There are so many things with which I agree in Mark McKinnon's recent piece over at the Daily Beast I don't even know where to begin. Let's start with his central question.
My question to Republican gun enthusiasts is: How would anything being proposed in any way impact what you do now with your guns? Or, is it that you are just hostage to the NRA talking points?
Hostage, indeed. I find the griping that goes on about the left exploiting the media after Newton to be a steaming pile of shit considering the amount of money being made off of the bullet ridden bodies of little children by the NRA and gun manufacturers. Hell, they're bragging about it!. The point seems to be lost on the gun rights folks the goal of sensible people is not to make money but to actually solve the problems we face with violence in our culture.
Thankfully, the American public knows this and that's why there have been 400,000 people that have joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns since Newton. Their main goal is to simply have a common sense plan to deal with these never ending shooting sprees. This, as McKinnon notes, is better than no plan or being against everything proposed by Democrats and moderate Republicans.
As a Republican, I think it’s yet another instance where the party, by refusing to recognize reality, is going to end up looking like the “stupid party” that fails to adapt and evolve to changing circumstances in our society.
Unless the GOP comes out with a proactive plan that has some appearance of responding to recent events, then it continues to play defense and digs deeper the hole it has been digging for itself in recent years. On issues where the physics are moving irrevocably forward, like immigration, gay rights, and guns, the Republican Party continues to look backward. And backward is a sure path toward irrelevance.
As I have been saying all along...anyone out there ready to listen yet?
4 comments:
1) What is the PURPOSE of the Second Amendment as stated by the men who put it in the Constitution? (This is an open book question. Feel free to look up the answer.)
2) Is the Constitution law?
Yeah, you're going to regret asking me that question. If I were you, I'd pull an all nighter. You'll need it for tomorrow morning:)
If a student even draws a gun (with pencil or crayon on paper), the schools are all over it. But if someone tries to point out a particular instance of the underlying problem?
Students warn of potential threat. Get reprimanded by administration. Students' fears get proven true.
And you wonder why we keep saying that guns aren't the issue…
But the NRA president told CNN that the association could work with the White House in trying to get those who have been determined by law to be mentally ill into a national registry of those who are barred from purchasing firearms.
“That would make a difference, because the people who have been involved in these shootings have been people who are severely mentally ill,” Keene said, referring to the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 children and six adults died.
“We don’t think you should demonize everybody who’s got a mental problem, but the fact is that there are people who are not in the gray area,” Keene told CNN. “They should not be allowed to buy firearms.”
Wait, the NRA is saying what Mark has been saying about mental issues? Is Mark going to have to change his position (again) to maintain disagreement with the NRA?
“We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment,” the NRA said in a statement after the session.
“While claiming that no policy proposals would be ‘prejudged,’ this task force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners — honest, taxpaying, hard-working Americans.”
…
“The vice president had said that we would do this with an open mind, but at the meeting he said, ‘No, we’ve already made up our mind on that.’ No, there’s not going to be any agreement on that,” Keene said.
He told CNN that he believed that the Biden panel was “checking a box. They were able to say: ‘We’ve met with the NRA. We’ve met with the people who are strong Second Amendment supporters.’
— NRA Calls Biden Meeting ‘Attack on Second Amendment’
Now granted, this is the NRA's characterization of the meeting, which means it's obviously their view of it. I would much rather have an actual recording of the meeting. (How much do you want to bet the Administration refused to approve recording the meeting?) However, the things he said about the Administration's responses align with what Obama, Biden and Pelosi have been saying publicly.
What was that you were saying about coming up with "solutions" beyond simply banning guns?
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