Republicans’ dream? Lady Liberty holding a gun instead of a torch.
After another deadly school shooting involving an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, this time in Parkland, Florida, Republicans responded with their usual calls for “thoughts and prayers.” Perhaps the worst offender was Florida’s own U.S. Senator, Republican Marco Rubio, who proved that his previous prayers didn’t work:
Just spoke to Broward School Superintendent. Today is that terrible day you pray never comes.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 14, 2018
However, when Rubio and other Republicans want something on any other issue, from tax cuts to taking away a woman’s freedom over her own body to military spending to taking away our affordable healthcare, they don’t pray, they vote. That’s just what Americans should do here.
Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has the right idea. On Thursday, she spoke out for action on gun violence, and tweeted:
Thank you to @RepThompson for joining me today, but the reality is we shouldn’t be responding to gun violence — Congress should be preventing it in the first place. #EnoughIsEnough pic.twitter.com/vBNE0fLNx0
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) February 15, 2018
Such prevention as expressed by Pelosi means voting to pass common sense gun violence protections, such as reinstating the federal Assault Weapons Ban and passing Universal Background Checks and mental health prohibitions on gun ownership. The new Assault Weapons Ban must surely cover the AR-15, which has been used in most if not all mass shootings in the past several years, including Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, Orlando and Sutherland Springs.
After yesterday’s Parkland shootings, Republicans have trotted out the usual “we shouldn’t politicize a tragedy so soon” response to Democratic calls for steps to prevent gun violence. However, when it comes to other tragedies, such as the attacks of September 11, 2001 or even Pearl Harbor, Republicans had no problem calling for an immediate response from Congress and the president. Gun violence kills many more people in America each year than those previous attacks which galvanized the U.S. government and its citizens into swift action.
It’s obvious that Republicans are failing to act to prevent gun violence in large part because they are wholly captured by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Indeed, the top 10 NRA recipients in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate are Republicans. Senator Marco Rubio is number six on the list, with over $3.3 million in NRA receipts. Likewise, total NRA donations are severely lopsided towards the Republicans, with 97 percent currently going to the GOP versus only three percent to Democrats. This gives Democrats the freedom to take on the NRA and pass common sense gun violence legislation. The first step, of course, is to elect Democrats to large majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, as well as electing another Democratic president.
Photo by Alan Cleaver, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/QLWzDt
