The Editor's Back Fence

SOMEWHERE IN MARYLAND--The news about the sit-ins at the House came as a text from a friend just as we were getting ready to rent a car in Manhattan in order to drive from one family gathering to another one with another branch of the family in the D.C. Area. Like an old fire horse hearing the sound of the fire bell, I itched to get on the road in time to see the action, but these days things just don't move very fast. In due time, with massive assistance from GPS, I got to the Capitol early yesterday afternoon, just in time to learn that I was too late.

The valiant Congresspersons had departed about 12:30 after the electricity, including the air conditioning, had been turned off in the chamber. With temperatures in the high eighties and humidity to match, no surprise that they'd had to vacate--you can't survive in D.C. in the summer without power cooling.

The nice man in the Congressional Periodical Press Gallery gave me a temporary Press sticker and suggested that there might still be some action out in front of the building on the east side. After running up and down several flights of stairs, I got there, only to learn that the representatives had come and gone already.

A rump faction of the sizable group which had gathered outside the Capitol overnight was still there, a nice assortment which included elderly white women, young black men and everything in between, several sporting rowdy homemade signs supporting the sitters. One woman told me she'd been there in a tour group when the sit-in started, and she just stayed to cheer them on. She said that the House participants had frequently come out to talk to their fans during the night, and there had been a cordial exchange of complementary pizza orders from time to time.

As I was about to retreat to the comfort of the air-conditioned suburban hotel which had been chosen for the out-of-town family members, a couple of straggling congressmen showed up for one last briefing. It turned out that they were from Michigan, a state that I used to know well politically. One was from East Lansing, home of Michigan State, and the other, Dan Kildee, comes from Flint, a city much in the news lately.

He turns out to be the nephew of Dale Kildee, whom I'd known when he was one of the more liberal members of the Michigan legislature in the 60s, who later went on to be elected to the U.S. Congress from Flint. All politics these days is quasi-dynastic, not necessarily a bad thing.  

Dan Kildee seems to be upholding the family tradition in fine style, and even moving it a notch leftward. One of the crowd asked if he knew Flint's currently most famous son, Michael Moore--it turned out Mike had managed Dan's first campaign. 

The urban legend now in circulation is that everybody's favorite folk hero, civil rights veteran John Lewis, just spontaneously sat down on the floor of the house and others impulsively joined him. Based on what Kildee said, and what our local heroine Barbara Lee told me later on the phone, discussion of some way for House members to challenge the gun lobby which would rival Senator Chris Murphy's Senate filibuster had been bruited about for a couple weeks. One speaker I'd seen on my motel TV, possibly Massachusetts Congressmember Katharine Clark, said something about Lewis responding quickly when asked to speak for the group, whoever the organizers might have been. 

It worked. Brilliantly. 

It was the lead story in U.S.A. Today, a publication I never see except when it's free in hotels, and it was also a big story on the best online news source, The Guardian.  

Responding intelligently to questions from the group outside the Capitol, Kildee opined that the long term goal should be to break the death grip the NRA has on certain congressional seats. He said that polls show that the great majority of voters support stronger restrictions on gun ownership, but the NRA's ability to dump megabucks into races where their pets are threatened intimidates the opposition. 

He told me his job in the Congress's Democratic caucus is to identify and organize the small number of swingable districts. This includes races where a Democrat could win over a seat now held by a Republican, and those where a current Democrat might be at risk. He thought the gun issue would be an ideal distinguisher in both kinds of areas, which is why threatened Dems were enthusiastic participants in Wednesday's action. 

As we drove here by way of central Pennsylvania, we could only get A.M. Stations on the car radio, in fact only slavering right-wing talk shows, so we heard the sit-in as reported by Glen Beck, a novel experience to say the least.  

He and his colleague, whose name I didn't catch, were once again exploiting the view of the Second Amendment to the Constitution through the eyes of a poor reader. Yes, yes, the Founding Fathers, a parochial bunch of old white guys (some of course young fools) did say "right to bear arms", and also that women and slaves couldn't vote. But what about that "well-regulated militia" phrase? 

A) The main goal of militias as recently explained by historians was not only to fight the British but also to deal with pesky Indians and runaway slaves. Not a problem any more, right? 

B) "Well-regulated": Here's where I think the congressional campaigns Dan Kildee is working on would benefit from a little rebranding. Why are we always talking about "gun control"? Americans just hate to be controlled, by the government or anyone else. 

How about instead "regulating" guns? With all the talk about the sins of the big bad banks, regulation is starting to come back in style. Dan Kildee, being from Flint, is in an excellent position to talk about the necessity of regulating water quality. Why not regulate weapons too?  

These days with campaigns underway my mind inevitably turns to bumper stickers. How about one that says, in these potential swing districts, "Don't ban guns, regulate them"?  

I have hunters in the family, but while I'd never let a gun in my house, the major problem with guns is the acquisition by sketchy individuals of heavy-duty military weaponry designed for nothing but killing large numbers of people. Drugs have a range of regulatory safeguards ranging from over-the-counter to specially approved prescription drugs. Why not treat guns the same way? 

As I write this I'm looking out my hotel window at a Sam's Club, which is part of the Walmart empire. Last year Walmart dropped assault-capable repeating guns from its store, putatively because of falling sales, but also in response to public pressure. 

If the sale of such weapons were as heavily regulated as the sale of Schedule 1 drugs like heroin, more profit-conscious retailers might be motivated to follow Walmart's example. If a purchaser of an assault rifle had to prove that he really needed it for a lawful purpose, sales might show a dramatic decline. 

It's all about the numbers. When Australia banned almost all private gun ownership and bought back existing inventory, they effectively stopped mass shootings. Even a partial ban would stop a significant percentage of American mass murders. It wouldn't end the problem, but it would be a start and would save many lives. 

In the end, regulation by the federal government, exactly as contemplated in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, is the right answer. Dan Kildee pointed out that without a change in the Congressional majorities that ain't gonna happen. That's why we agreed to talk specifics in the next week or so, to see if there's a road map to guide activists from safe districts like mine to help out in areas where change is possible. 

Greasy and smarmy Speaker Paul Ryan took umbrage at the Democrats' use of the House sit-in to ask for money online, but why not? If you can't make it to a swing district to help get out the vote in person, it never hurts to send funds to be used in key races.  

And by the way, Congresswoman Barbara Lee confirmed for me that all of our Northern California delegation, including those from shaky districts like Ami Bera from Sacramento and Jerry McNerney from Livermore, were on the floor during the action. Good guys both, who could use your help.