Hamill: Guns and Christmas -- they go together in America like the Stars and Stripes

Hamill: Guns and Christmas -- they go together in America like the Stars and Stripes

EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images

Krista Rekos (second from right), the mother of shooting victim Jessica Rekos, 6 (inset), is comforted outside St. Rose of Lima Church.

Guns and Christmas.

This time the shooting victim was a little girl named Jessica Rekos, 6, in the coffin being blessed on Tuesday afternoon in St. Rose of Lima Church in Newtown.

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Earlier, at 10 a.m., they lit the incense and wept in the same church for a boy named James Mattioli, 6, who was shot numerous times by the Newtown monster, who only has a different name and face than the interchangeable nonentity monsters of Columbine, Oak Creek, Aurora, Virginia Tech and more.

James Mattioli’s hearse left for St. John’s Cemetery in Darien under police escort, and then new mourners on line packed the church for Jessica Rekos.

I stood on the wet sidewalk and realized that a year ago almost to the day I was standing outside St. Joseph’s Church in Babylon, L.I., at the funeral of NYPD Officer Peter Figoski, who was shot in the line of duty in the 75th Precinct two weeks before Christmas.

Guns and Christmas. They go together in America like the Stars and Stripes.

Sometimes you need an outsider’s view to put this gun-sick country in perspective.

“When I hear of this my heart explodes and my eyes shed tears,” said Mohammed Siddique, 48, a Bangladeshi immigrant and home improvement contractor who stood with his palms facing the funereal sky. “I come to America because it is such a great country, where I can give my six children a better life. I love America. But the only thing I find wrong with America is so many guns. Guns make weak people crazy with power. They feel like big men with a gun. They even shoot babies. And my heart was so heavy when I heard this news that I prayed to Allah since Friday for the children. Although I am a Muslim, I drove here from New Milford to pray some more. I hope it helps to stop the crazy guns.”

Debate about guns has raged all week since the awful shootings, with Mayor Bloomberg, to his lasting credit, putting his big money where his mouth is on this vital issue. He has been chasing the pro-gun legislators across this bullet-pocked land, funding their challengers in primaries and general elections. He has scolded President Obama, whom he endorsed, for not being tough enough on gun control. And he’s right.

Dead right.

Twenty shot-dead-kids right.

With the presidential election over, with a wind of popularity at his back, with 20 dead children in Connecticut, Obama now must make serious gun control the primary focus of his second term, the way he gambled his first term on health care.

Obama must wage full-scale war against the NRA â€" which could stand for the National Rampage Association â€" and all the gun-lobbied hacks in the House and Senate and pass lasting gun legislation that permanently bans assault rifles and extra-large magazine clips and puts an end to all gun show loopholes.

He should push to adapt a licensing policy more like Canada’s that requires six weeks of training in arms safety, psychological testing and a background check that includes interviews with family, friends, bosses, co-workers and teachers. That excludes licenses to anyone divorced or fired from a job within two years.