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美国民众在白宫外呼吁实行枪支管制

Outside the White House, Gun-Control Activists Make a Subdued Call to Action

(From: TIME, Auther: Alex Altman, Date: Dec. 14, 2012)

As twilight descended on Washington Friday afternoon, about 50 gun-control activistsclustered on the pavement outside the White House for a candlelight vigil to urge action fromthe President after a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school lt 27 dead. There willbe an appropriate time for chewing over national gun policy, White House Press Secretary JayCarney told reporters earlier Friday, “but I don’t think today is that day.” The activistsdisagreed. Many toted placards reading “#todayIStheday.” Another hand-scrawled sign bore afatalistic warning: “Today: Sandy Hook. Tomorrow: ?”

The vigil had a slapdash feel; it was assembled on the fly earlier Friday by a coalition of anti-gun advocates already in Washington for meetings. Preachers, professional activists andsympathetic passers-by offered prayers for the President, testified to how gun violence hadimpacted their lives, or simply joined in chants of “We Shall Overcome.”

Many praised the tone of Obama’s tearful call for “meaningful action” earlier Friday, duringbri remarks delivered in the White House briing room named for a shooting victim. But theysaid the sentiments alone were insufficient. “It’s not enough, Mr. President,” said Toby Hoover,the the executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence. “It’s just not enough.”Leroy Duncan, an activist from Minnesota, spoke movingly of the 86 Americans who die of gunviolence each day. “These people need heroes,” he said. “President Obama, you can be thathero.”

It just wasn’t clear how. Amid the recent spate of mass shootings that have wracked theU.S., even many lawmakers who believe in gun-control have been glum about the prospects ofimposing even the most modest curbs on guns. For all their rallying cries, most of the activistswere vague when it came to policy prescriptions. Some even echoed Carney’s statement thatthe day of a massacre wasn’t the right time to delve into details. Others who named specificideas — from better mental health care to restrictions on assault weapons or high-capacitymagazines — said they had little faith that a Congress that has seemingly bowed to the force ofthe gun-rights lobby would find the courage to act now. “I have no confidence that anything isgoing to be done,” says Jerald Lentini, a writer and lawyer from Silver Spring, Md. “It’s a matterof political will, and I really don’t see it.”

Gun-rights activists recoil at the practice of harnessing tragedy to promote a politicalagenda. To many of their opponents, there is no better moment to combat the gun violencethan when the wounds are still fresh from the senseless deaths Friday morning of 20kindergartners at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The rampage that also killed sixadults and ended with the death of the 20-year-old gunman.

“Nothing is more powerful than a classroom of kindergarten kids getting killed by assaultweapons,” says Bob Edgar, a preacher and former Democratic congressman who is now thePresident and CEO of the liberal advocacy group Common Cause. Or, as a governmentemployee who wandered over to the vigil from work put it: “It helps that it was a bunch ofwhite children in a school.”

As the activists chanted, a few dozen members of the crowd raised flickering candles in thegathering darkness. Some brushed away tears, their lips quivering. Christmas lights festooningthe tree under the White House’s front portico twinkled. Over the White House, the flag flew athalf-mast. After the last speaker finished, bore heading home, the protesters heeded theinstructions of a pastor and hugged the person next to them.