Knee-jerk Reactions to Tragedy

Human Events reports on the knee jerk reactions to violent tragedies within the conservator (and liberal) political sphere;

As the nation comes to grips with the Dec. 14 shooting rampage at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., the nation's capital braces for the rush to restrict gun rights.The Newtown shooting is the first mass school shooting since the April 20, 1999 shooting in the Littleton, Colo., at the Columbine High School, where 12 students and one teacher were killed by a pair a gunmen, who like the killer in Newtown, killed themselves in the midst the carnage.

Time will tell what will come in the wake of the Newtown shooting, but Columbine was a cultural earthquake and in the hysteria that followed sent Republican leaders in a panic. It was a panic that nearly led to the GOP restricting gun rights—not the Democrats.

This is the inside story of how I held back the Republicans from curtailing our gun rights until help arrived.Washington is full of brave people when times are good and cowards when things get tough.

There is perhaps no greater example than the Congress' reaction — in particular the Senate's reaction.  In the course of a few hours, lifelong self-proclaimed advocates of the Second Amendment were looking to enact the most sweeping gun control legislation in a generation.

They almost succeeded.

We were in our offices in the Capitol building when news broke on CNN of a school shooting in Columbine.  We watched in horror as students scurried out of their classrooms trying to avoid the rain of bullets.

The April 20, 1999 shooting massacre at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colo., was a national tragedy. In the aftermath of the shooting, Sen. C. Trent Lott Jr., (R.-Miss.), the majority leader, led his other GOP senators to pass a gun control bill before the Memorial Day recess.

Before the bodies had been buried there was a call for Congress to enact new gun control legislation. The Democrats and the press focused on that fact that Eric D. Harris and Dylan B. Klebold had procured their weapons through the use of a "straw man" purchaser, who bought a rifle and a shotgun from a gun show for the pair.  The fact that purchasing a gun on behalf of another person was illegal, President William J. Clinton and his allies were demanding Congress shutdown gun shows.

Shutting down gun shows has been the dream of Democrats. The shocking aspect of the coming floor debate was not that Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D.-N.J.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D.-N.Y) were pushing another gun control scheme.

The April 20, 1999 shooting massacre at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colo., was a national tragedy. In the aftermath of the shooting, Sen. C. Trent Lott Sr., (R.-Miss.), the majority leader, led his other GOP senators, such as Sen. Charles T. Hagel (R.-Neb.)  to pass a gun control bill before the Memorial Day recess.It was that a number of formally stalwart supporters of the Second Amendment were piling on.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a longtime foe of gun control bills, had introduced his Juvenile Crime Bill in Jan. 20, 1999, but it lanquished until it became the vehicle to exploit the Columbine tragedy. [...]