Rieder: No, not 'too soon' to talk gun control

It happens after each mass shooting rampage, which in contemporary America means it comes up quite a bit.

When political figures, news outlets and media pundits turn to the subject of gun-control legislation, they are inevitably told it's "too soon."

It's unseemly, they are told. Let the nation mourn. Don't "politicize tragedy."

Most of the people expressing that view are implacably opposed to gun control. Go figure.

Here's a classic of the genre from Ron Christie, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney, in the wake of the rampage at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., last Wednesday that took the lives of nine members of a Bible study group.

"I think at a time when we haven't even had an opportunity to mourn for those who lost their lives, to mourn for the family members who are grieving, the thing we shouldn't be doing is talking politics and talking about gun control," Christie told MSNBC's Alex WItt on Saturday.

But former Vermont governor and onetime Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean had a better take. He noted that we've had two years to mourn the 20 children and six adults gunned down at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"So, to say we shouldn't do politics at this time because we're in mourning is nonsense," Dean said.

He's absolutely right, This is precisely the right time to focus the nation's attention on America's huge problem with gun violence and to foster the frustrating but critically important attempt to do something about guns. It's when people are paying attention.

As President Obama told the nation's mayors Friday, "Every country has violent, hateful or mentally unstable people. What's different is not every country is awash with easily accessible guns."

Far from being a sign of disrespect to the victims and those mourning them, moving quickly to renew the fight for gun control is an ultimate sign of respect. Grieving is important. But even more important is doing something to confront the nation's gun-violence epidemic. Making progress in this festering area would be a sign that perhaps the latest mass murder victims didn't die in vain.

A video featuring a collection of stars including Julianne Moore, Jon Hamm, Beyoncé and Cameron Diaz, released after the Newtown bloodbath, had it far more accurately than the "too soon" crowd: "It's not too soon, it's too late."

Not that anyone should have any illusions about the enormity of the task, despite widespread public support for gun control. If the slaughter of all of those innocent children in Connecticut wasn't enough, it's hard to know what would. But the execution of nine African Americans apparently at the hands of a white racist is certainly reason enough to try again.

Of course, gun control is hardly a panacea. It won't mean an immediate end to our hideous series of mass murders. And the measures gun-control advocates push will hardly mean endangering Second Amendment rights and wrenching all guns from the hands of law-abiding Americans, no matter what the National Rifle Association tries to tell you. Most of the measures are modest; Obama's centerpiece measures after the Newtown carnage would have established background checks for those buying firearms at gun shows and online and banned assault weapons.

But at least they are a start, an effort to deal with the recurring bloody episodes that have become an all-too-common part of the American landscape. That beats unctuous hand-wringing.

The president's remarks about Charleston marked his 14th statement about shootings — 11 of them in the U.S. — since he took office, according to CBS News' Mark Knoller, who keeps track of all things presidential.

No one would be shocked if they were not his last. And as sure as the day follows the night, we'll hear the same malarkey that it's "too soon" to talk about doing anything meaningful to try to bring the heartbreaking tragedies to an end. It's not.

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Speaking of gun control, Chuck Todd, host of NBC's Meet the Press, went seriously off the rails Sunday when he followed up a discussion of the Charleston violence with a segment in which black inmates talked of their regrets about using guns to kill people. Under other circumstances, the powerful footage would have been fine. Coming in the context of an episode in which a white man killed nine black people, the piece seemed jarringly out of place and insensitive. Todd took a well-deserved pummeling on social media for the segment.