Recent terror attacks have put the focus on deeply divided stances on gun rights
By Aleksandra Vujicic
Following what has now been defined as a terror attack that took the lives of 14 people in San Bernardino, California, party preferences on gun rights remain distant, highlighting a gap that seems to mold to party lines.
And some political experts told The Daily Iowan this gap exists because Republicans have responded to the shootings as a terrorist threat, while Democrats have stuck with gun-control rhetoric.
“I don’t even know if they’re defining the same problem,” said Christopher Larimer, an associate professor of political science at the University of Northern Iowa. “The way it’s being framed right now by Republicans, it’s just increasing that gap.”
Larimer noted some Republicans seem to now be combining the topic of terrorism and gun control, offering a response that focuses on protection.
On the other side, Democrats have stood by their traditional viewpoint of more gun control and implementing thorough background checks.
“In any debate if you can control the terms of the debate, you can win the debate,” said David Yepsen, the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University. “So is this gun control or taking away your firearms?”
As of October, 41 percent of people said they had a gun in their home, according to Gallup, and 55 percent said laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been adamant about protecting the Second Amendment and has recently even upped his talk on destroying Islamic terrorists, saying “we will carpet bomb them into oblivion” in Cedar Rapids on Dec. 5.
But his stance on guns was clear.
“You don’t stop the bad guys by taking away our guns,” Cruz said at the Dec. 5 Rising Tide Forum. “You stop the bad guys by using our guns.”
Cruz has recently surpassed Donald Trump in one Iowa poll, putting him in first place, according to a Monmouth University Poll. Cruz received 24 percent support among likely Republican caucusgoers, while Trump had 19 percent support.
The poll has a margin-of-error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points and was conducted by telephone Dec. 3-6.
Another presidential hopeful former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, pushed against Democrats and what she thought was an inappropriate response to last week’s shootings.
“It is delusional, ladies and gentleman, as a terrorist attack is ongoing for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to be tweeting about gun control,” she said in Cedar Rapids.
But Democrats have taken a different approach, highlighting the danger of getting guns in the hands of the wrong people.
In a prime-time address from the Oval Office Sunday night, President Obama called the California shooting an act of terrorism. But he also took a jab at lax gun laws, saying people on no-fly lists should not be able to purchase guns.
“What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon?” he asked. “This is a matter of national security.”
Republicans wasted no time criticizing the president’s gun rhetoric.
“The notion that a radical jihadist who is on a no-fly list is going to walk into a local gun shop to purchase a gun is absurd,” Florida Sen. Rubio said during an appearance on Fox News.
This widely divided response was not seen after the 9/11 attacks.
Larimer described this as a time in which there was a sense of unity between Democrats and Republicans. Both sides came together because of what was perceived as a real external threat, Larimer said.
Then-President George W. Bush had soaring approval ratings, reaching a peak of 90 percent on Sept. 21-22, 2001, according to Gallup.
But more isolated instances, such as San Bernardino, are going to affect people in different ways depending on how close they were to the incident, Larimer said.
“On cases like mass shootings, I think Republicans are starting to talk about it more as a real threat, but not everyone may see it that way,” Larimer said. “That’s going to affect how people define the issue.”