For Obama, the Carnage of Aurora Has Nothing to Do with Firearms

The impact of the Aurora killing on the violent campaign waged by the two contenders for the White House should require both sides to reshuffle the cards in the face of an American public, which is shocked and concerned for the future. However, it is likely that nothing will fundamentally change the situation.

Key Points:

• In the U.S., nearly 100,000 people are shot every year.

• According to ATF data, 70 percent of firearms recovered in crimes and traced to drug cartels in Mexico come from the United States.

• The rate of homicides caused by firearms in the United States is 20 times the combined rate of other Western countries.

• If one fires a gun in Newark, New Jersey, there is an 80 percent chance that the person has been arrested before, and the average person has 10 arrests.

• Since Sep. 2001, 270,000 Americans were victims of firearms in their homes.

• The Republican Chief of Staff, Representative Allen West, told participants at a Tea Party gathering, “We will use bullets if the ballots do not work.”

• New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, “It’s amazing but true: we can prevent terror suspects from boarding an airplane, but the FBI doesn’t have the power to block them from buying dynamite or an AK-47.”

At the beginning of the week, America was divided between bitterness and anguish. In the New Yorker, one of the most respected non-partisan magazines of the country since 1925, journalist Alex Koppelman wrote an article of reflection that illustrates this perfect solidarity that can be felt across the nation: “There’s a protocol in American politics for dealing with days like this. Those who follow it forswear politics. They offer heartwarming words for the victims and their families. They talk about prayer, loved ones, and their own children and grandchildren. They deliver affecting speeches. They do not talk about gun control.” These are the words of bitterness that barely concealed anger.

Barack Obama has been omnipresent since the onset of the carnage at the cinema in Aurora two Fridays ago. He suspended his campaign trips. He delivered a poignant speech during his brief visit to Tucson, Arizona. Last Sunday, he visited the Colorado victims. All of his words and actions – even the slightest ones – have been closely followed by photographers. But Obama did not manage to transform this forced communication exercise into something compelling in the eyes of some of the press. Alex Koppelman writes, “Neither man mentioned the issue that would, in another country, or at another time in this country’s history, have been on everyone’s lips.”

A President Who Ignores the Laws

“Though Obama is often accused of or perceived as being adamantly pro-gun control … he’s been a catalyst for higher gun sales – the truth is national Democrats all but gave up on gun control measures over a decade ago,” Koppelman states. But Koppelman also notes that “when he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed legislation that would have banned one of the weapons used in today’s attacks. He doesn’t want to have to explain away another part of his record in office any more than Obama wants to risk losing more white men in swing states. This is the reality of life in a Presidential campaign: politics almost always trumps policy.”

Here is a clarification concerning Koppelman’s remarks on Mitt Romney: In 2004, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney signed a permanent ban on assault weapons like the AK-47 and Uzi. The National Rifle Association has called the law “ineffective and useless.”*

Evidence agrees with the New Yorker magazine, which is far from being the only major media outlet that attempted to escape the rut of emotional shock on Monday by re-engaging the debate of ideas when both candidates restarted their campaigns on the field. White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that in the wake of the fatal shooting in the Colorado movie theater, the Obama administration does not intend to push for new measures control firearms.

In the Politico publication, Donovan Slack recalls that Jay Carney, spokesman for the White House Press Office, told journalists last Sunday aboard Air Force One that “the Obama administration has no plans to push new gun control measures.” Carney made it clear that a reauthorization of the ban on certain firearms that dated from the Clinton era and expired during the George W. Bush administration is “excluded.” “So the president is focused on doing the things we can do that protect Second Amendment rights, which he thinks is important, but also make it harder for individuals who should not, under existing law, have weapons to obtain them,” said Carney.

However, it is somewhat clear that when the American nation is in shock, the White House clearly reaffirmed its commitment to defend the Second Amendment, which guarantees every citizen the right to possess a firearm.

For hours, Obama has struggled to move on the grounds of the insanity concerning the carnage in Aurora. While he is struggling in the polls and tries to raise voters in states crucial to his reelection, he is not considering a challenge to the constitutional right. As a result, he has played the emotion card and left his team to reassure the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobbyist group that brings together the arms dealing industry and boasts 4.3 million members.

Why should an American student be capable of purchasing four firearms, including an assault rifle capable of firing 90 shots within seconds, and 6,000 rounds ammunition all from the comfort of his home? At no time has Obama or his team allowed the matter to be referred directly to him. It will not because he will not respond, which will not stop him. And that will not prevent this.

A Quickly Avoided Debate

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the country’s most outspoken supporters of gun control, continues to put pressure on President Obama and Mitt Romney to make judgments on the control of firearms. “They want to lead this country and they’ve said things before that they’re in favor of banning things like assault weapons. Where are they now, and why don’t they stand up? If they want our votes, they better.”

The next day, this impossible debate on the sale and possession of firearms for individuals in the U.S. did not quickly dissipate. Contrary to what his press service said, if Obama had wanted to, he could have easily bypassed Congress and forced the renewal of the law passed by Bill Clinton in this area. Blaming it on Congress, the White House perpetuates a classic of the Obama presidency: Everything that has not been done since 2008 is due to the attitude of Congress. This is curious when you know that during his first two years, the 44th President of the United States enjoyed sufficient forces in the Senate and the House of Representatives to impose most of its promises.

Irrational Obamania

During the Republican primary, a clip was broadcast by the staff of Rick Santorum’s campaign that denounced Romney’s statement that when properly structured and combined with a lower corporate income-tax rate, a so-called territorial system could make U.S. companies more competitive, simplify the tax code, reduce compliance costs, boost real wages and enable companies to repatriate the more than $1.2 trillion that they are now holding abroad for fear of the tax man.

In San Francisco, where he arrived on Sunday, candidate Mitt Romney gave a peculiar tone to his campaign. To donors who he met for the first time in three days, he said that he would show non-partisan support and even paid tribute to Obama’s meeting with the victims of Aurora. He reiterated his desire repeatedly expressed during the five-week media blitz that the Obama team has just inflicted his personal finances: He wanted the debate to focus on economic policy. Then he met with the Australian Prime Minister for a private meeting at his hotel on the eve of leaving for a tour that will take him to Europe and Israel.

But the Obama campaign staff will not wait for his return to attack; they fear that the damage caused to his opponent’s campaign by the Bain Capital issue and the further embarrassment caused by the issue of its revenue will disappear from American minds. However, following the election, these issues will probably result in one of the most unusual situations, known by the United States as the approach of a presidential election.

Indeed, there is still little doubt that Obama will be re-elected Nov. 6, 2012 and that Obamania, irrational whether abroad or in the U.S., will not falter. But this will probably be one of the few times that a president who fails to achieve a 50 percent approval rating will carry his re-election handily. For despite the hundreds of millions of dollars already spent in advertising alone, along with about $1 billion raised by donors, Barack Obama, as indicated by the latest Gallup poll published by The Washington Post this weekend, still has a 47 percent disapproval rate versus a 46 percent approval rate. According to the Rasmussen Institute, 49 percent approve of the President versus 50 percent who disapprove. According to the very Republican Fox News, the numbers are 47 percent approval versus 49 percent disapproval.

The Hyper-President

However, Barack Obama would also be the first president of the United States re-elected with an unemployment rate greater than 7.2 percent. Actually, this rate remains at 8.2 percent.

Here is another anomaly: While the whole campaign against Mitt Romney seeks to overshadow the poor performance of the U.S. economy, new scandals characterize the largest financial institutions of the country. According to a survey released today by the Atlantic Wire, there is proof that the morals advocated by Obama have failed along with his portrayal of [Romney] as the candidate of “super-rich” who will destroy the American middle class through his tax plan. It is believed that no less than $21 trillion are currently placed by the real “super-rich” in tax havens and the Cayman Islands in particular. On this point too, Obama was inert and cannot challenge anyone: neither the Congress nor his rival.

Obama also estimated that as a result of Mitt Romney’s tax measures, 800,000 jobs were created outside the United States. On July 22 however, the Bloomberg agency and Newsweek denied this. “On this count, the president is wrong. Of these, the President is wrong. Investment and employment growth abroad does not necessarily mean job losses in the United States. Investment and job growth abroad don’t necessarily mean job losses in the U.S. And more importantly, Romney’s plan to tax multinational corporations only on the income they earn domestically is on the right track. Properly structured, and combined with a lower corporate- income-tax rate, a so-called territorial system could make U.S. companies more competitive, simplify the tax code, reduce compliance costs, boost real wages and enable companies to repatriate the more than $1.2 trillion they are now holding abroad for fear of the tax man.”

They will also not criticize Barack Obama for not keeping 320 of his 508 campaign promises from 2008.

Mitt Romney knows that he will need a lot of luck and help to prevent himself from reaching his opponent and [stop him from] continuing a strategy of distraction. This distraction is causing noise while the real reasons for concern come galloping to the U.S., which thought up until last spring that it had escaped the worst economic crisis in 80 years. This morning, the Associated Press announced that the poverty rate in the U.S. is rising at its highest since the 1960s, reaching 15.7 percent of the U.S. population.

More importantly, Romney has no chance to beat Obama at his own game when it comes to charisma and charm. A president who can look a nation in the eyes and cry with the families of victims of a massacre by a young man to whom the law confers the right to own an arsenal, while also asserting that it has nothing to do with the law but it is a problem of individual responsibility, is undoubtedly a president who can get away with anything without being charged. For this, some compare him to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the playboy who laid the groundwork for the horror of Vietnam, with good reason. Undoubtedly, and this is the work of the blindness of all those for whom Bush, the devil himself, made many mistakes by forgiving his successor.