A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [159]
“From the time of his first inauguration until this day, Thornton Tomtree has never once raised the issue of gun control.
“He, like many Republicans, and Democrats, went stone deaf, dumb, and blind during the intimidation waltz played by AMERIGUN.
“Thirty thousand Americans are killed each year by guns. Match that against sixty thousand killed in Vietnam over a ten-year period.
“Each year more Americans die by gunfire than are killed in traffic accidents! More people die by gunfire than die from Alzheimer’s…or by leukemia…more than are killed by cirrhosis.”
Thornton tapped the bell on his podium.
“Those are pretty heavy numbers,” Carter Carpenter said. “Would you like to answer them?”
“Yes, I would,” Thornton said. “It is easy to bandy about superficial numbers.”
“I hope so,” Quinn said, “we drew them off the Bulldog Information Net, which guarantees their accuracy.”
“Raw data,” Thornton said, “can be manipulated to suit any argument. Private ownership of weapons has been an American tradition from the inception of the nation. They cleared the way as we moved west. Those so-called statistics all have ipso facto’s connected to them. The numbers are in the eyes of the beholder. We may have come to that point where there has to be new thinking on the subject. But we must wait until the investigations are done and all the information is in. We must not rush to judgment and in so doing endanger a basic American right.”
“Hold on, sir,” Quinn interrupted. “What about the monumental investigation you promised? It has been a year, forty-four million dollars has been spent, and there is no report.
“It is a matter of American justice that we get all the information in. When I received the Four Corners commission’s preliminary report last February, I had to go before the American people and tell them that Six Shooter Canyon had to become a permanent mass grave. I sensed, as president, that our people needed more time to heal. If we had released the thousands of pages of documents, it would have only served to intensify national pain and make the American people relive the incident over and over.
“No matter our history and traditions, the tragedy in the canyon was a three and a half billion to one shot. It cannot and will not ever happen again, no matter what resolution we come to on gun ownership.”
“Both of you gentlemen have stated your basic positions. Should we hold this data in mind and move on to another subject?”
“No, sir,” Quinn said quickly. “This is the issue that brought me here. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, fourteen children daily will be killed by guns. In addition to the thirty thousand slain, another hundred thousand are wounded, filling our emergency rooms with blood. Each gun death costs us $395,000. We are the shame of the civilized world. One of the richest forty nations in the world, the United States alone is responsible for half of all gun deaths.”
Thornton Tomtree felt his first blip of fear. He knew that Quinn had gotten a foot in the door of his Christian Right. He had known exactly what statistics Quinn would throw out. It was the pulsating manner in which Quinn delivered his message, without bullying. Thornton knew he could say the exact same words and never achieve the same effect. Thornton glanced at Darnell. He was a statue. The overall debate strategy now evolved in Thornton’s mind. To spring the trap? Yes? When to spring the trap?
Thornton smoothly shifted gears into his achievements, as immortalized on the Bulldog Information Network. Trade deficit down, budget surplus; Social Security funded for the century; great medical achievements; full employment; and world commerce, commerce in which the United States was the power that was!
Quinn’s list of achievements was paler stuff, but the kind of stuff which had held Colorado up as a light of the nation.
Thornton jumped on Quinn’s opening fusillade of helter-skelter statistics as another example of his recklessness.
Now to hit Quinn with the “doom and gloom” speech Quinn had made during the primaries in