The last time the New York Times had an editorial on its front page was in 1920. And that 95 year old piece was a complaint that Warren Harding had become the Republican Presidential candidate (granted, he turned out to be a dreadful President).  Now the Paper of Record has done it again this morning, clearly aiming to call public attention to the epidemic of gun violence in America. As another Times piece notes, this was a decision by publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger:

In a statement, the publisher of The Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said the paper was placing an editorial on Page 1 for the first time in many decades “to deliver a strong and visible statement of frustration and anguish about our country’s inability to come to terms with the scourge of guns

“Even in this digital age, the front page remains an incredibly strong and powerful way to surface issues that demand attention,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “And, what issue is more important than our nation’s failure to protect its citizens?”

I’m fully behind Sulzberger and the editorial, called “End the gun epidemic in America,” and, after long cogitation about this issue, and seeing the bad behavior of legislators and gun proponents, have lost patience with those who either say that it’s futile to tackle this issue, or defend American’s untrammeled right to own guns. It’s not futile—not if American stood up to the National Rifle Association, and the “right” to own guns is, in my view, based on a complete misreading of the Second Amendment, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. It’s right there in the Bill of Rights:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

What part of “well regulated Militia” don’t you understand, gun aficionados? In my view, we need to go to the British system: no handguns and very strict regulation of rifles (no semiautomatic weapons, either). Is Britain rife with shootings by criminals taking advantage of unarmed citizens? Hardly: it has one of the world’s lowest rates of gun homicide. Now everybody will point out the cultural differences between the U.S. and Britain. And you know what? I don’t care. Stricter control of guns is the only way to stop the murders, suicides, and accidental killings that have become an everyday occurrence in America. We’re getting jaded about this—jaded to the point where we see gun control as a futile endeavor.

Here’s what the Times said in its front-page editorial, which I reproduce in full (my emphasis):

All decent people feel sorrow and righteous fury about the latest slaughter of innocents, in California. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are searching for motivations, including the vital question of how the murderers might have been connected to international terrorism. That is right and proper.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

And when I say “violently opposed,” I mean it: those who try to make or sell “smart guns” (those guns that can be fired only by authorized owners, usually wearing a special ring or watch that unlocks the trigger) have been subject to horrible threats of murder, rape, and destruction of their shops. And both individual gun owners and the gun lobby—including the National Rifle Association—oppose smart guns, for that paranoid segment of society sees such restrictions as putting us on a slippery slope toward (gasp) tighter gun regulation, and perhaps the complete elimination of privately-owned guns.

Yet I think smart guns are a good idea, for by allowing only the owner or other authorized people to fire a gun, they’ll help prevent the following tragedies:

• cops or soldiers being shot by their own guns that have been grabbed by bad guys
• kids accidentally killing each other or their parents with guns that are fired accidentally
• suicides with other people’s guns
• the many crimes committed with stolen guns or other guns acquired illegally

This won’t completely eliminate the problem of gun violence, of course, but the idea of smart guns seems eminently sensible. Yet you can’t even buy a smart gun in the United States, and no manufacturer is making them! Why? See the video below, which is sad and horrifying.

The 13-minute segment was part of last Sunday’s 60 Minutes, the only television show I watch save the evening news. This bit, reported by Lesley Stahl, tells about smart guns, how they work, and what happens to those who try to sell them. (Hint: they’re threatened with death.) Do watch it: it’s a few minutes well spent, for it will tell you how dire the gun situation is in the United States, and how wedded the firearms nuts are to their weapons. They will oppose any measure that regulates guns out of their sheer petulance, a misunderstanding of the Second Amendment, and their paranoia that anything making weapons safer to use must represent the gub’mint trying to take their guns away.

Click on the screenshot to go to the segment; you’ll probably have to watch a brief commercial first, and I’m not sure whether those overseas can see this. You’ll be amused to see the arguments trotted out by the gun nuts to oppose the sale of smart guns. Try to guess them before you listen to this:

The National Rifle Association is an evil and immoral organization.