Horror in San Bernardino & The People's Interests

Some of the hundreds of people evacuated from the scene of the shooting  

These latest mass shootings in California have left me feeling baffled, angry and disillusioned.

Not just at the killers themselves for perpetrating the slaughter of at least 14 people at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, CA.

But also at the unwillingness of the current Republican majority in Congress to use their lawmaking authority to draft a single bill that would put more stringent federal background checks in place to prevent the wrong people from purchasing guns - and make it easier for law enforcement to track those who sell weapons used in the kind of horrific slaughter that took place earlier today.

A majority of American citizens have been calling for reasonable gun control legislation since well before Columbine and Sandy Hook - and yet here we are. Again.

There's so little known about the shooting beyond the death toll as I'm writing this (the LA Times is reporting that one of the killers is a U.S. citizen) so I'm just going to agree with the President's comments earlier that politicians around the nation have a moral obligation to do more to prevent this kind of mass murder - and that it's going to have to come from the local and state level.

Useless. Thanks for the moment of silence Mr. Speaker.

This do-nothing Congress is basically a write-off when it comes to taking any kind of legislative action in response to events like this.

They're owned by the NRA, beholden to a tiny group of pissed-off right-wing extremists who despise the very government they were elected to serve (we see you Freedom Caucus) and take a perverse stubborn pride in being functionally and politically impotent.


Newly-elected Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (pictured above) has shown little interest in doing much of anything when it comes to taking the lead on drafting and passing significant bi-partisan legislation that actually has a snowball's chance in Hell of being signed into law.

When asked during a recent 60 Minutes interview whether or not he intended to try and move any gun control legislation through the House, the increasingly-feeble looking Speaker offered up this lame-ass standard Republican response to citizens demands for gun control laws:

“I haven’t thought of proposing gun legislation, I think the big problem we have is enforcing the law as we have on the books right now,”    

News flash Mr. Speaker, those laws ain't cutting it.

Instead, in keeping with the Republican tradition of prostituting themselves to the slightest whim of the NRA, Ryan's brilliant proactive solution to the epidemic of gun violence in this country is to publicly back a mental health bill sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Tim Murphy.

Unfortunately that mental health bill is the same shitty piece of legislation the GOP offered up as a response to the shootings in Sandy Hook - back in 2012. (Cue sound of crickets chirping).

New Jersey Governor-in-Absentia Chris Christie has been using that exact same "enforce the existing laws on the books" cop-out line for months during his presidential campaign whenever he's asked about gun control.

Christie recently stunned New Jersey voters when he decided to veto a bill passed by the state legislature with strong bi-partisan support that would have made it mandatory for anyone convicted of domestic abuse to turn in any firearms to the local police or sell them within 48 hours - and provide proof to a judge.

But in a rebuff to Christie that reflects his growing unpopularity with people in his own state (and you wonder why he's rarely here) the NJ Senate, who recently voted to override Christie's veto of a another popular gun control bill, are set to vote to override Christie's veto of the domestic abuse firearms bill sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Gabriela Mosquera.

As a child Mosquera spent time in a shelter for battered women because of her father's abuse against her mother - so her support for the bill isn't just about simplistic political pandering as the veto was for Christie.

If the override of the veto goes through, it would be the first time the Democratic-majority legislature has used an override to pass a bill into law over the governor's objections in NJ.

It says a lot about Christie's plummeting popularity and I think it's also a good illustration of what President Obama was talking about earlier today when he said that gun control laws need to come from the local and state political level, not Congress.

By the way, you've likely heard Christie's pontificating on how much he supports the police and his using that die-hard support as an excuse to trash the Black Lives Matter movement right?

Well consider this. That first gun control bill passed by the NJ legislature that Christie vetoed?

As NJ.com reported, it "calls for including police in the judicial process of deciding whether people with a documented mental illness may expunge this from their record in order to obtain a gun permit."

So Mr. "I support the police" used his power as governor to veto a bi-partisan bill that would have allowed police officers to have a say in deciding whether someone with a documented mental illness could conceal that when trying to buy a firearm.

Yes, his decision is as absurd as it sounds.

That's why Christie's veto, little more than a transparent attempt to wheedle some political support for his flagging presidential campaign from the NRA, was over turned.

This isn't Texas, it's New Jersey, and the folks here, Republican or Democrat, expect their politicians to represent their interests.

And as we've seen from what happened in Colorado and California and recent days, reasonable gun control legislation is most definitely in the interests of the people of this nation.

A rather simple truth that's lost on some presidential candidates.
 

A Lack of Shared Humanity

NRA radio host Cam Edwards

Leave it to the NRA to use the latest senseless gun massacre by yet another delusional hate-filled American with a handgun, mental issues and a massive chip on his shoulder to try and silence public calls for tougher gun laws.

As Timothy Johnson reported on MediaMatters.org yesterday, just hours after Vester Flanagan's cowardly murder of two innocent television journalists in Roanoke, Virginia on live television, the NRA was already in full media crisis mode accusing relatives of the victims, advocates for gun control and political leaders of "politicizing" the tragedy.

As Johnson reported, the NRA's Cam Edwards (pictured above) is virtually swimming in the Kool-Aid: 

"Later that same day during an afternoon broadcast, Cam Edwards, host of the NRA radio show, Cam & Company, lashed out at people who consider this latest incident of shocking public gun violence as more evidence the nation needs stronger gun laws. Edwards complained, "Before we know any of the details, we are seeing anti-gun politicians, anti-gun activists trying to turn this tragedy into some sort of political advantage," and went on to characterize calls for new gun laws as "the wrong response to take here. I think it shows a lack of shared humanity." 

So let's get that particular NRA position clear.

Advocates of reasonable gun control laws that might help prevent these heinous public massacres are demonstrating a "lack of shared humanity"?

Clean up on aisle six? Shopping in The Home of the Brave

Just for perspective, Cam Edwards was one of the right-wing extremists calling for an investigation into the activist group Moms Demand Action - For Gun Sense in America for calling on Kroger and other chain stores to ban idiots like this clown pictured to the left from openly carrying loaded weapons around grocery stores. 

Edwards was also active earlier this year when as many as ten different states were actually considering legislation that would make it legal for college students to carry concealed loaded weapons around on campus. (We see you ALEC.)

As Dan Burns reported back in March on MN Progressive Project.com:

"National Rifle Association radio and television host Cam Edwards claimed that people who argue against concealed carry as a solution to rape on college campuses are "OK with" sexual assaults that could supposedly be prevented by guns."

I swear if some nut-bag with a gun shot up a bunch of preschoolers and people held a candlelight vigil, people like Edwards would call them "opportunists".

Victim Allison Parker's dad Andy Parker [Photo - People]

On a more positive note, it's both touching and inspiring to see reporter Allison Parker's father Andy Parker (pictured left) step up and call out apathetic tone-deaf politicians for refusing to take action on legislation that would enact reasonable and sensible gun control laws supported by a vast majority of American citizens.

It's both remarkable, and a sad commentary on the state of 21st century America that a morally tone-deaf organization like the NRA wields so much influence on Capitol Hill and strikes such fear into the hearts of both Republican and Democratic Congressmen alike based on a simplistic and incredibly warped interpretation of the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution. 

There's nothing Constitutional about a group that is fond of boasting a total membership of over 5 million people (numbers that have been questioned) using political threats and intimidation, smear tactics, manipulation of facts and a flood of lobbyists to put the safety of a nation of over 300 million at risk from the horrific gun violence that has claimed the lives of over 8,566 people in the United States this year alone.

According to updated statistics posted on the GunViolenceArchive.org Website, there have been 222 mass shootings this year, 488 children between the ages of 0 and 11 have been killed or injured by gunfire, 17,465 injuries and a stunning 33,510 gun incidents this year alone.

Out of those 33,510 incidents, how many times were guns used for "defensive" purposes? 787.

You do the math. The NRA certainly won't.

They're too consumed with accusing the millions of average Americans begging our politicians for reasonable gun control laws of having "a lack of shared humanity."