mothers have enough problems. Leave them alone,” she said. “Why are we even talking about that? That’s not the issue.”

 

Romney then lurched into an attack on “Fast and Furious,” a much-criticized Justice Department program involving Mexican drug lords. The moderator, Candy Crowley, was forced to round him up and send him back toward the United States. Crowley noted that Romney had signed a ban on assault weapons when he was governor of Massachusetts. “Why is it that you’ve changed your mind?” she asked.

 

This was an excellent question, and Romney’s answer was basically that in Massachusetts nobody was against it. I think that, by now, we have plenty of reassurance that whenever something universally popular comes up, Mitt Romney will be there with his signing pen.

 

The president then interrupted urgently for what turned out to be a comparison of his and Romney’s positions on hiring teachers.

 

Gonzalez still thought Obama did better. (She’s really irked about the single mothers.) But she says she’s maintaining her undecided status, just in case Romney comes up with a credible jobs-creation strategy in the next fewweeks.