ONCE AGAIN, THE REPUBLICANS PROVE THEY ARE NOT LEADERS

…Confiscated black market guns

 

Due to the GOP, there still are no commonsense gun laws.

 

In a nutshell, here are the highlights of the absurd situation we Americans are in today.

 

Lawmakers have known for a long time that those suspected of terrorist activities can legally buy all the guns they want.  We also know that a man whom the FBI had investigated as a possible terrorist went into an Orlando nightclub and, claiming solidarity with the Islamic State, he shot and killed 49 people with weapons he bought legally.

 

We also know that the Republican majority in both the Senate and the House are putting Second Amendment absolutism above any modest national-security considerations or common sense gun laws, and they are refusing to fix the problem.

 

In fact on May 24^th, the House Appropriations Committee took up a proposal “to deny transfers of firearms to persons known or suspected to be engaged in conduct related to terrorism.”

 

But in a party-line vote, Republicans defeated the plan 29 to 17.

 

At least twice before, this same House committee had votes on the exact same proposal, and both times it was also defeated by Republicans.  In 2015, by a vote of 32 to 19, and 2013, 29 to 19.

 

And let’s not leave the US Senate off the hook.  For its part, the Republican controlled Senate voted down similar legislation last December, and this was right after the San Bernardino, California, terrorist killings.

 

In order to maintain their string for justifying the killing of innocent Americans, the Republicans defeated Democratic legislation to keep those on terrorism watch lists from getting guns.

 

Democrats did defeat a stupid, do-nothing measure proposed by Republicans that would have made it virtually impossible to block those on the terrorist watch lists from getting guns.

 

Just for kicks, the lawmakers also voted down dueling Republican and Democratic proposals on basic gun-purchase background checks.

 

To top it off, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has said that that the solution to the Orlando slayings was to have more club-goers carrying concealed guns so they could have shot “this son of a bitch.”  Trump later tried to talk his comment back, but there’s no question what he meant when he first made the comment.  He might as well have been the NRA executive, Wayne LaPierre, who had once said that “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”

 

The problem with that is, that at the Orlando gay Night Club, there was a “good guy [guard] with a gun”, but the killer still killed 49 innocent bystanders before he was killed.

 

At least, to Donald Trump’s ignorant comment, even the NRA said it didn’t approve of people carrying guns where alcohol is served. Trump also eventually walked back all of his remarks.

 

The point is the problem with the GOP and commonsense gun laws is getting worse, not better.

 

As an example, after the 2012 slaughter of children in Newtown, Conn., it took the Senate four months for defeating the gun-control bills. This time, after even more people in Orlando were killed, it only took nine days to kill the proposed reforms.

 

The current gridlock is a clear indication of how proficient Washington has become at doing absolutely nothing while they sit on their ass and twiddle their thumbs.

 

It is amazing that these elected officials can’t come to some commonsense solutions.

 

The “no fly, no buy” proposal from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was a modest idea: “If you’re not allowed to board a plane because of suspected terrorist ties, you also can’t buy a gun”. The total number of Americans and legal residents who would be blocked from gun sales under the provision is only about 5,000.  That’s in a nation of more than 320 million.

 

But as expected, the Republicans responded as if President Obama himself were going door-to-door, confiscating every American’s guns. The “no-fly-no-buy” legislation “violates the Second amendment, because a fundamental right cannot be infringed upon without due process of law,” proclaimed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

 

Yes, the “due-process argument is a legitimate one”, but Republicans, instead of making an attempt to toughen civil-liberties protections, they went to the other extreme.

 

The alternative bill by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) would have given the government three days to prove a case against somebody on the watch list.  But if the background check wasn’t completed in three days, the sale would automatically be approved.  That problem had already allowed the mentally disturbed white supremist in South Carolina to obtain a gun and kill 9 black church goers at a prayer meeting. 

 

Senator Cornyn has admitted he was essentially requiring the government to win a court conviction in 72 hours: “If they are too dangerous to buy a firearm, they are too dangerous to be loose on our streets,” he said.  But his proposal still would require the background check to be fully completed in 72 hours or the sale would be approved.

 

For someone with a checkered past with the law, or with a medical mental issue, that background review could take much more than a week.

 

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), is currently facing a difficult reelection in November.  But she still pleaded with senators to “stop playing political football with this” and get behind a “good-faith, workable solution”.

 

But this demand is more likely to amount to just another way to once again bury the issue for the rest of this year.

 

So, what we should expect is that with only a few weeks left on the legislative calendar, it will be difficult for any “no-fly-no-buy” issue to return this year.

 

Last week was the best chance yet to block would-be terrorists from getting guns.

 

The sit-in being done in the House by the Democrats is a good show, but this minority group has zero power for bringing a bill to a vote. 

 

As always, the Republican majority has once again chosen to let the NRA run their operation and that is a guarantee that they will refuse to act.

 

Just one more reason we need to keep a Democrat in the White House and to change at least one majority in one of the congressional groups.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016