Republicans should man up and back stiffer gun laws
Bang. Bang. Bang.
That's the sound of Democratic Party leaders smashing their heads against the wall after House Speaker John Boehner
(R-Ohio) announced that, in light of the Tucson shooting of 20 people,
including a member of his own branch of Congress, he will not be
supporting any bill that would expand federal gun regulations.
The doomed fate of any gun-restriction bill is as disappointing as it is expected.
Disappointing
because a recent poll shows that more Americans support increased gun
restrictions, and because authorities in Tucson say the gun used in the
attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
(D-Ariz.) – a 9-mm semi-automatic Glock with a 31-round clip – would
have been illegal six years ago under President Clinton's assault
weapons ban of 1994.
Expected
because the power of the gun lobby in Washington, combined with
historic GOP backlash against any legislation that smells of Second
Amendment infringement, effectively killed any Democratic hopes of
reauthorizing the ban in 2008, four years after the bill's 10-year
sunset clause expired.
Faced
with a Republican-controlled and Tea Party-influenced House of
Representatives, Democrats have resorted to tepidly backing a
Republican-proposed and severely gutted version of the 1994 bill: a ban
on high-capacity ammunition magazines, or clips.
The
argument for such a ban is simple but not overwhelmingly popular:
nobody but a mass murderer hoping to gun down a parking lot full of
civilians needs 31 bullets in a semi-automatic weapon for protection,
Democrats say. While true, this argument hasn't convinced opponents, and
it won't get legislation passed.
The
Democrats' idealism is noble, and their efforts might be regarded as
irreproachable if it weren't for the constraints of political pragmatism
and the Speaker's perfunctory refusal to even entertain such an idea.
Rest assured, Democrats. There is another way.
When
Republicans spin the rhetoric surrounding a controversial issue, it's
called "framing the argument." When Democrats do it, it has no name
because they don't have much of a track record of ever having
effectively done it. Now is their chance.
Republicans
love their country. They love their Constitution. They love their guns.
And they love to entertain thoughts that one day they will be able
exercise their patriotism and give their double-action Smith &
Wesson some real action
and defend of their homeland against Commie terrorists who want to
invade their homes and burn the Stars and Stripes swaying in the
Midwestern winds on their lawn.
This
is fine. These beliefs are admirable. But what ever happened to
excellence, discipline, and self-responsibility, the core values of
American conservatism?
Republicans,
of all people, should be the last to lean on the government in order to
uphold a law that allows 31 rounds in the clip of a semi-automatic
weapon. To rely on government bailouts for this kind of social assistance is
antithetical to the most basic tenets of conservatism, and it should be
utterly insulting to the true patriots of this country to ask the
government to essentially subsidize –
via legalization – the unskilled and un-sharp-shooting of those who
claim to stand for individual liberties in the ongoing battle against
socialism, treason, and terrorism.
Republicans
are not lazy, deranged, sissy stoners who require 31 rounds of
ammunition to protect themselves, their families, their country.
Republicans
are masterful marksmen – whether in war, in politics, or in defending
property lines – who can etch themselves into the history books of
American Independence with a single shot (or possibly two, for those who
hold the double-tap method of execution in high esteem).
It's
time Republicans put an end to the excessive government handouts that
serve no other purpose than to give unqualified, unskilled,
undisciplined, and generally unexceptional Americans an undeserved sense
of machismo. It's time they back a law that separates the boys from the
men. It's time these faux Republicans MAN UP and start proving their patriotism.
(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)
(Cross-posted from Muddy Politics.)
Labels: Arizona shooting, gun control, guns, John Boehner, Republicans
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
2:30 PM
3 Comments:
A great idea, pal, but you're assuming the TeaGOP has the capacity for self-reflection. Judging from the ones I know (and we're talking NYC and environs, not Podunk, WV) don't look at themselves that deeply; they don't listen that closely. If it relates to guns, and it doesn't come from the NRA, they'll just look at it as a cynical attempt by the government to ultimately "take our guns away". They won't agree to anything that doesn't allow them to have a cruise missile in their garage and an artillery battery on their front lawn.
By
Fixer, at 4:52 AM
Agreed. It was worth a shot. (No pun intended.)
By
Muddy Politics, at 9:10 PM
Well it's certainly possible to be a far-left, libtard, communist sympathizer like they say I am to disagree with some of this.
Frankly I think the death toll would have been as unacceptable with one 17 round magazine or two or three and that argument is a distraction. I risk being called a gun nut for pointing out that the '94 bad didn't actually ban anything and in the case of high capacity magazines and certain military look-alikes increased sales and prices substantially.
It's true, but as long as it's a crime bill or gun control bill, it has to be good, right? We don't have to read it to know that.
The GLock 19 isn't bought for hunting, it's bought for self protection and frankly it's not possible or even very nice to tell people they're limited to 5 shots to protect their home -- or yacht, and that's precisely the use that most of my yachting friends put them to and buy them for.
And don't laugh, human and drug smugglers abound here where I live and acts of piracy are associated with both and incidents occur on a weekly basis. Nearly every yacht owner I know keeps a high capacity weapon on board and yes, I know a lot of yachtsmen.
To me the real problem is that 80 to 90 percent of the information that should be showing up on the databases used to block gun sales are not showing up there - for various and unacceptable reasons. That man should not have been able to purchase a single shot .22 target pistol and the system failed to do what it was designed to do.
By
Capt. Fogg, at 1:17 PM
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