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Murphy’s Law, written by Barbara Murphy, appears monthly in The Golden Times. The column represents the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the opinion of the publisher.
Senate’s Rejection Of Gun Control
Is Heartbreaking, Frightening
“Shame on you!”
“A pretty shameful day for Washington!”
“I’m furious!”
“Cowardice.”
These were just of the few anguished and angry reactions to the U.S. Senate’s failure to endorse common sense measures to expand gun control.
The Senate rejected a ban on assault weapons, a ban on high capacity gun magazines and what brought the loudest outcry — a bi-partisan compromise to expand background checks for gun purchasers. All the measures failed to get the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.
The final tally on the background checks was 54-46. Four Democrats voted no.
It was President Obama who called the vote a “shameful day for Washington.” Since a gunman slaughtered 20 children and six teachers at a school in Newtown, MA last year, gun control has been one of the President’s top priorities.
“Shame on you!” was shouted in unison from the Senate gallery by Lori Haas, whose daughter was shot at Virginia Tech, and Patricia Maish, a survivor of a mass shooting in Arizona two years ago. The two women were part of a large continent of gun control proponents who sat in the gallery to watch the Senate vote. The onlookers included many parents and other relatives of the Newtown victims. In the days before the vote, the Newtown contingent had pleaded with individual senators to support the gun control measures.
The words “I am furious” and “cowardice” were written by former Arizona Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords, who suffered a grievous head wound in the Arizona gun massacre.
Gabrielle Giffords has had a long and difficult recovery. In a New York Times’ op-ed piece, she wrote: “Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these Senators have done.... We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so they can make more money — to go on. I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these Senators demonstrated....”
“Shameful” and “cowardly” are two excellent words to describe the Senate’s action. I would also add heartbreaking and frightening.
The heartbreak was made real by a powerful article written by Cynthia Tucker, a visiting professor at the University of Georgia. In a piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer, she wrote: “You might have thought that the mangled bodies of 20 dead [Newtown] children would have been enough to overcome the crazed obsessions of the gun lobby.... You would have been wrong. Last week, the U.S. Senate sent a stark message to the citizens it is elected to represent: we couldn’t care less about you.”
The frightening aspect of the Senate action was also made real by Prof. Tucker when she included these words: “When I was a child in Alabama, the daughter and niece of hunting enthusiasts, gun owners didn’t demand the rights to take their weapons into churches or bars or onto college campuses. But as hunting has become less popular...the ranks of gun owners have become over-represented by conspiracy theorists and assorted crazies and kooks. They can be easily persuaded that the government is on a mission to confiscate their firearms.”
I don’t know whether Prof. Tucker is right when she says that “assorted crazies and kooks” play a dominant role in the gun rights movement. But it is certainly true that the pro-gun people have been easily manipulated by lies told over and over again by the gun lobbyists and their allies in government.
One big lie was that the measure to expand background checks would inevitably lead to the creation of a gun registry. The truth is that the legislation specifically prohibited the establishment of such a registry.
Another big lie that went the rounds was that expanded background checks, which were specifically aimed at online and gun-show sales, would do nothing to stop illegal gun purchases. This was repeated ad nauseam by Senate bigwigs who had to know better.
Records show that roughly a million gun buys were blocked by background checks from 1998 through March of this year. Near 60% of those denials involved would-be buyers with serious criminal convictions. The bi-partisan proposal to expand background checks had considerable public support because more and more people who shouldn’t have guns are getting them online and at gun shows.
Gabrielle Giffords hit the nail on the head when she said “cowardice” was a major factor in the defeat of the gun control measures. The Senators who voted no were undoubtedly scared to death that if they voted yes they would be defeated at the next election by opponents funded by the NRA (National Rifle Association) and other pro-gun activists. The NRA is reported to have given the Senators a warning to this effect just before the gun control measure came up for a vote.
The NRA is a well-heeled outfit with plenty of money in the bank to mount effective election campaigns against lawmakers who fail to do the organization’s bidding. The most recent addition of Mother Jones magazine reported that in last year’s election “the NRA spent just north of $25 million; $7 million supporting Republican candidates and $18 million attacking Democrats.”
Mother Jones said that the NRA gets its big money from gunmakers and “deep pocketed conservative allies.” According to the magazine the latter includes “an organization allied with the donor network of billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch” and Crossroads GPS, “the dark-money group co-founded by Karl Rove.”
But what is even more heartbreaking and frightening than the power of the gun lobby is the demented belief held by millions of Americans that the federal government is their enemy and that any federal effort to make life better for the American people — like universal healthcare and gun control — is a threat to individual freedom. Paranoia directed at the government has reached critical mass and is a very real threat to the survival of our Democracy.
The parents and relatives of the Newtown murder victims have vowed to continue their fight for common-sense gun control as has President Obama. They face an uphill battle that will require unwavering dedication to their cause and indomitable courage — the kind of courage demonstrated by Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who risked his political career to co-sponsor the background checks measure, and by New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 89, who has been very ill but got out of his sick bed and went to the Senate chamber in a wheelchair to cast a yes vote on gun control.
*
Barbara Murphy, 80, writes about controversial issues each month.
Is Heartbreaking, Frightening
“Shame on you!”
“A pretty shameful day for Washington!”
“I’m furious!”
“Cowardice.”
These were just of the few anguished and angry reactions to the U.S. Senate’s failure to endorse common sense measures to expand gun control.
The Senate rejected a ban on assault weapons, a ban on high capacity gun magazines and what brought the loudest outcry — a bi-partisan compromise to expand background checks for gun purchasers. All the measures failed to get the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster.
The final tally on the background checks was 54-46. Four Democrats voted no.
It was President Obama who called the vote a “shameful day for Washington.” Since a gunman slaughtered 20 children and six teachers at a school in Newtown, MA last year, gun control has been one of the President’s top priorities.
“Shame on you!” was shouted in unison from the Senate gallery by Lori Haas, whose daughter was shot at Virginia Tech, and Patricia Maish, a survivor of a mass shooting in Arizona two years ago. The two women were part of a large continent of gun control proponents who sat in the gallery to watch the Senate vote. The onlookers included many parents and other relatives of the Newtown victims. In the days before the vote, the Newtown contingent had pleaded with individual senators to support the gun control measures.
The words “I am furious” and “cowardice” were written by former Arizona Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords, who suffered a grievous head wound in the Arizona gun massacre.
Gabrielle Giffords has had a long and difficult recovery. In a New York Times’ op-ed piece, she wrote: “Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these Senators have done.... We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so they can make more money — to go on. I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these Senators demonstrated....”
“Shameful” and “cowardly” are two excellent words to describe the Senate’s action. I would also add heartbreaking and frightening.
The heartbreak was made real by a powerful article written by Cynthia Tucker, a visiting professor at the University of Georgia. In a piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer, she wrote: “You might have thought that the mangled bodies of 20 dead [Newtown] children would have been enough to overcome the crazed obsessions of the gun lobby.... You would have been wrong. Last week, the U.S. Senate sent a stark message to the citizens it is elected to represent: we couldn’t care less about you.”
The frightening aspect of the Senate action was also made real by Prof. Tucker when she included these words: “When I was a child in Alabama, the daughter and niece of hunting enthusiasts, gun owners didn’t demand the rights to take their weapons into churches or bars or onto college campuses. But as hunting has become less popular...the ranks of gun owners have become over-represented by conspiracy theorists and assorted crazies and kooks. They can be easily persuaded that the government is on a mission to confiscate their firearms.”
I don’t know whether Prof. Tucker is right when she says that “assorted crazies and kooks” play a dominant role in the gun rights movement. But it is certainly true that the pro-gun people have been easily manipulated by lies told over and over again by the gun lobbyists and their allies in government.
One big lie was that the measure to expand background checks would inevitably lead to the creation of a gun registry. The truth is that the legislation specifically prohibited the establishment of such a registry.
Another big lie that went the rounds was that expanded background checks, which were specifically aimed at online and gun-show sales, would do nothing to stop illegal gun purchases. This was repeated ad nauseam by Senate bigwigs who had to know better.
Records show that roughly a million gun buys were blocked by background checks from 1998 through March of this year. Near 60% of those denials involved would-be buyers with serious criminal convictions. The bi-partisan proposal to expand background checks had considerable public support because more and more people who shouldn’t have guns are getting them online and at gun shows.
Gabrielle Giffords hit the nail on the head when she said “cowardice” was a major factor in the defeat of the gun control measures. The Senators who voted no were undoubtedly scared to death that if they voted yes they would be defeated at the next election by opponents funded by the NRA (National Rifle Association) and other pro-gun activists. The NRA is reported to have given the Senators a warning to this effect just before the gun control measure came up for a vote.
The NRA is a well-heeled outfit with plenty of money in the bank to mount effective election campaigns against lawmakers who fail to do the organization’s bidding. The most recent addition of Mother Jones magazine reported that in last year’s election “the NRA spent just north of $25 million; $7 million supporting Republican candidates and $18 million attacking Democrats.”
Mother Jones said that the NRA gets its big money from gunmakers and “deep pocketed conservative allies.” According to the magazine the latter includes “an organization allied with the donor network of billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch” and Crossroads GPS, “the dark-money group co-founded by Karl Rove.”
But what is even more heartbreaking and frightening than the power of the gun lobby is the demented belief held by millions of Americans that the federal government is their enemy and that any federal effort to make life better for the American people — like universal healthcare and gun control — is a threat to individual freedom. Paranoia directed at the government has reached critical mass and is a very real threat to the survival of our Democracy.
The parents and relatives of the Newtown murder victims have vowed to continue their fight for common-sense gun control as has President Obama. They face an uphill battle that will require unwavering dedication to their cause and indomitable courage — the kind of courage demonstrated by Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey, who risked his political career to co-sponsor the background checks measure, and by New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 89, who has been very ill but got out of his sick bed and went to the Senate chamber in a wheelchair to cast a yes vote on gun control.
*
Barbara Murphy, 80, writes about controversial issues each month.