We the People: Government must be responsive to the people

Mayor de Blasio won City Hall on the idea that he would accept ideas for government from the people and that his administration would be based on openness and inclusion. He promised we would “all rise together” to build a single city free of division. His pledge to depart from Mayor Bloomberg’s imperialism swayed average citizens who had been denied real participation in municipal governance to support him.

Mr. de Blasio’s proposed Zoning for Quality and Affordability and Mandatory Inclusionary Housing laws were rejected by the city’s community boards. Critics claim that they will actually encourage developers to raze existing affordable housing in order to build taller and larger buildings with the incentives offered as long as affordable units are included.

Will the mayor live up to his promise to listen to the people on this important subject? He desperately wants to claim success and avoid a public relations defeat. However, it is more important that he address the concerns of the citizens who put their trust in his promise to be open than force potentially flawed proposals into legislation.

He may be preparing to ram his proposals through the City Council despite the rejection of the people. The addition of some modifications to the original proposals will not be the same as going back to the drawing board and drafting new proposals in an acceptable and understandable form. The proposals were imperfectly explained and poorly understood, especially the mechanics of subsidy and incentive for the affordable housing units.

Mr. de Blasio was asked about the significance of the city’s community boards overwhelming disapproval of his proposals and he responded that their “no” was “relevant” but not the “last word” on the subject. The “no” should be the last word on this version of the proposals. If the mayor insists on dictating the last word on the subject without community dialogue, then the people in the communities who worked hard for decades to fashion zoning laws to preserve their neighborhoods should make it their business to be present when the City Council vote is scheduled.

Mr. de Blasio was elected because he was the candidate who promised to balance democracy and executive leadership, and his next actions on affordable housing will be a test of that promise.

America suffered another mass shooting tragedy. In San Bernardino, California, a married couple, for unknown reasons, gunned down innocent and defenseless people attending a holiday party. The actions of the cowardly and demented pair has highlighted the need for Congress to act on federal regulation to govern the purchase and possession of firearms. These murderers amassed a cache of explosives, semi-automatic weapons and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition in their home.

A citizen who wants to buy an automobile must qualify for a license to use it and have the automobile registered, inspected and insured. The license process involves instruction, a skills test and a physical examination. Unfortunately, thanks to the NRA, it is easier to purchase and possess a firearm than it is to operate a car in America.

There are more than 300 million legal firearms in America. That is enough to arm every man, woman and child including the infirm, the incompetent and the incarcerated. The firearms used by the lunatics in San Bernardino were legally purchased. The United States has five percent of the world’s population but 31 percent of its mass shootings.

To date in 2015, America has experienced 355 mass shootings where four or more victims were shot, which exceeds the days of the year so far. There were 20 days with four or more mass shootings in a single day. This grim news has a silver lining only for gun manufacturers and retailers since new background checks for gun purchasers increased by at least five percent in 2015.

Our weak and inconsistent amalgam of federal and state gun regulations is not keeping firearms out of the hands of criminals, terrorists or irresponsible citizens. This is the orchestrated result of decades of successful lobbying by the NRA. Will America wake up and demand a better way? The commerce of gun sales can be constitutionally regulated in the same way we regulate the sale and ownership of automobiles without running afoul of the Second Amendment.

President Barack Obama pointed out that Americans should “be aware of the fact that we have a no fly list where people can’t get on planes, but those same people who we don’t allow to fly could go into a store right now in the United States and buy a firearm and there’s nothing that we can do to stop them.”

Incredibly, Republicans blocked a law to prevent known and suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms. Senator Feinstein, (D-Cal.) and Representative Peter King, (R-New York) co-sponsored the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2015. The NRA strenuously opposed it and to no one’s surprise, Republicans moved to block debate on it and it is going nowhere.

That’s right. The NRA is so powerful that it can ensure that commonsense gun laws may not even be discussed by our legislators. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report which reflected that persons on terrorism watch lists purchased firearms in America legally over 2,000 times in the past four years. The GAO warned, “Membership in a terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives under current federal law”.

It is obvious that change is needed and the NRA cannot be permitted to dictate gun regulation policy when there are mass shootings of citizens every single day in America. We cannot accept that daily mass shootings are the price of a citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. Remember the NRA is only made powerful by the apathy of the people.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.