An Outrage That Will Last

If Senator John McCain has shown what he is made of by becoming shadow Commander in Chief during the war in Kosovo, Al Gore may do the same during the war in the schools. Unlike so many others, he didn't single out culture or guns for blame, but immediately addressed both. He and Tipper were for values before it was cool. If his below-radar efforts last week are successful, the man who clumsily claimed to have created the Internet may be the one to clean it up, getting the biggest players to voluntarily keep the worst sites from children.

Gore came out squarely for gun control, even as the President initially hung back. While the Republicans pandered to the powerful gun lobby, which targets heretics for defeat, Gore spoke eloquently at the memorial service in Littleton (even if he does mistake shouting and arm chops for animation). The raw sadness of burying children had temporarily alleviated his stiffness, and he plaintively asked, "What say we into the open muzzle of this tragedy, cocked and aimed at our hearts?"

At a campaign stop in the living room of a turn-of-the-century house in Dubuque, Iowa, he told how the father of a dead child had asked him in a whisper to promise that his child and the other had not died in vain. Gore did.

If his words rang true, it may have been because Republicans hit so many false notes. Dan Quayle led the clanging chorus, warning that the massacre should not be used "as an excuse to go and take away guns." He sounded like gun lobbyist Neal Knox, who fretted that "fresh victims" bring out the "anti-gun" fanatics. The other Republican presidential contenders avoided blaming weapons in favor of blaming the culture, except McCain, who flicked at the gun problem in a joint letter with Democrats asking for a White House summit on the entertainment industry. Texas Governor George W. Bush found himself doing another waffle. Responding to Littleton, he said he supported background checks for people buying weapons at Texas gun shows or flea markets, but a bill to that effect had just died in committee without his support. Asked if he planned to revive it, he said no because it was "flawed." Then the candidate of small government said maybe Congress should take up the issue.

In Congress, while Democrats were pushing stringent legislation, the boldest move by Republicans was to call for a "national dialogue" by religious and other leaders that would "inform the nation about modern culture and its impact on youth." Senate majority leader Trent Lott seemed intent on keeping his earlier vow that gun control legislation would never pass on his watch. He called the renewed push for gun control a typical "knee-jerk reaction" to the shootings and staved off for at least two weeks an effort to have a vote, in the hope that emotions will cool. The House, heavily mortgaged to the gun lobby, has scheduled no bills. House Republican whip Tom DeLay, whose office was the site of the murder of one of the two Capitol guards slain by a crazed gunman last summer, accused Clinton of exploiting tragedy for political benefits.

Republicans are betting that this too will pass, that as with Jonesboro and Paducah, Pearl and Springfield, once the white coffins are in the ground and the cameras gone, the outrage will subside. But maybe not this time. In town meetings and talk radio, the public has had its fill of politicians talking resignedly about our gun culture, as if there's nothing to be done about a subgroup that finds schoolyard massacres an acceptable cost for its right to be armed to the teeth. But if the Constitution speaks of a "well-regulated militia," why don't we regulate it? Surely the sanest teenager isn't militia material. Gun ownership should not start until age 21, and it should require a background check at every purchase point, and a waiting period. Just as no one has a right to a machine gun, no one should have a right to a semiautomatic weapon, or a gun that can be altered to become one. Of course guns should have safety locks.

Just a year ago in Jonesboro, teacher Shannon Wright, mother of a two-year-old, stopped a bullet for another mother's child. Two week ago, Dave Sanders bled to death after directing kids to safety. And we're supposed to think gun buyers can't endure a little red tape, a little delayed gratification in making their purchase? Without guns, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were menacing misfits in trench coats feasting on Internet swill. With guns, they became merciless mass murderers. We're hungry for a politician who can stand up to the gun lobby and convince it that burying Isaiah Shoels last Thursday in the graduation gown he would have worn to his commencement this month is unacceptable in a civilized society.