Gene Mullin

I've had the opportunity in my three decades of teaching U.S. history and government to examine many elections from different eras. Political campaigns with controversial issues often lead to petty vulgarities, and that's why I have generally avoided consternation with the antics of the Republican Party and its supporter base since Barack Obama has been president. After all, the Democratic Party and many of its supporting groups have often failed to cover themselves in glory as well.

I realize that each side of the political spectrum has its fundamental tenets, and that often leads to unbecoming behaviors when confronted with opposing viewpoints. So be it because, as the saying goes, "politics ain't beanbag.” However, after viewing and hearing the latest political salvo initiated by the National Rifle Association, calling the president an "Elitist Hypocrite,” I'm convinced that we may well be embarked to an advanced stage of incivility. To equate protection of the president's children with elitism and for the president to accept that protection is hypocritical is truly mind-boggling. This at a time when the volume of threats against this first family is at all-time highs

Joseph Welch, a counsel in the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954 pointed asked the junior senator from Wisconsin: "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” I believe those words should now be directed at the NRA, linking the fact that the president's children are guarded by the Secret Service with Obama's call for regulatory changes in gun ownership. It would be uplifting if some members of the NRA, considering that organization is now drawing its main financial support by the weapons manufacturers, might push for some moderation in the NRA leadership ranks.

I'm going to give the NRA the courtesy of suggesting that the leadership may just be ignorant of the fact that Secret Service protection is automatic for the president and his family. Forget having a tin ear, this cement-headed blunder should turn at least a few recalcitrant members of Congress to reconsider the president's proposals. Secret Service protection is not optional for the president, his family members and most all high-ranking officials. Consider that even Mamie Eisenhower, Ike's widow, sitting in her residence on the family farm in Gettysburg, Penn., had Secret Service protection for the 10 years she survived after Ike's death. Joseph Kennedy, JFK's father, disabled by a stroke and wheelchair bound, only had his protection end upon the death of his son.

Another oddity is that the president even made some concessions to the impractical notion that every school have an armed guard on campus. He did allow that schools, using federal funds, could make those provisions should they so desire. Of course, the NRA strategy ignores the fact that mass killings, often using semi-automatic weapons, have occurred in shopping malls, movie theaters and other venues. The logical extension is that we should become a society in which packing a weapon is pervasive.

Do we really believe that more guns, not fewer, will make our country safer? That's a view which I believe most citizens reject. Since we already lead the industrialized world in gun deaths, and by a wide margin, just perhaps the president is on the right track.

Gene Mullin is a former member of the California Assembly, the former mayor of South San Francisco and a former teacher.