I think President Biden said what all sane people are thinking. When is it going to end? When is enough, enough? In God’s name, when will Republicans wake up and realize that sensible gun laws are not going to take away their right to own a gun?
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in response to a question from NBC News, immediately dismissed the prospect of new efforts to pursue gun control measures. “That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime,” said Cruz, who instead said it would be better to go “after felons and fugitives and those with serious mental illness, arresting them, prosecuting them when they try to illegally buy firearms.” If sensible gun control measures don’t work, why is the United States the only country in the world to have so many mass shootings? The answer is simple. It’s because other countries have sensible gun laws. They have the same criminals and mentally ill, but most also have better prisons and healthcare.
Cruz's remarks sparked a sharp rebuke from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who was elected to the Senate just weeks before the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in his state. “Spare me the bullshit about mental illness. We don’t have any more mental illness than any other country in the world," Murphy told reporters. He also urged Congress to act.
Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., also lashed out at Cruz. “F--- you @tedcruz," Gallego tweeted, "you care about a fetus but you will let our children get slaughtered. Just get your ass to Cancun. You are useless." Gallego appeared to be referring to Cruz's opposition to abortion rights and his trip to Mexico last year as Texas faced a crippling winter storm.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the shooting a cold-blooded massacre. “For too long, some in Congress have offered hollow words after these shootings while opposing all efforts to save lives,” she said in a statement. “It is time for all in Congress to heed the will of the American people and join in enacting the House-passed bipartisan, commonsense, life-saving legislation into law.”Fuck you @tedcruz you care about a fetus but you will let our children get slaughtered. Just get your ass to Cancun. You are useless. https://t.co/0tArGHosep
— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) May 24, 2022
There are two Senator's blocking Democrats from passing ANYTHING on gun control. Their names are @Sen_JoeManchin and @SenatorSinema. At this point they are BOTH nothing more than Accessories To Murder pic.twitter.com/r0ymMvJzvf
— Back2Stonewall.com - Will Kohler (@BACK2STONEWALL) May 25, 2022
Once again, Joe, you have done the best job of summarizing the news of the day by helping us to put it in perspective.
ReplyDeleteYesterday afternoon, Tuesday May 24th, I was oblivious about what had happened only a few hours before in Texas. At 2:15, I headed over to my grandson’s school. It is a 10 block walk through a lovely city park. The park was looking rather ragged because there had been a severe storm on Monday evening. A huge tree was down. The creek, which normally meanders through the park, was high and churning with muddy water.
My grandson’s 8th birthday was last Friday. He’s in 2nd grade.
The school yard was also looking ragged, with branches and leaves everywhere. The usual collection of parents and grandparents and nannies were chattering about the storm. Once again, I marveled at the racially diverse crowd of people in this wonderful close knit college town. The face of America.
He came bounding out of school, handed me his backpack and said: “Let’s go! I want to look at the creek.” As we crossed the street, he took my hand and I wondered how many more times that will happen now that he is getting bigger and more independent. As we walked along the creek, he skipped stones. We stopped and looked at the mess created by the downed tree and he wondered about birds nests.
When we got back to the house, his Granny had just made a shortcake and we had locally grown strawberries and shortcake. He said: “I want to sit here and savor every bite.” Then we worked together in the yard for an hour until his Mom (my daughter) picked him up. We hugged and commented on our nice afternoon.
Just another Tuesday in a small city in North Carolina.
Meanwhile, in Texas…..
charlesofdurham
The outstanding high number (213) of mass shootings since the beginning of the year seems not to make those Retrumplicons understand that FREEDOM access to GUNS is no more in phase with what the Fathers of your Constitution ment in the Second Amendment.
ReplyDeleteThe NRA is misguiding those guns freeks in uSA around the «right to own guns» and all this is to make «money» and keep in power those who are pro guns. Sadly those same red states reprensentatives are «PRO LIFE» when it comes to «control» women's bodies and «freedoms» on their own lives.
NOWHERE like in USA there are so many mass shootings and, like in Canada, Japan, Australia etc... mental health is also there and isn't leading to killings innocent people and surely not kids.
USA have a huge issue in this matter and revising this «too old» and outdated Constitution should be done. When the Founders wrote this Second amendment it was to give the right to «ordinary» villagers to bare gun under the milicia control to defend them from any attacks from the British or any other ennemies. Those were ONE SHOT riffles and nothing as leathal as a AR-15 or a AK-47....
So many issues in USA like this one, like racism and sexism are the new challenges for you in this 21st century. Not easy to achieve when a part of your society are still living in the begining of the 20th century with their white supremacist spirit.
Isn't it obvious that the sale of assault weapons should have never been allowed and should be stopped? The very purpose of those weapons is to kill people. So is that the intent or even the meaning of the Second Amendment? The logic escapes me. It's all about $$$. not lives or some "right" being infringed. Of course, those same individuals believe they have the right to limit the rights of others via abortion, education, sexual identity, and so on. I'm disgusted with this country and those who run it.
ReplyDeleteI am appalled by the 213 shootings in less than 5 months and all these dead and wounded. The problem is old. The solution passes by the Law of course; but first there must be the conversion of minds and hearts. Let's pray.
ReplyDeleteI am relatively conservative and I am no Michael Moore who takes to MSNBC to yell out, "Repeal the Second Amendment" repeatedly, however, I have to believe that if our founders ever envisioned a day when children were not safe in schools, churches, etc, because of firearms that had not even been thought of in their day, they would support taking action as well.
ReplyDeleteIn states like Alabama, instead of addressing gun violence with gun safety measures, we just further extend gun rights to people who have no business owning a firearm with constitutional carry. I wish the politicians who cared so much about fetuses in the womb would care about kids sitting behind their school desks.
Don't get me wrong, I am a gunowner myself. I own more than one. But I also learned how to handle, use, and respect a firearm from an early age, thanks to my grandfather. And I took a hunter's education course in high school and a self-defense course as an adult. At bare minimum, I support universal background checks, banning private transfer of gun ownership (requiring those buying or selling firearms to go through a dealer), eliminating both open and constitutional carry and requiring concealed carry permits once again, and requiring adults who are 18-20 and wish to purchase a long rifle to have an adult who is 21 or older cosign on the purchase.
How any of these are controversial baffles me. There was a time even in America where even Republicans supported common sense gun safety regulations.
Dylan, I agree with you completely. I’ve own guns since I became a teenager and they were handed down to me from my grandfather and father. They’d been in the family for generations. They are only shotguns and are still in Alabama, but I learned to use a gun early on. Unlike you, I didn’t like to fire a gun. The only thing I’ve ever shot have been targets or rattlesnakes. (I hate snakes.) The Founding Fathers we’re not fortune tellers, and they were thinking more about state militias than anything else (that’s my opinion, anyway.) I HATE when things are taken out of historical context and people try to interpret it in modern day eyes. It’s one reason I studied history. No one os going to ever take away all the guns in America, but sensible reforms are a must.
ReplyDeleteMichael Moore, ok but I prefer Elephant , Gus Vnn Sant film
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