The One Debate We Won't Hear: Gun Control

Benghazi? Check. Unemployment? Check. Health care? Well, of course. Yet despite the 43 multiple shootings in America over the last year, Mitt Romney and President Obama simply aren't debating gun control in the 2012 election, writes Gail Collins at the New York Times. She gives "a cheer" for Nina Gonzalez, who raised the issue at the town-hall presidential debate, but no cheer for Obama or Romney, who mostly ducked the question.

The reasons are simple: Election lore holds that the Democrats lost Congress (1994) and the White House (2000) for passing an assault weapons ban, and Romney once signed such a ban as Massachusetts governor—a fact he would rather not address. Obama did argue for getting automatic weapons away from criminals and the mentally ill, but "automatic weapons, like machine guns, are already heavily regulated," writes Collins. "Although, in a different world, we would be discussing why they’re in the country at all." Click for her full column. (More gun control stories.)