AMOS 2016-SENATE SHAME
20 June 2016 is a day of Senate shame. Four gun violence prevention (GVP) bills were defeated. The massacres in San Bernardino and Orlando could not move the Senate to the 60 vote threshold.
The two DEM bills promoting expanded back ground checks to include private and internet sales failed 44-56. The bill to prevent those on the Terrorist Watch List (TWL) from purchasing weapons failed failed 47-53. A GOP bill to limit TWL check to three days failed. A GOP bill to give more money to expand existing background check system (not touching private and internet sales), and to make it more difficult to deem people mentally deficient, failed 53-47.
Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) lamented, “Look, no one wants terrorists to be able to buy guns or explosives. No one.” The NRA spokesman, Chris Cox, bloviated, “It is shocking that the safety of the American people is taking a back seat to political theatre.”
Gabby Giffords, shooting victim and founder of Americans for Responsible Solutions, was not surprised: “I wish I could use words like ‘unimaginable’ and ‘unthinkable’,…but I cannot.”
I support the two Dem bills and believe the two GOP bills were soft. Still, there was no passage on ANY, hard or soft. With scant exceptions, the bills failed along party lines. The NRA won again. Cherry-picking the Constitution, trumpeting individual rights, stoking fear and profiting the gun manufacturers won the day. Drink up!
To quote Amos: “Thus says the Lord: for the three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not revoke punishment; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing sledges of iron.” (Amos 1:3)
“This is the rule of most perfect Christianity, its most exact definition, its highest point, namely, the seeking of the common good…for nothing can so make a person an imitator of Christ as caring for others.”
John Chrysostom (347-407)