Since most rural newspapers publish weekly, many outstate editorial boards have yet to opine on the school shootings in Sandy Hook.
Reading online editions of dailies and biweeklies, Bluestem has read four editorials in response to the murders in the Faribault Daily News, the Mankato Free Press, the New Ulm Daily Journal and the Owatonna People's Press--along with one editorial about using guns for self-defense, Our view: Questions every gun owner should ask and answer, published the day before 26 people were gunned down.
That's in the Rochester Post Bulletin, prompted by the shooting of a teen-aged girl by her grandfather in the home they shared. The board wrote in part:
. . .And now it's Rochester's turn. On Monday, a 61-year-old man mistook his 16-year-old granddaughter for a burglar and shot her with his handgun. Fortunately, she is expected to survive.
We're not going to use these tragedies as an opportunity to advocate for strict gun control, because that ship sailed a long time ago. The FBI estimates U.S. citizens own more than 200 million rifles, pistols and shotguns. While some restrictions have been placed on those who want to buy guns, people are buying firearms at a record pace this year, and the fact is if you're not a felon, those restrictions are little more than an inconvenience.
Furthermore, we'd suggest anyone who believes the U.S. government could, should or will ever attempt to take Americans' guns away from them is delusional. For better or for worse, guns and gun ownership are a part of our national heritage and culture, and that's not going to change. . . .
That was published Thursday; the paper has yet to post any editorial response to the Connecticut massacre. Part of this may be attributed as much to the paper's production schedule as to editorial reticence--nonetheless, it stands as a marker to the state of the discussion of gun control in the USA before Friday.
By three in the afternoon the next day, America's conversation had changed. Few signs of that shift are more stark than the headline on the top of the fairly conservative Owatonna People's Press editorial, Conversation on gun violence long overdue. The editors conclude:
. . .Before we jump head first into such a debate, we should remember those people and their families. But the discussion needs to happen. We cannot put this debate off any longer. We, as Americans, need to sit down and have a serious discussion about the role – and availability — of firearms in our society. As with most important conversations, it will not be a pleasant one. It will be divisive, it will be uncomfortable and it will most certainly be heated. But it is necessary.
The one thing we can certainly all agree on is that none of those 18 [sic] children deserved to die. How we move forward as a society from this terrible tragedy, how we utilize the lessons that countless similar tragedies have taught us, will define us a nation and as a people.
Yes, earlier in the opinion, the editors caution how "voices on all sides of the political spectrum attempt to politicize the event in Newtown." They do not, however, ask that the debate be avoided.
Later on Friday night, the OPP's sister Huckle Media chain outlet, the Faribault Daily News, comes closer to that--though the editors stop short--with Take time to mourn the losses in Newtown, Conn.:
. . .
Tragedy is something that seems to be in abundance as of late in America. Two people were randomly killed by a gunman at a mall in Portland, Ore., earlier this week and sting of this past summer’s Aurora, Colo., shooting still resonates. Dealing with a different kind of pain, New York and the East Coast are still reeling from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy.
As further details emerge about the shooting, definitive actions will certainly be taken. School security plans will be reevaluated nationwide and the long-standing gun control debate has already been raised to a fever pitch in response to the shooting.
But before our attention is diverted to politics and rhetoric, we ask that people take a moment to mourn the monumental losses suffered in Connecticut. Feel sympathy and sadness for the family and friends whose lives were forever damaged by the shooting. But most of all, take a moment to call a loved one and tell them how much they mean to you because in times of tragedy, they are what matter most. . .
While many on both ends of the spectrum of the gun control to gun rights debate may grow impatient with that call for mourning over action, it too is understandable, however little many of us might be inclined to soften the debate while the bodies are identified and gathered.
That impatience is captured more in the New Ulm Journal's headline: A day of horror. The Journal's board concludes:
We will hear debates about gun control in the weeks ahead. We need the debate. Something has to be done about the vast number of guns in this country, so many of them owned illegally, or unlicensed. Do we need stronger laws, or stronger enforcement of our existing gun laws?
But in many cases like this, the shooters are often someone who bought guns legally and had no prior history to indicate they should not be allowed to own guns. Or they may steal the guns from somewhere.
As a nation, we have gone through this experience too many times. And we will go through it again, we fear, until we find the resolve to do something substantive about it.
That suggests stronger action than the Bulletin editorial board--widely thought more liberal than the stolid burghers in New Ulm--would have admitted possible in the national debate two days before.
Late Saturday night, the Mankato Free Press posted Our View: School shooting is America's problem, which calls for political courage against the gun lobby. Perhaps the bolder call is simply a matter of time elapsed from the slap of the initial reports on Friday. The editorial begins:
School shootings in America should be difficult and rare, not easy and frequent.
But when most of us can name four or five of them off the top of our heads, we should realize they have become too easy and frequent.
Jonesboro. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Now Newtown, Conn. Then add other public places. Post offices, movie theaters, businesses, warehouses, churches, NFL football fields. It's pretty sad when 28 dead in a school shooting doesn't break the record. The Virginia Tech shooter claimed 32 lives.
Newtown, a city about the size of Mankato, was considered by one parent the "safest place in America."
Go read the middle at the Free Press. The editors conclude:
The [President's] politics reference was alluding to an ugly truth about our gun violence debate in America. We seem afraid to have one at high levels of power from state houses to the White House. . . .
Like any legitimate public affairs issue, we should debate the causes, the effects and what makes mass shootings so easy and frequent. From mental illness prevention to semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles, all issues need to be on the table.
But we should also examine our own consciences. Can we continue to live with these tragedies and be afraid of a gun lobby we know is very powerful? Or is it time we had the courage, as Obama urges, to do something "meaningful." . . .
The sufficient (and efficacious) grace of that word has been much contested among the tweeps, to the point that mere mortals have written, Obama, Fuck Your Tears, taking away a different meaning:
Plus, the benefit of not “capitalizing” on the tragedy is that, in a few days, most of us will put this whole thing behind us. We have Christmas presents to buy and trees to decorate—this is a very busy time of year! So if you wait this one out, just kind of do the bare minimum of your job, our outrage will probably pass, and you can avoid any of those “usual Washington policy debates.” Those are such a yawn, amirite?
There's merit to that. The conservative Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Mark Roth dashed off Despite Obama's appeal for action, new gun control unlikely, experts say within hours of the President's speech, and many editorial boards across Greater Minnesota--notably those owned by the Forum Communications chain--have stayed silent.
For myself, I've always been a gun rights supporter as it seemed a civil liberty, but the cascade of spree shootings now makes me think that the "well-regulated" clause of the Second Amendment needs to be invoked to protect citizens from murder. As the Free Press board writes:
Like any legitimate public affairs issue, we should debate the causes, the effects and what makes mass shootings so easy and frequent. From mental illness prevention to semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles, all issues need to be on the table.
Will this debate happen? And sound policy--not tears--be wrung from it? We must make it so.
Photo: A man outside of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., a gunman opened fire, killing 26 people, including 20 children, Friday, Dec. 14, 2012. (AP Photo/Newtown Bee, Shannon Hicks via Huffington Post).
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