Less Than Nothing

Making progress is better than getting nothing done, and it’s important to keep that in mind, but the conclusion is inescapable: Our lawmakers’ response to gun violence — massacres — is woefully inadequate.

The National Rifle Association learned after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado that it could weather any mass shooting. The horrific 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut only caused the NRA to double down, and Republican lawmakers, fat with NRA campaign contributions, have grown more unreasonable and callous.

The 2015 shooting in San Bernardino, California, the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the 2017 music festival shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida couldn’t move the needle enough for federal lawmakers to adopt legislation that would have a measurable impact toward preventing similar tragedies from happening again.

In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin, the congressman for the East End and now a candidate for governor, introduced the “Protect America Act,” which was designed to prevent the transfer of firearms to a “known or suspected terrorist.” Critics rightly said the bill was too narrow in its scope, and that its three-day window for the Justice Department to prove someone is engaged in terrorist activities was not sufficient in light of the threat it was supposedly addressing.

That same year, when Democrats proposed banning gun sales to people on the government no-fly list, Zeldin joined Republicans in blocking debate on the legislation. His commitment to keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists was limited only to those who had already committed terrorism or had clearly forecast their intentions to do so.

Zeldin tweeted in 2018: “Lunatics manifesting violent criminal intentions to murder w/firearms should have access to none.” But following that missive, he has done nothing to keep “lunatics” from accessing weapons. Now, following the May 14 shooting by a white supremacist in a grocery store in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo, and the May 24 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, he wants New York voters to know that his resolve to do absolutely nothing to stop mass shootings is stronger than ever.

Within a day of the Buffalo shooting, he was pointing out that “knives, hands and hammers” had been used in other racism-motivated murders in New York State, as he sought to steer the conversation away from guns. He called for the state to bring back the death penalty, as if that would be a deterrent to mass shooters who typically expect to die during their attacks, as was the case nine days later in Uvalde. He also called for a single point of entry to schools and armed guards, both of which would be of no use during recess and other outdoor activities, create new safety concerns — and would have made no difference in Buffalo.

On June 2, Zeldin tweeted out, “Shall not be infringed!!” That was the whole tweet, but it said a lot about where he stands: with the NRA and not with the mourning families of Buffalo and Uvalde.

He tweeted the exact same message — with different capitalization and fewer exclamation points — on June 23, 2021, and on April 30 this year, as he geared up for the GOP primary and needed to top up his campaign coffers with the NRA’s blood money.

On June 8, he tweeted, “There is NEVER any acceptable reason to ever attack the 2nd Amendment rights of a law-abiding gun owner.” But most mass shooters are “law-abiding gun owners” until the moment they open fire in murderous fashion, because gun laws in the nation are overly permissive to the point that mass shootings have become routine. And recent events have made it painfully clear that a good guy with a gun is not a cure for a bad guy with a gun.

Zeldin has called for the repeal of the New York SAFE Act and the end of gun-free zones, and he’s come out against red flag laws and in favor of concealed carry. Should Zeldin become governor and has his way, it won’t matter if a mental health professional, spouse or parent warns that someone is dangerous. That person will be able to buy firearms and carry them onto a school campus — and police can’t intervene, because no law has been broken.

Governor Kathy Hochul, whom Zeldin hopes to unseat, signed into law on June 6 a package of gun control measures, the most immediate and significant of which would eliminate the grandfathering of large-capacity ammunition-feeding devices that were outlawed by the SAFE Act in 2013, expand the definition of “firearm,” prohibit the sale of semiautomatic rifles to people younger than 21, and expand the state’s 2019 red flag law to allow more health care practitioners to petition for an extreme risk protection order.

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. of Sag Harbor supported these and other measures in the package, while the East End’s state senator, Anthony Palumbo, only voted in favor of the red flag law, limits on who can purchase bulletproof vests, and a measure requiring social media platforms to provide a mechanism for users to report hateful conduct.

Back on the federal front, a bipartisan group of 20 — 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans — has proposed gun control legislation that is, naturally, inadequate but better than nothing. Still, these common sense measures won’t have Zeldin’s support if and when they come to a vote on our behalf.

If he could, he’d do less than nothing, regardless of how many victims there are — and he wants you to know and remember that. You should.