Roberts: Tighten Arizona's gun laws? That's un-American!

Daniel Hernandez and Randy Friese are at it again, pushing their “un-American” idea – this notion that we might be able to save a few lives by tightening a few gun laws.

The two men, now Tucson legislators, tried to minimize the carnage seven years ago, when a sick gunman opened fire in a Safeway parking lot, killing six and injuring 13 others including then U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Now they’re trying again, as they do every year – proposing reforms to Arizona’s gun laws.

Only don’t look for the Legislature to spend even 10 minutes listening to their proposals. The two legislators will be marginalized and minimized for two reasons:

1.  They’re Democrats and this Legislature rarely, if ever, considers the merits of anything coming from the minority party.

2.  What they’re proposing is sacrilege in gun circles, which makes it sacrilege in Republican circles.

Be clear: Their bills have zero chance

Remember, this is a Legislature that should have immediately moved to ban high-capacity magazines such as the one used by Jared Loughner to transform that Safeway parking lot into a killing field. Instead, our leaders designated an official state firearm that year.

Republic reporter Dustin Gardiner, in his excellent piece Wednesday, was charitable when he wrote that Friese and Hernandez are “unlikely to succeed” in their efforts this year to try to do something to keep guns out of hands of those who should not have them.

They have zero chance.

MONTINI: Arizona’s ongoing insult of Gabby Giffords

The chance of a killer bomb cyclone hitting this week’s Barrett-Jackson car auction is bigger than the chance that our leaders will consider whether there is common ground that might minimize what is far too often blood-soaked­­­ ground.

The chance that Gov. Ducey will announce a major new funding source for public schools is bigger than the chance that this Legislature will hold so much as a single hearing on a proposal to tighten so much as a single gun law.

4 worthy gun bills that will go nowhere

Our leaders won’t consider House Bill 2024, requiring anyone who wants to buy a gun to undergo a federal background check.

They won’t consider HB 2140, allowing family members or police officers to petition a judge to bar someone with mental-health issues from possessing a gun.

They won’t consider HB 2299, requiring anyone convicted of a domestic-violence offense to turn their guns over to police while they’re on probation.

And they certainly won’t consider House Bill 2023, banning the sale of bump stocks, those devices that transform a semi-automatic rifle into what amounts to a machine gun.

Charles Heller, spokesman for the Arizona Citizens Defense League, told Gardiner it’s “un-American” even to ask why people need a device that allows a shooter to pump out up to 800 rounds a minute.

"It’s an un-American question: Why do you need it?” he told Gardiner. “Why do you need a Corvette when you could have a Hyundai?"

Perhaps he could pose that question to the families of the 58 people killed in Las Vegas during the October massacre, or the more than 500 people who were injured in that deadliest shooting in modern history. Maybe he can explain how its unpatriotic to question how Stephen Paddock was able to convert his hotel room into what amounted to a machine gun nest overlooking an outdoor music festival. 

Predictably, Heller – like others in the gun lobby who see any proposal as an all-out attack on the Second Amendment – calls Hernandez's and Friese's bills “feel-good measures” that won’t improve  public safety. Bad guys, they say, will always get guns.

And tragically, they’re right about that.

I just didn't know it would be un-American to try to at least stop a few of them.

READ MORE:

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Gabby Giffords: Why I'm still fighting the gun lobby 

Las Vegas shooting: Gabby Giffords, Mark Kelly push more gun control