Part 2 on Guns in America

The gunman in the Newtown massacre fired 154 bullets from his Bushmaster mil­itary-style rifle in less than five minutes, kill­ing 20 first-graders and six adults. He brought with him 10 large-capacity magazines, each holding up to 30 rounds, which allowed him to reload quickly He also carried two semiau­tomatic handguns, one of which he used to take his own life.

Is this supposed to be the price of the Second Amendment? Is this the kind of America we want?

I know that realists have concluded there is little chance of getting an assault-weapons ban through Congress. I know that many gun-control advocates believe legislation mandating universal background checks, thought to have a reasonably good chance of being approved, can be even more valuable in preventing future
Newtown-style tragedies.

 Lanza was outfitted like a commando, with guns and ammo clips engineered to kill the maximum number of people in the minimum amount of time. There were other weapons in the family's possession that would seem better suited for recreation or self-defense — the reasons why, according to the National Rifle Association, we need to arm ourselves to the teeth.

Search warrant documents released by Connecticut authorities suggest just how disturbed Lanza was. Among the items dis­covered was a newspaper article about a 2008 massacre shooting at Northern Illinois University in which six people, including the perpetrator, were killed There were also three photographs "with images of what appears to be a deceased human covered with plastic and what appears to be blood "

Police found books on Asperger's syn­drome, a condition related to autism from which Lanza was believed to suffer. They also found a "military-style uniform" and a num­ber of written journals whose contents have not been disclosed. An affidavit in support of the young man. The police found NRA shooting certificates for both mother and son, bolster­ing reports that Nancy Lanza took her son shooting and encouraged his interest in guns, perhaps as a way of bringing him out of his shell

Given that guns are enshrined in the Constitution, there may have been no way to keep firearms out of the Lanza home. But if the federal ban on military-style assault weapons had not been allowed to expire, we might have seen less carnage in Newtown Lanza probably wouldn't have been able to get off so many shots in so little time. He wouldn't have been able to fire so many rounds without pausing to reload. Maybe just one young life would have been saved. To me, that life is worth more than being in the good graces of the NRA; to members of Congress, perhaps not

I don't want to downplay die significance of universal background checks. Even if they might not have had any impact on the New­town slayings — Lanza's mother bought the guns, and if s unclear whether she would have been red-flagged — it is obvious that comprehensive checks would keep some guns out of the wrong hands and save lives.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pouring millions of dollars pressuring Congress to stand up to the NRA. President Obama, in a White House appearance Thursday with mothers of gun victims, noted that '*right now, 90 percent of Americans support background checks.... How often do 90 percent of Americans agree on anything?"

"Shame on us if we've forgotten" the Newtown tragedy, Obama said. "Now is the time to turn that heartbreak into something real"