Public policy held hostage

Gun control advocate John Rosenthal has used his 252-foot billboard along the Mass Pike quite effectively in recent years, displaying messages that are both eye-catching and true. The new one, which Boston.com says will be unveiled today, uses letters that appear to be cut from newspapers, as in a ransom note, and says, "we have your president & congress -nra."

A spokesman for the National Rifle Association has already called the new billboard "a shameless publicity ploy," but what else is he supposed to say? Should he admit that the NRA is such a powerful lobbying group that most politicians are afraid to vote against the organization's wishes? That the money the NRA contributes in House and Senate races -- nearly $2 million in the last election cycle (90% to Republicans) -- guarantees that serious gun-control legislation will never be passed by Congress?

The NRA has brilliantly exploited the vagueness of the Second Amendment to the Constitution because they like to play with their toys -- but also because many of the group's members don't trust the government (this is understandable to some degree) or people of other races (this is, sadly, ignorance). If we had more than a handful of people with moral clarity and conviction in Washington then we might stand a chance of getting our gun laws in line with the rest of the Western world. Until then, these are the statistics: firearms kill 30,000 people and injure another 75,000 each year in the United States.