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That Spineless Gun Vote
by Joe
Nocera
April
19, 2013
On April 20, 1999, Katie
Lyles, a high school sophomore, was taking a math test when she heard a popping
sound. “I assumed it was a prank,” she says.
It wasn’t. The fire alarm
soon went off, and a teacher shouted, “This is not a drill. Go, go, go!” Katie and
several classmates ran through the neighborhood, seeking shelter. All around
them, they could hear the screams of sirens and the whir of helicopter blades.
Finally, a woman answered
their frantic knocking. “Are you all from the high school?” she asked. When
they said yes, the woman invited them in. That is where they learned that two
of their fellow students at Columbine
High School had gone on a
murderous spree, killing 13 and wounding 21, before turning their guns on
themselves.
On Wednesday, 14 years later,
I met Katie Lyles in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Now 30 and married, Katie is a grade-school art
teacher in Littleton, Colo., the same town where she became, in
the sad vernacular of our age, “a Columbine survivor.” She was in Washington as part of a
lobbying effort by the
National Education Association, the big teachers’ union, to
back the handful of simple, common-sense gun bills, starting with universal
background checks, that the Senate would be voting on later that day.
Until the shootings in Newtown, Conn.,
Katie had never spoken publicly about her experience. She is still affected by
what happened that day. But after Newtown,
Katie realized that the school where she now teaches was as vulnerable to gun
violence as Columbine had been in 1999. And she couldn’t stay silent. “I
realize that my life has led me to this moment,” she says.
We talked for maybe 20
minutes before Katie and the N.E.A. lobbyists went off to their next
appointment. And, of course, a few hours later, the
Senate voted down every single gun proposal that
was on the table. Among those who cast votes against universal background
checks, which should have been a no-brainer, were four Democrats. They are: Max
Baucus of Montana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Begich of Alaska
and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota.
(The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, changed his vote from “yea” to “nay,”
but that was said to befor tactical reasons, so he could bring the legislation up again at a
later date.)
I spent much of Thursday
calling the offices of the four Democrats with one question: Why? Why
had they voted against universal background checks? Begich’s office put out a statement claiming that universal background checks “do
not reflect Alaska
values.” How so? His office wouldn’t say. Although Heitkamp issued a press release boasting of protecting “the Second Amendment
rights of North Dakotans,” calls to her office
produced only busy signals. The phone in Baucus’s office rang and rang and
rang. Nobody answered.
Of course, we all know the reason: The
four Democrats — along with many Republicans — quake in fear of the National
Rifle Association. In 1994, Baucus voted in favor of the assault rifle ban — and then nearly
lost his re-election bid. He never again stood up to the N.R.A. Yes, his phones
were undoubtedly jammed this week. Still, it seemed to me that his unanswered
phone was a potent symbol. I could almost picture him cowering in his office,
waiting for us to stop asking why he sold the country down the river. [emphasis added]
I loathe single-issue
politics, but maybe this is what it has come to. Maybe it is going to take
senators like Max Baucus losing their jobs because they wouldn’t stand up to
the N.R.A. Maybe it is going to require the majority of Americans who support
sensible gun laws to turn themselves into
an avenging political force. I wish it weren’t so, but nothing else seems to
move them — not even the sight of 20 slaughtered children in Connecticut.
On Thursday afternoon, I
spoke again to Katie Lyles. She was deeply disappointed, of course, but she
wasn’t ready to give up. A few months earlier, she had testified before the
Colorado State Legislature as it debated stricter gun laws, including mandatory
background checks and a limit to the size of magazines. The lawspassed a month ago.
“It took a long time,” she
said. “Fourteen years. You can’t give up just because you lose one battle.”
She pointed out something
else. Colorado has seen some of the nation’s
worst gun tragedies — not just Columbine, but last year’s shooting in Aurora. “We’re a Western
state,” she said. Colorado has plenty of gun owners. Yet it was still willing to pass tough new gun
laws. Katie believes that all that pain Colorado
has experienced is the reason.
“I fear that people are going
to have to experience that pain for themselves before we can pass these bills,”
she said.
“But I hope not.”
***
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