Sen. Cassidy, raise the age to 21!
6th June 2022 · 0 Comments
By Christopher Tidmore
Contributing Columnist
President Biden’s decision to emphasize the need to raise the age to purchase assault weapons to 21 three times in his short speech last Thursday night proved as much an admonition to the Left of his own party as to the majority of Republicans. Just prior, Progressive Democrats, led by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, had dismissed the proposal as “not going far enough,” aiming for a total ban on assault rifles.
An idea which Biden did endorse in his nationwide address from the White House on June 2, yet after mentioning it, essentially dropped the concept in favor of raising the purchase age to 21. Noting how that small change would have saved the children at Ross Elementary, the president recounted how the assailant had asked his sister to purchase an assault weapon for him at age 17, when he was legally barred from buying it. She refused. Upon turning 18, there was nothing to stop him.
As The Louisiana Weekly editorialized in the last edition, in order to enact meaningful gun reform, Progressives cannot make the perfect the enemy of the good. More importantly, just as they ask Conservatives to understand the liberal position of the constitutional defense of a woman’s right to choose, they must understand that the skepticism on gun restrictions strangely mirrors that of the defenders of abortion rights. Republicans worry about a “slippery-slope” that will effectively destroy the Second Amendment, just as liberals see abortion restrictions as a step towards a total ban.
Therefore, to succeed in any fashion with gun reform, the Left must find a middle ground that satisfies the conservative desire to protect the ability to own most assault weapons yet keeps them out of the hands of those doing the school shootings – which tends to be Caucasian males under 21. There is compelling evidence that such an age-raising compromise would not only earn some GOP support nationally, but here in the Pelican State. That’s important, because Bill Cassidy might prove the swing vote to overcome a filibuster.
Louisianans love their gun-rights, but the citizens of our state are far more pragmatic than our own politicians often credit their constituents. Just ask Rep. Danny McCormick. The Oil City state representative attempted to pass his “constitutional carry” bill through the legislature for a second year in a row. The bill, which would have eliminated all training and safety mandates to carry a concealed handgun, easily passed the GOP legislature last year only to fall before a gubernatorial veto. History was expected to repeat itself last week, until a poll was read out.
After passing the House, signs that McCormick’s bill might not make it through a Senate committee came when Sen. Patrick Connick, R-Marrero, cited a survey of more than 1,000 of his constituents. Around 75 percent said they opposed concealed firearms bill which did not include a training component, according to results he shared at the hearing. The revelation proved enough to essentially kill the bill, transforming it into legislation allowing volunteers in schools to undergo police firearms training in order to provide security at schools. It went from eliminating training to specifying it (albeit for a different purpose).
What the debate revealed, thanks to Connick’s poll, was that the citizens of Louisiana realize there is no contradiction in both supporting the Second Amendment and that wielding certain firearms comes with responsibilities as well as rights. They are pragmatic about targeted regulations to guarantee safety, as long as general gun rights are protected. It’s high time that the votes of our GOP U.S. Senators reflect that balance.
We may not hold out much hope for Sen. John Kennedy, but Sen. Bill Cassidy (who has shown a moderate streak in the past) should join the bipartisan group seeking to end school shootings. They advocate a range of proposals, yet they center around the president’s call to raise the age of purchase to 21.
Cassidy’s advisors might worry such a stand could hurt the Senator in a bid for governor next year; however, his vote to impeach Donald Trump did more to encourage Democrats to cross party lines to support him than any votes lost on the far Right. Endorsing a reasonable reform which both protects the Second Amendment right to bear arms, and yet recognizes that an 18-year-old outside of the military’s training and oversight should not own a military style assault weapon, will encourage the moderate electorate in both parties to back him for governor over his GOP rivals. Connick’s 75 percent demonstrates the political advantage in such a stand, especially in a state with an open primary that makes cross-party coalitions so possible. Just ask John Bel Edwards how moderate Republicans propelled him into office.
Moreover, it is the moral stand. President Biden recounted in his speech of his recent trip to console the victims and families in Uvalde, Texas, “After visiting the school, we attended Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church with Father Eddy. In the pews, family and friends held each other tightly. As Archbishop Gustavo spoke, he asked the children in attendance to come up on the altar and sit in the altar with him, as he spoke. There wasn’t enough room, so a mom and her young son sat next to Jill and me in the first pew.”
“And as we left the church, a grandmother who had just lost her granddaughter passed me a handwritten letter. It read, quote: ‘Erase the invisible line that is dividing our nation. Come up with a solution and fix what’s broken and make the changes that are necessary to prevent this happening again.’”
President Biden proposed several ideas in his speech from Red Flag Laws to addressing the liability shield on gun manufacturers. However, raising the gun purchase age is the one reform that would have stopped 26 out of 27 school shootings in the last year. It stands as the one idea which carries support in GOP circles, as it respects Second Amendment rights overall, yet solves the specific problem that most school shooters are middle class Caucasian males who purchase these firearms legally – and in almost every case would not have been stopped by any other proposed reform in the current legislation.
Senator Cassidy, Raise the age to 21 and save children’s lives!
This article originally published in the June 6, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
