Along those lines . . . After Congressional Baseball Shooting, We Need To Talk About Gun Control
Before his death last year, Scalia was the Supreme Court’s conservative brain, devoted to interpreting the founding document with what he saw as the intent of its drafters. Those founding fathers famously quill-penned the Second Amendment: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” So it will pop the bubble wrap in extremists’ minds to hear that in not allowing restrictions on firearms, they’ve been genuflecting to a myth.
That’s because they’ve skated over inconvenient words from both the men who wrote the Constitution and Scalia, their medium.
Here’s a good question . . . Why would we ever talk about gun control after another mass shooting?
Let’s not politicize this.
Let’s not use the occasion of a shooter targeting congressmen on an Alexandria ball field — one of two mass shootings before lunch on Wednesday — to talk about guns, and whether this country’s blind absolutism on the Second Amendment merits reconsideration.
Speaking of such things now would be opportunistic. It would disrespect the victims, not to mention millions of law-abiding gun owners. It would be un-American.
And as night follows day . . . Gun control talk quickly follows shooting of congressman
A congressional hearing to debate gun legislation was even supposed to take place on Wednesday, but it was canceled.
“This is not what today is about, but we have too many guns on the street,” Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D-Virginia, said of the shooting in his state. “I talk about this every single day. This is a very serious issue.”
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Georgia, was on the field during the attack and said afterward that “if this had happened in Georgia” the shooter “wouldn’t have gotten too far.” He said that’s because his staff member who was in a car near the field is typically armed in the representative’s home state and would have had a “clear shot at him.”
Uh oh…someone didn’t get the memo . . . Sen. Tim Kaine On Alexandria Shooting: Not A Time To Discuss Gun Control
In the wake of a shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice in nearby Alexandria, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine told reporters Wednesday that it was not the right time to talk about gun control.
Calling the incident outrageous, the 2016 vice presidential Democratic nominee told reporters he hopes for a quick recovery of Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and praised first responders for their actions on the scene.
When asked if he believed it was a good time to talk gun control politics, he replied, “No, because we don’t know the facts. We need to know the facts rather than speculate. We just need to know the facts.”
And he calls himself a Democrat.
Veering back to the narrative of the day . . . So… Who’s Ready to Talk About Gun Control?
The shooting of Scalise and his colleagues is a tragedy, like all mass shootings in America are tragedies. Regardless of party affiliation or political belief, the attack was a despicable one. That said, Scalise has an A+ rating with the NRA, which you don’t achieve without allowing things like the loosening of restrictions on interstate gun purchases, which make the procurement of firearms easier for someone potentially looking to cause harm.
Could that policy have affected the events of today? Absolutely. Even if it wasn’t a factor in this particular incident, shouldn’t the GOP be alarmed by what happened and be willing to at least engage in conversations about this policy and policies like it? Absolutely.
Because wanting to exercise your right to defend yourself is clearly insane . . . Republicans, the Second Amendment and gun violence: Will the GOP ever return to sanity? –
As with most of these mass shootings, we can practically recite the details by memory, as if reading from a script. Thoughts and prayers. Calls for legislative action. Finger-pointing. Even a few wild conspiracy theories tossed in to underscore the digital democratization of journalism. We all have our pet issues and our own ways of dealing with catastrophes like this, even me, and other than the knee-jerk, loony conspiracy theories, there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the tragedy then moving on to considering how best to prevent another one from happening.
As David Frum wrote in the wake of the Alexandria shooting: There was a massive apartment fire in London yesterday, but is it too soon to talk about fire prevention and safety? Nope. Having lived through two house fires myself (long story), I assure you, it’s never too soon.
Finally, someone has an answer . . . Your ‘thoughts and prayers’ are meaningless. To stop mass shootings we need to do this
In the face of endless, pointless violence, we are all cowards unless we raise our voices against violence and the root of violence: the proliferation of guns in America.
We are all cowards if we draw false conclusions about the motives and backgrounds of shooting suspects and use this misinformation to smear people whose political views we oppose.
We are all cowards if we care more about the race, identity or political affiliation of the shooters than anything else.
We are all cowards if we use each shooting to prop up our personal biases and politics.
We are all cowards if all we can think to say after each senseless shooting is: “Thoughts and prayers.”
Not to be left out of the conversation . . . Gabby Giffords: America Needs To Acknowledge It Has A Gun Violence Problem
“[W]e must acknowledge that a deadly problem like this brings a responsibility to find solutions,” Giffords wrote. “And that’s where we, as a nation, will need courage in abundance, as my former colleagues find the strength to recover from their wounds — and the bravery to try to make shootings like this one less likely in the future.”
And because more laws are always the answer to any societal problem . . . Let’s hope baseball shooting brings us new national gun laws to make us safer
The best way forward is legislation that requires universal background checks; mandatory training in use of force, rules of engagement and tactical techniques; and an upgrade to the system that maintains gun registration around the nation. And once the whole nation is on the same page, it becomes very easy to require one standard for concealed-carry permits.
I’m all for good guys with guns, so long as they are both background-checked and well-trained. I know from my time in the Navy that an untrained good guy with a gun can be as bad as a bad guy with one.
It’s up to us to call our representatives. Our lives are at risk, and so are theirs. Hopefully, after Republicans and Democrats play their congressional baseball game Thursday, they will leave their partisanship on the field and come back to work ready to fight for the safety of our families and our children.
Nothing Really Changed on that Ballfield Yesterday
Civility means more than cooling down what we say to each other. It also means treating our fellow citizens with dignity and respect in the policies through which we govern ourselves. The everyday violence of poverty is no less destructive to our national character than are our now-predictable mass shootings, over 150 of them this year.
Until then, all the emotional distress that echoed through the halls of the Capitol on Wednesday is as empty and hollow in history as it was after Gabby Giffords was shot, or as it was after Adam Lanza showed up to the school that day. In fact, to quote a T-shirt that was all the rage back in 2016, and which, as far as I know, not a single Republican or conservative ever has disavowed…
Get back to work.
And finally there’s this:
