What it will take for the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to get sensible gun laws passed in the United States? A brief history of gun laws, and what’s next:
“I stood before the Sandy Hook families on that day in January to brief them on the basics of gun policy and politics. These are smart, educated people. They assumed that, in the wake of this horror, Congress would pass some long-overdue gun safety measures. By then, however, this much was already clear to the political classes: there wasn’t going to be a renewed ban on assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition magazines, no matter how wrenching the scene in Newtown. Congress just didn’t have the courage to take such a step. The Senate wouldn’t pass it, and the House wouldn’t even consider it.
“When I broke this news to the families, one of the mothers let me know, gently but firmly, that I had screwed up. ‘Don’t tell us what can’t be done, because we just aren’t prepared to hear that,’ she said. ‘Tell us that it could take time, which we can accept, because we’re in this for the long haul. And tell us what we can do now to honor the memory of our children.’”
