From the edge of their seats, Americans watched a tense town hall presidential debate on Oct. 16. The two candidates looked ready to come to blows. Audience member Nina Gonzales calmly posed a question.

“What has your administration done or plan to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?” she asked President Barack Obama.

Obama responded, saying he wants increased enforcement of current gun laws and broader efforts to improve urban communities where gun violence is rampant. Republican candidate Mitt Romney agreed with the president, adding that two-parent families are critical to eliminating America’s culture of violence.

Case closed, right?

For the first time in this presidential campaign, the issue of gun control entered the spotlight and both candidates appeared ill-equipped to address it. The next president must curb America’s gun violence with realistic policies while keeping alive the traditions of the Second Amendment.

The candidates’ answers underscore a larger problem with the gun control debate. Automatic weapons were outlawed in 1986 and there hasn’t been any major gun control legislation since the early 1990s. The topic is largely off the political radar screen. Obama split with his party’s liberal base in his first term and hasn’t made it a major talking point in this campaign.

In fact, many journalists covering the debate considered the gun control question a curveball. “Saturday Night Live” even spoofed the candidates’ nonspecific responses and unwillingness to directly address the question.

Obama says he believes in the Second Amendment, but appointed two Supreme Court justices who hold a narrow interpretation of the right to bear arms for individual protection. Improving education and crime rates in poor communities could help decrease gun violence, but Obama has done little as president to improve urban poverty. This from a Chicago community organizer known for helping struggling communities.

Romney passed an assault weapons ban as governor of Massachusetts, but now doesn’t support renewing a similar federal law. While we know Romney holds strong family values, incentivizing two-parent families to reduce gun violence is simply a bizarre policy.

It’s about balance and clear leadership. The next president can neither demonize the National Rifle Association like Obama, nor pander to it like Romney.

More often than not, discussions about gun control laws happen after moments of tragedy. Emotional instincts dominate conversations and lines are drawn in the sand.

Three months removed from the Aurora, Colo., movie theatre shootings, national politicians act uninterested in the topic. They find the quickest way to pivot to education or family values.

Frankly there’s little firearm legislation left — besides closing the gun show loophole — that could improve citizen safety without infringing on Second Amendment rights. Responsible gun owners aren’t carrying out armed robberies and homicides. Innocent citizens are feeling the collateral damage from gangs and the drug trade. One of the presidential candidates should have made that clear in the debate.

Constitutional arguments and public opinion against gun control legislation remain strong. We need a president who demonstrates the knowledge and capacity to deal with real-world Second Amendment issues. If the answers to Nina Gonzales’s debate question were any indication, the presidential candidates leave much to be desired.

Jared Kraham is a senior political science and broadcast journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at jmkraham@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @JaredKraham.

Published on October 28, 2012 at 10:37 am