February 7, 2013
By David Scribner
Political fortitude appears to be in short supply among the members of the Great Barrington Board of Selectmen. Shortly after the horrific killing of 20 Newtown, Connecticut elementary school children – mostly first graders – and six adults at the hands of a disturbed young man with access to a military style semi-automatic rifle, Barrington selectmen expressed understandable sympathy for the parents of the victims and recalled that precisely 20 years ago Great Barrington was itself the site of gun-driven violence.
The selectmen then took the commendable next step, as a community that has also endured the shocking deaths of innocents due to the availability of instruments of murder. They stood up for principle and drafted a resolution, stating, in effect, their sense that a civilized society should not tolerate nor accept unregulated access to weapons of mass murder. They cited their outrage at the numerous “senseless tragedies” and continuing “slaughter of our youth.” In the resolution the board called on Congress to enact a ban on military-style assault weapons and large capacity ammunition clips.
Within a month, however, that sense of moral high ground and common decency seems to have melted away.
Facing a bellicose cadre of gun rights advocates – the board’s resolution, of course, was aimed neither at sportsmen nor hunters, nor did the board have any authority to impose a ban on assault weapons — selectmen backed down, intimidated by those who cannot stomach the mere mention of measures to reduce the pandemic of gun violence – or even admit that there is a problem we all face because of gun violence. Not one selectman could summon the gumption to defend or even state the reasons why the board had considered the resolution in the first place. In this instance, the Second Amendment trumped the First Amendment.
Given the environment for discussion of this issue – and the threat from one gun proponent that the board would face “resistance” should it adopt a resolution on assault weapons – it is hard to imagine what purpose a vaguely framed “dialogue” with gun proponents, as proposed by Selectmen Deborah Phillips and Alana Chernila, would serve. Who would be at the table and with what goal?
Since the Board of Selectmen appears willing to bow to the demands of the gun advocates, who, then, is going to speak up for the rights of the elderly woman who appeared before the board after the Newtown massacre and said that because of the proliferation of military-style weapons – the arming of American society — she felt vulnerable?