This time, beat the NRA

After almost two full terms, President Barack Obama understands as well as any president in memory what the nation’s chief executive must do in a time of national shock and grief over mass murders. There was Newtown and San Bernardino and Charleston and before that Tucson and Fort Hood and Overland Park and, yes, other places where innocents have died at the hands of gunmen.

This president has been an eloquent eulogist-in-chief, too many times as the nation has seemed a hostage to gun violence. And he has fought the good if futile fight against a gun rights lobby that has elected officials tucked into its pocket.

Now, in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., the president seems poised to fight again – and he should. An assault rifle was the weapon of choice for Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a nightclub. The particulars of the incident, including Mateen’s sympathy with terrorists, will be unfolding, probably for months. But that weapon of choice – a powerful, people-killing, fast-firing gun with no remote connection to sport hunting – seems a common denominator in shootings, and in Orlando on Thursday, the president said, “Those who defend the easy accessibility of assault weapons should meet these families.”

The president’s main objective in the Orlando trip was to do just that, and he did. Hundreds and hundreds of family members had gathered to meet privately with the president and Vice President Joe Biden, who himself has campaigned for gun control with members of Congress .

It’s simply hard to understand why so many veteran lawmakers bow and scrape before the National Rifle Association and its allies. The gun lobby, after all, hardly treats those in Congress with respect. Rather, they’re looked at as investments that better offer a good return on the dollar. And periodically, the NRA will send out some senator or congressman to give the president a good going over.

Unlike Donald Trump or Sen. John McCain, President Obama did not make brash statements after Orlando. Instead, he focused on meeting the parents and siblings and friends of those 49 people killed and the dozens of those injured by a man with a rifle he never should have been able to own.

When 20 elementary schoolchildren and six adults were killed in a Newtown school in 2012, there was hope that out of that tragedy could come reasonable, responsible gun control legislation. But the gun lobby fought hard. A bill calling for expanded background checks for firearms buyers failed in 2013 as parents of the slain children looked on from the Senate gallery. Gun sales increased.

Now, the struggle will gear up again. The president seems determined to do something, as his time in office nears its end with his popularity ratings up and his successes undeniable. For the sake of this country, we must hope he has one more success left to come.

This story was originally published June 18, 2016 at 3:40 PM with the headline "This time, beat the NRA."