Liberals, hinted Paul Waldman in a Monday American Prospect column, need to remember that the legislative journey of a thousand miles begins with a few steps. Waldman acknowledged that even if “modest gun control” measures such as expanded background checks were to pass, the U.S. would “still have more gun deaths than any other industrialized country,” but that’d be better than the status quo.
Waldman likened that prospect to what he said is the important (though hugely insufficient) improvement in our health-care system that’s resulted from Obamacare. He called the Affordable Care Act “a reform, not a revolution” (though plenty of conservatives might argue that “revolution” would be more fitting).
“Before [Obamacare], we had what was undoubtedly the worst health care system in the industrialized world,” wrote Waldman. “The ACA did tremendous good, eliminating the fear that comes with not being able to get coverage, and bringing insurance to millions who didn't have it before…But guess what: we still have the worst health care system in the industrialized world, albeit one whose extraordinary cruelty has been reduced and whose runaway costs have been slowed.”
From Waldman’s piece (bolding added):
If we do pass national gun legislation, it will start with those things everyone agrees on, like universal background checks. They're an excellent idea, but they won't change the fundamental reality that there are more than 300 million guns in America. With some well-crafted legislation we might start to bring down the death toll, which now stands at over 30,000 Americans killed by guns every year. But even if we can make some progress, there will still be hundreds of millions of guns in circulation, and tens of thousands of Americans will keep dying.
One way to think about gun legislation is to compare it with the Affordable Care Act. Before the ACA, we had what was undoubtedly the worst health care system in the industrialized world: we spent far more than any of our peer countries, yet we left tens of millions of our citizens with no health coverage at all, and those who had coverage could lose it at any time or find themselves in danger of death or destitution in the case of an injury or accident. The ACA did tremendous good, eliminating the fear that comes with not being able to get coverage, and bringing insurance to millions who didn't have it before.
But guess what: we still have the worst health care system in the industrialized world, albeit one whose extraordinary cruelty has been reduced and whose runaway costs have been slowed (though not reversed). The ACA was a reform, not a revolution, and it left the private, intricate system that produced all those pathologies largely intact.
…Even if we could reduce the carnage, we'd still have more gun deaths than any other industrialized country.
Hillary Clinton deserves credit for taking on this issue, even if the prospects for real change are limited at best. That change, if it comes, will take years or even decades. But you have to start somewhere.
