From NEWSWEEK's April 30, 2007 issue: Rahm Emanuel was once a fierce gun-control advocate. As a top aide to Bill Clinton, he helped push the president's assault-weapons ban. At the time, Emanuel argued there was little reason for anyone to have a military-style weapon designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest time.
Restricting guns is the last thing Emanuel wants to talk about now. An Illinois congressman, he helped Democrats take back the Capitol last year in part by recruiting pro-gun candidates. The effort was part of a larger push to reach out to gun owners who'd shunned the party.
That may help explain the noticeable hush from Democrats in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings. Some Democrats have begun to sound a lot like Republicans on the issue. Emanuel, asked about the party's position on gun violence, borrows a line from the National Rifle Association. "There are successful laws on the books," he says. "They have to be enforced."
Emanuel hasn't gone soft on guns (he earned an F on the NRA's report card). But in a country where a third to a half of homes have at least one firearm, Democrats could no longer afford to let the GOP own the issue. Emanuel says Washington should tackle the problem of gun crime by reaching back to another effort from his White House days—Clinton's program to put more cops on the streets, which President George W. Bush axed.
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Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
