Why Beto's Long Game Just Might Work

 "We're coming for your guns" may be what we need to hear.

Of all the candidates running for president on the Democratic side, Beto O’Rourke stands out as the maverick, the rebel, the “I don’t give a Flying F” guy who doesn’t pander and doesn’t cower. He’s got a mouth like a drunken pirate and he revels in it. (His campaign is selling tee shirts that say, over and over, “This is F — ked up”.)

Beto is the guy who almost took down Ted Cruz in 2018. That was big. He’s a Texan who speaks perfect Spanish, who waves his arms and bounces around to the point of distraction, but can handle comparisons to the Energizer Bunny because, well, he’s energized.


By rights he should be a force to be reckoned with — he’s young, earnest, charismatic, Kennedyesque— but so far there have been no real poll surges. Nothing that would suggest he might have a chance. It’s a crowded field and there are other more adept stars who tend to dominate the stage.

But Beto is a force. He shows up on the border, near tears as he reports on the conditions in the refugee camps. He boldly rails against white supremacists from his perch in Texas, a state known for its love of guns and rage, and he minces no words when he talks against Donald Trump. (Tell us how you really feel, Beto.)

He made it clear just days after the August 3 shooting massacre in El Paso, where 22 people died in the district Beto represented in congress for six years, that he had no interest in running for the senate. It’s the presidency or nothing, because he knows only the power of the presidency will allow him to make radical change.

The shootings hit him hard. He took a two-week break from campaigning so he could be with his people in Texas. He went to funerals and visited victims still hospitalized. He gave blood. He listened to horrific stories told to him by victims and survivors, as well as the doctors trying to repair bodies savagely shredded by bullets meant only as the ultimate deterrents on a battle field.

It changed him. He’d had enough. And, as usual, he was going to say so.
In every public appearance, his fury was palpable, his tears near the surface, as he zeroed in on the proliferation of weapons of war in a culture so fearful of “others”, reports of armed white madmen going on deadly rampages have become commonplace.

Beto made a wrenching decision: He could no longer ignore the need to get those weapons out of the hands of anyone who wanted one. No more “We don’t want to take your guns away from you”, as he had earlier promised, however reluctantly. Now, without equivocation, his message is laser-beamed on the absolute removal of military-style weapons from the hands of private citizens.

In an August 22 editorial, he startled everyone by putting in writing what no politician had ever dared. He wrote,

On Aug. 3, my hometown of El Paso, Texas — one of the safest cities in America — was attacked in one of the deadliest mass shootings in our country’s modern history. This was an act of white nationalist terror, and one we could have prevented.
All countries have video games. All countries struggle with mental health. All countries deal with hatred. But only America has more guns than human beings — 390 million firearms in a country of 329 million people — which kill nearly 40,000 people every year.
Some of the nurses, surgeons and doctors heroically treating victims at Del Sol and University Medical Center in El Paso told me they hadn’t seen such horrific wounds since they were deployed abroad in our armed forces, saving the lives of soldiers on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq…
… That’s why, as president, I would institute a mandatory buyback of every assault weapon in America.

He didn’t say “every gun”, he said “every assault weapon” and he’s careful to make that distinction every time he repeats his promise. On August 31 he was in Charlottesville when a reporter asked him how he would address the fears of people who were afraid he really would take away their assault weapons. He said without hesitation:

“I want to be really clear that that’s exactly what we are going to do. Americans who own AR-15s, AK-47s, will have to sell them to the government. We’re not going to allow them to stay on our streets, to show up in our communities, to be used against us in our synagogues, our churches, our mosques, our Walmarts, our public places.”

And at the presidential debate held on Thursday, September 12, he said again, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47, and we’re not going to allow it to be used against your fellow Americans anymore.”

It’s clear he means it. He may, in fact, have blown any chance at the presidency, but he has accomplished what he set out to do. He's establishing a radical idea, and radical ideas have to start somewhere.

He has started a dialogue that will build momentum, and as it builds, the idea of an all-out ban on assault weapons will become less radical and more accepted. Millions of us want to see it happen. None of us knows how it would be possible. That’s the next step: figuring out how it can be done.

But first things first. A political leader has said out loud what hundreds of political leaders are saying behind closed doors — we must get assault weapons out of the hands of ordinary citizens. We can’t rely on licensing, or background checks, or even statewide bans, as in California, when gun purchasing is so accepted, so easy, that any restrictions can be readily sidestepped. Literally anyone can buy a gun. Sellers are waiting to accommodate. Enough of them are willing to look the other way. The only solution, as far-fetched as it seems, is an outright ban.

The blowback to Beto’s insistence on an assault weapon ban is fierce, as he might have expected. Members of his own party are praising his honesty while not quite getting there yet. Both Kamala Harris and Corey Booker have plans to do away with assault weapon sales but they’re swimming in red tape, trying to be all things to all people. They aren’t nearly as convincing as Beto. Yet.

Some colleagues, like Delaware Senator Chris Coons, are afraid he’s playing right into the NRA’s hands. He told CNN’s Poppy Harlow he’s worried about Beto’s debate comments:

I frankly think that that clip will be played for years at Second Amendment rallies with organizations that try to scare people by saying that Democrats are coming for your guns.

And, as expected in this culture now, Beto is getting death threats, like the one from a Texas state legislator who tweet-warned, “My AR is ready, Robert Francis”, invoking Beto’s real name, doubling as a reminder of what happened to Robert Francis “Bobby” Kennedy.

But the message is indelible now: If we want to end the massacres we have to ban military-style assault weapons. Beto O’Rourke did this for us and, while we may not reward him with the presidency, this is how he will be remembered. As the leader who finally cut through the bullshit and gave it to us straight. He opened the floodgates and, as with every radical idea, we’ll need to get used to it. Already Adam Schiff is calling for petition signatures to reinstate the assault weapons ban. (kuuuuu)

Joe Biden is reminding voters in a tweet that he worked on banning assault weapons before and he’ll do it again as president:

25 years ago this week, Senator Feinstein and I led the charge to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. We beat the @NRA and got it done. As president, I’ll do it once again. We will get these military-style weapons off our streets.

Kamala Harris is pushing a red flag law that will allow the temporary seizure of guns in the hands of White Supremacists showing signs of acting on their threats. (Key word: temporary.)

So, if we’re lucky, Beto’s Democratic colleagues will get braver. They’ll test the waters to see if they can survive the onslaught. They’ll waffle until it seems safe. They’ll yell as if they mean it, and then they’ll add exceptions to keep voters happy. But all the while Beto will be howling to be heard and his message will stay the same.

In time, the notion of an assault weapons ban will become not just acceptable, but necessary.

In time, the howling will be coming from the other side. And when the ban is in place, when military guns in the hands of private citizens becomes a painful memory, when statistics show the number of lives we’ve saved — by the thousands — we’ll wonder what took us so long.

. . .

(Cross-posted at Crooks & Liars)

The NRA is Killing Us and their Weapon is the Second Amendment

Another massacre. Another killing field. Yesterday, sixteen kids and one teacher at at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida were murdered by a teenager blasting away with a semi-automatic weapon. So today we're in mourning--crying, howling, ranting about the unfairness. How could this happen? Why is this happening? Something must be done!

The same old shit. Nothing happens. The families whose lives have been devastated by their losses have our sympathies and we do them the supreme honor of allowing them to weep on TV, or seating them in a prominent place beside politicians at public speeches, but we don't give them what they really want: A promise that it'll never happen again.

The unbelievable numbers of gun deaths in America are more than a national scandal, they're the product of mass insanity. I don't know how else to explain it. The statistics on American gun deaths are so outrageously skewed compared to other civilized nations, some of us (but obviously not all of us) work frantically to make it stop. We have no power beyond our words, and, even as we're blasting our thoughts into the vast Web we know words won't do it.

It goes on and it goes on because the leaders of this country are in thrall of the NRA and they allow it to go on. They're the only ones who can stop the rampages and they refuse to do it.

The words "I believe in the Second Amendment" are killer words, designed to give permission to any nutcase who needs an excuse to use a gun as a final solution .

When pundits or government leaders preface their rants against violent gun deaths with "I believe in the Second Amendment, but..." I stop listening. It's insane to say they believe in a corrupted version of a constitutional amendment deliberately misused and abused by the NRA, when they of all people should know better.

The NRA is nothing more than an industry promoting and selling deadly firearms, and they do it by seducing Americans into believing gun ownership is fun, cool, deliciously subversive, and an absolute goddamn right.

The NRA and their brothers-in-arms, the gun manufacturers, have built a multi-billion dollar industry off of that crazy talk and our own government has done everything in their power to encourage it. Gun lobbyists spend billions of dollars in Washington alone to keep that murderous myth going. The NRA "donated" hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump's campaign. Many more millions went to dozens of members of Congress. Money over lives. They took blood money.

The second Amendment goes like this:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I've written about the misuse of this amendment before--not that it does any good--but let me repeat: The second amendment does not say what the NRA or certain government leaders say it does. It was designed to give the states the right to build their own militias. Nothing more, nothing less.

(And, before you even go there, the Supreme Court's 2008 Second Amendment decision, District of Columbia vs. Heller, did not give a free pass to the country's big gunners.

This, from Antonin Scalia:

"It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. 

Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms.  Miller (an earlier case) said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those 'in common use at the time'. We think that limitations is fairly supported by the historic tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons. ' "

In order to keep the deadly gun industry going, the profiteers want us to go on believing it's the phrase, "the right of the people", that protects gun owners from....

...from what? A rogue government itching to take away their guns and turn them into slaves? That's crazy talk. That's NRA-promoted crazy talk. That's the kind of simplistic drama you might expect from an apocalyptic movie of the "B" kind.

The killing has to stop and it won't stop until this government, right now, right this moment, decides along with us that it has to stop. They have the power. They can do this. And if they don't, the blood of our children, the next victims, is on them.

But one more thing: Whatever happened to the federal bump stock laws? Another promise broken, with more to come. A full 90 percent of the country wants background checks, and more than 50% want better gun control laws, but our government will not take on the NRA, a private but powerful group holding us hostage, whose sole purpose is to profit from the sale of guns

It's on our government to take this on.

It's on them.

Never let them forget, it's on them.

(Crossposted at Crooks and Liars)

When the Democrats Seized the Day

In the three and one-half years I've been here, we have not been allowed ONE VOTE, NOT ONE VOTE on matters of gun safety. This was why we had to protest."-

- Rep. John Larson, Sit-in ringleader whose Connecticut district is near Sandy Hook.

On June 23, around 11:25 AM, Democrats in the House of Representatives, fed up over the lack of action on simple, common-sense gun control measures after years of failed attempts, and led by Civil Rights icon John Lewis, announced a sit-in on the floor of the House chamber, and then, one by one, sat themselves down on the hard floor in front of the speaker's podium.  (Watch it here.)

As Vera Bergengruen wrote for McClatchy DC:

“Where is our soul? Where is our moral leadership? Where is our courage?” Lewis shouted Wednesday when he began the sit-in, his preacher’s voice loudly echoing in the House chamber. Brow furrowed, he angrily pounded the podium.
“This is the time,” he cried. “Now is the time to get in the way. The time to act is now. We will be silent no more.”
He paused for a moment, the chamber silent.
“The time for silence is over.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article85641732.html#storylink=cpy

 For some of them, getting down on the floor wasn't easy.  Some were older and arthritic, some were women in short skirts and high heels, and one of them, Tammy Duckworth, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot whose legs had been shot off over Baghdad, had to work her way out of her wheelchair and remove her prostheses in order to sit on the floor with her compadres.

Speaker Paul Ryan quickly shut the place down, calling for a short recess until the Democrats came to their senses, and, as is the rule when the sessions are in recess, the microphones went dead; the chamber cameras went dark.

Then, as if the revolt by the Democrats in the form of an actual sit-in wasn't extraordinary enough, something even more amazing happened.  Several House members, using their smart phones, began live-streaming the event via Twitter's Periscope. Before long C-Span, against House rules and entirely on their own, picked it up and began broadcasting the live-stream.

It had its glitches. As phone batteries went dead, C-Span hosts ad-libbed, filling in the minutes until borrowed battery packs could be installed or someone else picked it up and fed it to them live.  People kept bumping into or standing in front of the cell phones, but they were quickly righted and put back into action.

Within seconds after John Lewis announced the sit-in, Twitter and Facebook exploded.  News spread that something big was happening on the House floor (literally), and for one brief shining moment even Donald Trump couldn't draw media attention away from the disobedient but mostly civil Democrats who had finally had enough.

It was a sit-in that felt like a loose version of a filibuster. A long line of representatives took turns standing before the dead microphones,  passionately begging for the chance to vote on sensible, common sense gun control, hoping the cell phones would pick up their voices and send their message afar.

Within a few hours, several senators came in to offer their support.  Elizabeth Warren sat on the floor  for a time, left, and then came back again, this time with donuts.  Al Franken, Bernie Sanders, Gary Peters, and a number of other senators made appearances.

Some time during the day Paul Ryan acknowledged the sit-in at a news conference.  He called it nothing more than a publicity stunt. (Newsflash: All demonstrations are publicity stunts, Paul.) He took pains to remind everyone that the sitters were breaking rules.  (Again, Mr. Speaker: civil disobedience)

It went on for more than 26 hours, with a few bathroom breaks and cloakroom naps. Elizabeth Warren bought donuts. Cases of bottled water arrived. Someone else ordered pizzas.  For more than a full day those of us who have been waiting a long time for something like this sat riveted.  It was awesome.

Did it change even one single mind on the Republican side?  No. Will the NRA stand down and stay out of government business?  Of course not.  But we saw democracy in action.  We saw the Democrats acting like Democrats.

It did my heart glad.

(Edit to add:  Speaker Paul Ryan says he won't allow any more sit-ins.  No word on how he plans to stop them, short of police action.  Should be interesting.) 

(Cross-posted at Dagblog and Crooks & Liars)

Ugly Politics: When the Meme is "The President Must Die" We Have To Pay Attention

At a Town Hall meeting held last week in Oklahoma, an audience member raised her hand and said to Jim Bridenstine, a congressman from the First District,  “Obama is not president as far as I’m concerned. He should be executed as an enemy combatant.”

Read that again:  "Obama is not president as far as I'm concerned.  He should be executed as an enemy combatant."  (Video here.)

 She then went on to remind Bridenstine and the audience about the Muslims Obama is letting into this country to be pilots on commercial jets, which was proof to her that "this guy is a criminal!"  She blamed congress for doing nothing when Obama "has no authority.  He has NO authority!"

And when she was finished and the camera turned back to him, the first words out of U.S. Congressman Jim Bridenstine's mouth were, "Look, everybody knows the lawlessness of this president."

He went on to describe a Chief Executive so out of control, so power-hungry, that when he couldn't get something done through executive order, "then he used foreign bodies".

He used as an example an effort in April, 2013 to ban certain types of guns, "not because they operated any differently than any other types of guns but because they looked scary". Then he tried to block magazine sizes, which, again Congress blocked.  "Which was the right answer," according to Jim.

But the congressman saved the best--or worst--for last: "Then he wanted universal background checks, which is a national gun registration, let me be clear."  Pause, repeat:  "He wanted universal background checks which is a national gun registration. . .".   And when Obama couldn't get that done he went to the U.N, where they passed an international Arms Trade Treaty, which, according to Jim, says if you have any gun that has any part manufactured in a foreign country, then they have to do more than a national background check, they have to do an international background check and it becomes an international gun registry.  (The Horror!)

Well, of course, this president signed it.  So here's how Jim sees it:

"Now let me be clear.  The Second Amendment of the United States of America is not open for debate by a foreign government."

A woman in his audience has just called for the President of the United States to be executed and this congressman answers her by bringing up the president's push for background checks, gun registration, and his dealings with foreign countries to accomplish the same.

Nobody seems to know where this meeting took place or exactly when, but someone put it on YouTube and it went viral. The press picked it up.  Bridenstine got wind of the flak and put this notice on his web page:

“A public figure cannot control what people say in open meetings. I obviously did not condone and I do not approve of grossly inappropriate language. It is outrageous that irresponsible parties would attribute another person’s reckless remarks to me."

So let's talk about who is being irresponsible.  You kept quiet when an audience member called for the death of the president, and then you added fuel to the fire. You brought up guns and the Second Amendment and insinuated that the President of the United States is in league with foreign players to take American gun rights away.

I hope the Secret Service pays that group a call and I hope you're there when they do.  You all need a lesson in Government, in Civics, in Constitutional and Sedition Laws, and in civility.

I confess that I've never been as fearful of a president's safety as I have with Barack Obama.  The gun nuts are getting bolder and the propaganda against his "otherness" is unrelenting and growing more fierce. 

There is no proof that this president has been threatened more than any other.  (I went looking.)  The Secret Service won't provide those statistics, of course, and Politifact finds no evidence and calls the charges that he has been "false".   But a simple search finds threats against this president by the thousands.  Including this one on Facebook from the Christian American Patriots  Militia (Read more here.):

The rumor is that Ted Nugent got a visit from the Secret Service for saying, "If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year."  I hope it's not just a rumor.  We'll never know unless Teddy tells us, but I hope they're doing their jobs.  That was a direct threat. (Not that it would cure him.  I wrote about his shenanigans just last month.  He gets off on this stuff.  Apparently so do a lot of other people.)

Are threats against the president illegal?  It depends.  There is this:

18 U.S. Code § 871 - Threats against President and successors to the Presidency

Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. 

But then there's this from FrumForum on July 21, 2011:

On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that comments which encouraged the assassination of President Obama and predicted that he would have “a .50 cal in the head soon” while using racial slurs against him were protected by the First Amendment. While the decision seems to be a plausible reading of existing precedents, a former Secret Service agent contacted by FrumForum thought that it exposed the president to unacceptable risk.

“It was a bad decision,” said Joseph Petro, former agent and co-author of Standing Next to History: An Agent’s Life Inside the Secret Service. He argued that permitting such remarks “creates more potential for someone to do something” dangerous. Petro claimed that, in his experience, it is normal to treat such comments as threats, saying “I’ve seen this before … Back in the Nixon days, there was a guy who put up a billboard in New Jersey saying ‘Kill Nixon.’ He was arrested and the billboard was taken down.”
“We’re all in favor of constitutional rights,” he added, but “there should be some … sensitivity shown for the unique risk that the President faces.”

The former agent suggested that the ruling was part of a pattern of recent events that did not show a proper awareness of the dangers presidents face comparing it to incidents in the past two years in which protesters brought weapons to presidential speeches. Petro also noted that the fact that the accused, Walter Bagdasarian, predicted that Obama would be shot with a .50 caliber rifle while he owned such a gun made the threatening nature of the comments especially clear.

However, two legal experts contacted by FrumForum both agreed with the majority’s central claim that Bagdasarian did not express an intention to personally kill Obama because he merely predicted the president’s killing and encouraged others to shoot him. “The speaker did not tell Obama that if he didn’t do something he would shoot him,” said Geoffrey Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago who has written extensively on First Amendment issues. “The speech may have been repugnant and ugly … but it did not constitute a threat within the meaning of the First Amendment.”

I'm afraid.  I'm very afraid.  When advocating and encouraging the killing of our president is protected under the First Amendment, it's destined to become as twisted as the Second Amendment to mean whatever the advocates want it to mean.  It'll be open season on wishing the president dead.

Something will have to happen before we wake up to the harm this can bring.  I dread to think what that might be.
_____________________

(Can I just say to those who are already revving up their keyboards to remind me that George W. Bush got death threats, too?  I don't doubt it.  Every president has.  It goes with the territory.  But this was a town hall meeting where a member of congress did nothing to disabuse an audience member of the notion that the President of the United States should be executed as an enemy combatant. Instead, he immediately launched into an attack on "the lawlessness of the president" and his shady attempts to bring in foreign countries to control our guns, showing him to be a dangerous character, indeed.   Let me know when you find something comparable.)

Guest Post: A New High School Graduate Takes on the Gun Issue

In the 4 1/2 years I've been writing this blog I've never felt inclined to bring in a guest poster.  Today I do, and I couldn't be happier that Briana Morganroth has agreed to let me reprint the essay she wrote about her thoughts on gun control.  

She is the granddaughter of my friend, Ramona Moormann, the publisher of The Marcellus (MI) News (where my own pieces sometimes appear), and I first read this essay in her newspaper a couple of weeks ago.

But here--I'll let Ramona tell you about her granddaughter:

Briana is a 2013 graduate of Stevens Point High School (Wisconsin). She will attend University of Wisconsin/Madison this fall. All during her teen years she was active in the YMCA’s Youth In Government Program. She took part in their  Legislative Conferences in the state capital in Madison annually.

    I read on the group’s website that their mission is to ” help create the next generation of thoughtful, committed and active citizens by teaching them the principles of a democratic society. They also intend to create leaders through their roles in the models of local, state and national government. The premise is that leaders are developed by doing.”

    No doubt, the program has been an influence on Briana. She is very vocal about her political beliefs and ‘doesn’t suffer fools gladly’.

 Our young people need to know that their opinions count, that their bravery is recognized and supported, and that their voices will be heard.  Young thinkers like Briana are our hope for the future.  Her writing is forceful, articulate and impassioned, and I'm proud to offer it here.

Gun Control: It’s Time 

by Briana Morganroth

It’s time.

It’s time for the hysterical and overdramatic claims that the government is coming for your guns to end.

 

It’s time to stop worrying about your precious hunting rifles – guns which the government has no plan of banning. It’s time to realize that this isn’t an attempt at taking away the second amendment, but simply a reevaluation of that right which was given by the men who birthed this nation in a time where they couldn’t have imagined our new-age weaponry – weaponry which makes their muskets look like a toy.

 

It’s time to stop making excuses that “It’s not about the guns” and come to our senses as a nation.

 

It’s time to open our eyes to someone other than ourselves and places other than our own “safe” community, and think about those who have been permanently shaken and broken by the reckless gun violence that is consuming our country.

 

It’s time to stop the much-too-early funerals for an ever-growing number of beautiful and innocent children.

It’s time to come to the realistic conclusion that semiautomatic military-grade assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and armor-piercing bullets are in no possible way needed by anyone outside of military or police personnel.

 

It’s time to think logically about the harm that could be easily prevented by simple, required background checks on weapon purchases.

 

It’s time to stand up to the NRA, and their out of touch CEO, no matter how hard it may seem. It’s time for Congress to grow a spine for the first time and take charge on this pressing and critical issue.

 

It’s time to think about what is really important here – the right to own these ridiculous and murderous weapons, or the right to live without fear. 

 

It’s time to clear our minds, come to terms with the horrible current events, and move forward quickly and effectively to prevent further tragedies.

It’s time for every assault-weapon and high-capacity magazine owner to stop clinging to their weapons that were solely made to kill.

 

It’s time for them to open their eyes to the fact that their right to own those horrific tools is trumped a million to one by simple American rights: by the right of a moviegoer in Aurora, Colorado to enjoy a movie without watching her boyfriend die right before her eyes as he covers her from the rain of bullets, because of his heart wrenching, undying love; by the right of former Senator Gabby Gifford to live without being permanently disabled by the two point-blank gun shots she received to the head; by the firefighters in Webster, New York to be living heroes remembered for their dangerous-but-heroic job that Christmas Eve, not fallen servicemen who’s tragic end came about from reckless gunfire; and by the rights of those kids at Sandy Hook Elementary to never have to run through the blood of fellow classmate, to never have to hide behind a selfless teacher who moments later is strewn with bullets, and to never suffer such immense pain and loss at such a young age.

 

It’s time for children to never have their safe haven called school turned into something of the opposite nature: a terrible, nightmare-inducing place.

 

It’s time to realize that those moviegoers, those police officers, and those kindergartners are gone forever, and their friends, families, communities, and the whole nation are forever scarred.

 

It’s time for madness and violence to end.

It’s time.

###

Congratulations, Class of 2013.  No pressure, but we're counting on you.

Politicians out of control on Guns: Never Forgive, Never Forget

Yesterday 46 members of the Senate voted down a proposal that would have been a logical first step to gun control--universal background checks.  They were able to vote it down, even though 54 members voted for it because they rigged the way the votes count now.  Voting it down for no good reason is bad enough but they did it through cowardice, lies and cheats. The whole process was despicable, made even more so by the fact that it happened in the chambers where expectations of fairness and fidelity used to run quite high.

These public servants ignored the wishes of at least 90% of Americans and caved, instead, to willful profit-oriented special interests.  They lied about the content of the bill and insured their success by forcing a 60-vote approval instead of a fairer, more honest majority vote.

In a sane world, this would be enough to cause those who voted against the wishes of the people some actual discomfort, if not some actual punishment.  Our outrage (those of us who have sense enough to be outraged) comes today because we know nothing will happen to them.  They will go on for another day and another day after that making bad decisions that will affect all of us in one way or another, and all we can do is shout about it.

We are outraged.  The parents and families of the Newtown School massacre are outraged.  Gabrielle Giffords is outraged. The president is outraged.  The Democrats (all but four senators) are outraged. Certain members of the press are outraged.  But our rage at these 46 members of the United States Senate who voted to keep guns out of our control is, in the end, no more than hot air.  Rage, like hot air, dissipates.  It weakens to anger, and anger, when it is not satisfied, weakens to a sigh.  A futile sigh. We are exhausted.  We inevitably leave it behind and go on.

They get away with these undemocratic actions once again because we have neither the authority nor the strength to stop them.  And they know this.

The president gave a masterful speech yesterday, designed to both clarify his rage and to shame them for their actions.  They don't care.

A portion of what the president said: 

Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders –- not just to honor the memory of their children, but to protect the lives of all our children.  And a few minutes ago, a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn’t worth it.  They blocked common-sense gun reforms even while these families looked on from the Senate gallery.

By now, it’s well known that 90 percent of the American people support universal background checks that make it harder for a dangerous person to buy a gun.  We’re talking about convicted felons, people convicted of domestic violence, people with a severe mental illness.  Ninety percent of Americans support that idea.  Most Americans think that’s already the law.

And a few minutes ago, 90 percent of Democrats in the Senate just voted for that idea.  But it’s not going to happen because 90 percent of Republicans in the Senate just voted against that idea.
A majority of senators voted “yes” to protecting more of our citizens with smarter background checks.  But by this continuing distortion of Senate rules, a minority was able to block it from moving forward.

Gabrielle Giffords wrote an impassioned editorial in the New York Times yesterday, designed to show her rage and to shame those senators.  They don't care.

From Gabby:

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

James Fallows wrote a great piece in the Atlantic yesterday called "For the Love of God, just call it a Filibuster".    They don't care. 

1. Today a provision that would increase background checks for gun purchases was blocked in the Senate, even though consideration of the bill was supported by 54 senators representing states that make up (at quick estimate) at least 60 percent of the American population.
2. The bill did not fail to "pass" the Senate, which according to Constitutional provisions and accepted practice for more than two centuries requires a simple majority, 51 votes. Even 50 votes should do it, since the vice president is constitutionally empowered to cast the tie-breaking and deciding vote, and Joe Biden would have voted yes.
3. It failed because a 54-vote majority was not enough to break the threat of a filibuster, which (with some twists of labeling) was the real story of what happened with this bill. Breaking the filibuster would have required 60 votes.

The Twitterverse clogged the place yesterday listing one by one the names of those senators who voted "no".  They don't care.

Journalists, essayists, bloggers, and hundreds of thousands of enraged activists took to their preferred soapboxes and shouted out in anguished rage.  The senators ignored us all.  They don't care.

They're counting on our inattention, our tendency to be distracted and manipulated, our refusal to believe our elected politicians could turn against us so cruelly, so blatantly, and so often.

This is our chance to show them how much we care.  We can't forget.  We must not forgive.  We will not let them get away with this latest insult.  They should not be allowed to win again.  Not if we are who we think we are.

Gabby Giffords Spoke and Some of Us Listened

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords appeared at the Senate judiciary hearing on gun violence yesterday to try and convince lawmakers that we have a major problem with guns in this country and gun control must be addressed.  This is what she said, in its entirety:

"Thank you for inviting me here today. This is an important conversation for our children, for our communities, for Democrats, and Republicans.  Speaking is difficult but I need to say something important. Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying - too many children. We must do something. It will be hard. But the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be Courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you."

 Seventy two words.  Most people could say what Gabby said in about 30 seconds (I timed myself doing it.  Thirty two seconds.)  But because Gabby was shot in the head two years ago in Tucson by an assassin who killed six people, including a Federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, and injured 16 others, giving that 72-word speech required hours of rehearsal so that every word would come out exactly the way she hoped it would. 

This is how Gabby looked and sounded when she spoke at that hearing.

I watched that video at least eight times yesterday and I'll watch it again and again, and then again.  I wish I could tell Gabby that it doesn't matter if Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, or the committee members planning to vote against any new gun laws were moved by her words and her efforts to speak them.  What matters is that she did it. It was hard but she did it, and she did it for us. Not for them.

She showed us what courage is all about, but beyond that, she reminded us of the realities behind a single act of gun violence--the long haul to recover, the probability that full recovery is not possible, the willingness to overcome the nightmarish horror and the anguished aftermath and move on.

I put her words and her video on my page not simply because I admire her so completely--I do--but to remind me that the way we fight for something as obvious as universal background checks and total banning of assault weapons is to never claim victimhood.

We just get out there and work to get this thing fixed.

Because NRA leader Wayne LaPierre, also invited to testify at the hearing, is neither a victim nor a hero.  He is a paid shill for an industry that pushes its weight around in order to keep producing and selling military-style weapons designed solely to kill or maim human beings.

And because the millions of pawns who follow the NRA and help to spread the lies about Second Amendment protections need to see what courage in the face of that kind of opposition to common sense gun laws looks like.

   

NRA "disappointed" in White House visit. Current Occupants refuse to Budge. Could get Ugly

For weeks now, since the tragic murders of 20 sweet children and six dedicated educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, (one month ago today, and that is some sad anniversary) we've been in the middle of some serious, long overdue gun control arguments.  The gun nuts see any form of gun control as "an infringement of their right to bear arms". (Oh my God, I can barely type that one more time. It's so stupid.  Even in quotes, it's stupid.  But I must go on.)

The others, those who understand the need for gun control--gun owners and non-owners alike--are the ones who aren't nuts. (Just so we're clear.)  But then we have the NRA.  The National Rifle Association.  The organization that began life in the 1870's as a mainstream group dedicated to conservation, aligning themselves with hunters and marksmen and Boy Scouts, fagawdsake.

Nobody remembers that old NRA, and nobody's happier about that than the new NRA. That old bunch were pansies compared to this new bunch.  Now it's not so much about puny single-shot, short range rifles and self-protection pistols as it is about end-of-the-world weapons and beyond--those big guns necessary to overthrow a rogue government when the time comes. (And apparently it can't come soon enough.)

The evolution of the NRA from a friendly sportsman's club to staunch supporter of weaponry worthy of Armageddon is recounted in a chilling, eye-opening  Washington Post article titled, "How NRA's true believers converted a marksmanship group into a might gun lobby",written by Joel Achenbach, Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz,

One small part (my emphasis):

After years of lobbying by the NRA, Congress passed the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, which, among other gun-friendly provisions, eased restrictions on interstate sales of firearms and expressly prohibited the federal government from creating a database of gun ownership.
A huge NRA triumph, the media declared. Some lawmakers said off the record that they would have voted against the act but feared retaliation from the gun lobby. And yet the Second Amendment fundamentalists were furious. The NRA endorsed the act even though it included a last-minute amendment pushed by gun-control advocates that further tightened the restrictions on machine guns.

So today's NRA has positioned itself as the go-to authority on all things that shoot but are only harmful if they do actual bodily harm.  It's not the fault of the weapons, it's the fault of the bad guys (or even the good guys) who get hold of them and use them in a dangerous manner--namely by pulling the triggers.

Then, of course, there's that whole fuzzy Second Amendment thing, made ever so much clearer when the Supreme Court declared the words "well-regulated" and "militia" just so much filler on the way to giving individual citizens carte blanche to own any weapon ever manufactured in this country or elsewhere, and to buy ammunition for said any weapon known to man, and to do it without having to give up even a smidgeon of privacy by having to divulge names and addresses .  (This was the very same Supreme Court majority that gave corporations the right to be ordinary people if it meant they could screw the rest of us and make piles of money doing it.)

So in the aftermath of the school shootings, the White House decided it would be a good idea to attempt to make nice with the NRA, considering how much more powerful they are than the people calling for some semblance of gun control sanity.  They called on good old Joe Biden to meet with the mighty NRA and a handful of lesser gun groups, thinking (I'm guessing) that good old Joe could maybe talk the talk without having to, you know, walk the walk.

Lord knows what went on behind closed doors, but when the Gun Guys ("gun ban activists" they like to call themselves) came out and said they were "disappointed" in the meeting, I went on such a cheering jag. . .

Joe, bless his heart, didn't cave.  He thought the meeting was "productive." (Ouch)  He said something will be done. (Oouuch)  And the NRA is not happy.

Their full statement:

The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again. We attended today's White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.

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. 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, hardworking Americans. It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation's most pressing problems. We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen. Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works — and what does not.

Awww.  What a genteel word, "disappointed".  So much more grown-up than "pissed."   But did you catch that last part?  Where they say, "[W]e will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works — and what does not."

So it's another buying spree, is it?  They think they can buy the hearts and minds of certain members of congress and that'll be the end of all this nonsense?  It's a simple method, tried and true, with scads of past successes, but here's hoping when it comes to sane gun control we really mean it this time.

The press latched onto the White House meetings with the NRA with barely a mention of the other meetings also held as part of the task force on gun control.  Biden and White House staff members met with educators, medical groups, victims organizations and other proponents of tougher gun laws in an effort to let all voices be heard on an issue as important and seemingly intractable as this one.  This was not a privileged meeting afforded to the NRA only, and I doubt they were the only ones who were "disappointed."

It could be that "disappointed" takes on a whole new meaning when you're entering a White House presided over by occupants not bearing your stamp of approval.  The NRA fought hard to move the Obama team out of the White House, and there were moments when they must have thought they had it in the bag.  They should have been holding court in a more receptive Romney White House, but there you are.  Things happen, no matter how heavy the artillery against it.   

In the February, 2012 issue of the NRA magazine, American Rifleman, NRA president David Keene wrote,

"We are all going to have to work from now until November to help Wayne LaPierre make Barack Obama a one-term president.  We have defeated anti-Second Amendment presidential wannabes before.  Remember Al Gore?  After the 2000 race, then-President Bill Clinton lamented that his Vice President would not be moving into the White House because you and I and millions other supporters of the Second Amendment cost him the electoral votes of at least five states--and therefore the Presidency.  We did it then and we can do it again."

That myth about Gore's loss thanks to the NRA is more bluster the true believers keep on pushing, and members of congress keep on believing.  But what the NRA can't ignore is that Barack Obama won a second term in spite of their best efforts.  

And what the rest of us can't ignore is that the NRA will not take that lying down.  They'll be up in arms big time over that one.  (Proof positive:  Gun sales have spiked. Skyrocketed, in fact, with sales of the AR-15, the gun used in the Sandy Hook shootings, right up there among collectors fearing likely banning)

Be warned--the NRA may never, ever forgive us for Obama.

NRA magazine cover, February, 2012.  Depends on what they mean by "All In."

 
(Cross-posted, as always, at Dagblog)