Right to Bear Arms Secure, Gun Lobby Goes to Extremes

Bravo to the federal court that blocked a Florida law restricting a doctor’s right to ask patients whether they own guns, writes Adam Cohen in Time. The court’s move wasn't just a free-speech victory: It was a "rare setback" for gun-rights advocates who, these days, "have to look hard for things to complain about." Indeed, "the basic right to have a gun for self-defense is more secure than it has been in decades." So absent bigger fish to fry, the gun-rights lobby has recently been pushing for "policies that have little to do with the right to bear arms and needlessly put innocent people at risk," Cohen argues.

Cohen points to two other "troubling" results of the gun lobby's recent efforts: Following the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, Congress has been unable to reinstate a ban on high-capacity clips. And the Hill couldn’t even pass a measure to prevent those on the FBI terror watch list from buying guns, after the gun lobby argued that it would penalize those mistakenly added to the list. “It is time for a little more common sense,” Cohen notes. Click through for the full article. (More gun control stories.)