Virginia Beach voting sticker

Yesterday, Republicans suffered stunning election losses in Kentucky and Virginia. In Kentucky, Democratic state Attorney General Andy Beshear defeated incumbent Republican Governor Matt Bevin to become the new Governor-elect (Bevin thus far has refused to concede the election). Bevin’s defeat is a major embarrassment for Donald Trump, who, on Monday night, held a rally in Kentucky’s second-largest city, Lexington, and pleaded with the audience to prevent a Democratic win in the state, saying, “You can’t let that happen to me!”

In Virginia, Democrats won the majority in the State House of Delegates and the State Senate, to go along with their Democratic Governor. This marks the first time in 26 years that Virginia has had a unified Democratic state government, which may well be a continuation of the “Blue Wave” that swept Democrats into the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2018 midterm elections. One of the issues for Virginia voters yesterday was gun violence, after 12 people were killed in a mass shooting in Virginia Beach last May. Republican lawmakers in Virginia, as well as nationally, have dragged their feet on or even blocked taking common-sense steps proposed by Democrats to reduce gun violence. The voters may have signaled that they have had enough.

Right wing New York Post now calls for Assault Weapons Ban

In the wake of last weekend’s back-to-back deadly mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, the arguments are flying from pro-gun right wingers who don’t want to take any action to reduce gun violence, and many Democrats (joined by others) who say that America needs common-sense gun laws. The right wing talking points have been around for years, and typically emanate from the top, meaning the National Rifle Association (NRA), which is now reduced to a pro-terrorist gun manufacturers’ trade group, as well as Republican Party professional phrase makers. So now, let’s go through some of these Republican pro-gun violence talking points, and come up with good, short responses to them. In some cases, responses have been given in recent days, and are cited here: