Priorities, People

The NRA has succeeded in killing the nomination of a highly-qualified doctor, Vivek Murthy, to be surgeon general because he stated the obvious — gun violence is a public health issue.  And today is Saturday.  Obama can’t even get him through the Senate with a simple majority because so many Dems are scared of the gun nuts.  I guess when Harry Reid changed the filibuster rules on nominations, he forgot to check that the members of his caucus had balls.

Instead of focusing their outrage at a fine nominee being trashed and scuttled just because the NRA wants to raise money and demonstrate their disproportionate power, what has America up in arms, as it were, today?  That Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are on the cover of Vogue.

Quote of the Day

“It hurts her.  Elections are won in New Hampshire with the vote of independents, particularly independent women.  Independent women will not favor a candidate who does not believe in background checks.  Will it be the only issue?  No, but it will be an issue.”

Kathy Sullivan, former head of the NH Dem party, on GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte’s vote against the Manchin-Toomey bill to expand background checks for gun purchases.

Ayotte is now being called NRAyotte.

Ayotte says she supports fixing the mental health system to prevent people from getting guns.  But how would that work, other than through background checks?  If someone is in a data base as being too mentally impaired to own a gun, how would a gun seller know that without doing a check?  There are two steps here.  First, you have to get them into a data base, and then someone has to access that data base before doing the transaction.

More Shame

More votes against gun reform.  A ban on assault weapons got only 40 votes.  A ban on high-capacity clips got only 46.

You know what got the most votes?  The NRA-backed proposal to ease concealed-carry permits, so that if you came from a state with looser restrictions, you could take your gun into a state with tighter restrictions, got 57 votes.  So New York City would have a bunch of Texans running around with guns.

Shame, Shame, Shame

The Manchin-Toomey proposal for increased (not universal) background checks on gun purchases has been defeated, 54-46.  Yes, 54 is a majority, but the GOP filibustered, so it needed 60.

If we can’t get this, we can’t get anything.

I told y’all that the NRA has already won.

Cruz Admits Background Checks Won’t Create Gun Registry

As the Manchin-Toomey bill for broader (not universal) background checks for gun sales appears headed for defeat, Sen. Ted Cruz  (Tea Party-Texas) admits that the bill wouldn’t create a federal gun registry:

“I don’t disagree that on its face, the currently pending legislation does not purport to create a national gun registry.”

Indeed, the bill provides a 15-year felony sentence for any government official who keeps such records.

 

Gun Registration Will Turn Us Into Rwanda

Stay with me here, cause this one is a little convoluted.

GOP Congressman Jeff Duncan of SC repeated on his Facebook page the gun-nut canard that background checks will inevitably lead to a national gun registry and then, well, then the America we love will become Rwanda:

“Ask yourselves about a National gun registry database and how that might be used and why it is so wanted by progressives.  Read about the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu and Tutsi tribes.  Read that all Tutsi tribe members were required to register their address with the Hutu government and that this database was used to locate Tutsi for slaughter at the hands of the Hutu. … I use this example to warn that national databases can be used with evil consequences.”

First, we already have background checks, just not universal checks, and we don’t have a gun registry.  There is no reason that the expansion of existing background checks would lead to the creation of a registry. No one is proposing such a registry.  In fact, we have laws against such a registry.

Second, um, Jeff, you moron, the Government already knows where we live!

 

The NRA Has Already Won

Oh, big whup — the debate on gun reform is going to proceed after a GOP filibuster attempt was defeated 68-31.  And shame on you, Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas for voting with the GOP.  That special circle in hell for cowards awaits.

Nothing like walking by your dead child’s room and thinking, “What a great victory to stop that filibuster.”

So we’ll get a debate on gun reform, we’ll get votes on gun reform, we just won’t get any real gun reform.

Broader background checks?  Sure, a good thing if the Manchin-Toomey deal passes.  But we need to deal with the semi-automatic weapons and large ammo clips, and that ain’t gonna happen.  More dead kids?  That’s definitely gonna happen.

Doesn’t Ninety Percent Mean Anything in a Democracy?

Poll after poll shows that 90% or more of Americans support universal background checks for gun purchases.  And that includes solid majorities of NRA members and Republicans.  Yet even this, the most popular  and least controversial of gun reforms, seems doomed, unable to get out of the Democrat-controlled Senate, let alone the GOP House.

Sahil Kapur writes today at Talking Points Memo:

“Politically, Democratic leaders are in a lose-lose predicament. If they somehow squeeze background checks through the Senate (it’ll still have to pass the House), their vulnerable members will face the wrath of the NRA. If the legislation fails, leaders will anger and demoralize their liberal base, which is demanding meaningful action on guns.”

It seems to me that if this legislation fails, the anger and despair and frustration will rightly extend well beyond the liberal base.  Background checks are not just a liberal cause, they are supported all across the political spectrum.

Kapur names four Dem senators who won’t vote for background checks because they are up for re-election in 2014:  Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Max Baucus of Montana.  I hope they lose their seats —  they don’t deserve the extraordinary honor and power of being a senator.

Jewish tradition says that if you save one life, you save the whole world.  I can’t imagine that universal background checks won’t save at least one life.  If I lost my Senate seat, but knew that I’d saved a life because of my vote, I’d consider that an excellent trade-off and be proud and at peace for the rest of my life.  And, given the lop-sided polling, I believe these senators can do the right thing and win in 2014 anyway.

It may be inevitable that crazies like Adam Lanza will do us harm, but it’s not inevitable that cowards will lead us.

And From the Parallel Universe…

I didn’t want to read Liz Cheney’s op-ed* in the WSJ, but I forced myself to.  Get yourself a piece of chocolate and check out these excerpts:

“President Obama is the most radical man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

“The president has launched a war on Americans’ Second Amendment rights.  He has launched a war on religious freedom  He has launched a war on fossil fuels.

“The president has so effectively diminished American strength abroad that there is no longer a question of whether this was his intent.  He is working to pre-emptively disarm the United States.”

 

* “Republicans, Get Over the 2012 Loss — and Start Fighting Back”

 

 

Can Anyone Explain This?

Rand Paul is fighting in the Senate to give full constitutional rights to fertilized eggs.  Yet at the same time, he’s going to filibuster any gun legislation Harry Reid brings to the Senate floor, legislation that might save the lives of, you know, actual already-born children like those killed in Newtown.

Marco Rubio, fearing that he might be out-maneuvered for 2016, just jumped on the filibuster bandwagon with Paul, along with Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.