The New York Times Calls for Tougher Gun Control in Its First Page 1 Editorial Since 1920
In the wake of the San Bernardino massacre and the attack at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic, the Times' editorial board describes as a “moral outrage” and “national disgrace” the fact that under constitutional protection, Americans are legally permitted to buy weapons that “kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.”
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The New York Times on Saturday ran an editorial on its front page calling on lawmakers to tighten gun control. It was the first time the newspaper has published an editorial on Page 1 since 1920.
In the wake of the San Bernardino massacre and the attack at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic just days before, the Times’ editorial board describes as a “moral outrage” and “national disgrace” the fact that under constitutional protection, Americans are legally permitted to buy weapons that “kill people with brutal speed and efficiency.”
In a statement obtained by Politico, the publisher of the Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said, “It has been many decades since The Times ran an editorial on Page One. We do so today 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. And, what issue is more important than our nation’s failure to protect its citizens?”
“These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection,” it reads. “America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: these spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism.”
“It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment,” the editorial states. “No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.”
The editorial concludes by looking to 2016: “What better time than during a presidential election to show, at long last, that our nation has retained its sense of decency?”
Click here to read the editorial in full.
–Posted by Roisin Davis
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