"Republicans are more concerned about unborn children than they are about the ones who are already here. The Second Amendment is a broken smudge of grammar on the 21st century. Ban assault weapons now, no exceptions!" Letter writer Craig Marshall in Sunday Denver Post
So the front page news in yesterday's (Sunday) Denver Post basically confirmed what I wrote last July about the so-called "bipartisan gun law", i.e. that it was a sham. That is, never mind the phony PR and "upselling", the law simply ceded to the Reeps the priorities they always insisted upon. Even WSJ resident op-ed troll Kimberley Strassel was giddy at its passage, babbling in a column (June 24, 'Democrats Lose ‘Gun Control’', p. A17):
"No universal licensing. No bans on classes of firearms or types of magazines. No raising of the purchase age or limits on firearms purchases. No national database to track gun owners. Instead, the overwhelming bulk of this “gun” bill consists of provisions aimed at mental health, school safety and tougher prosecution of gun crimes—precisely where conservatives have insisted for years that the federal focus needs to be."
The Dem side? They got virtually bupkis, especially as far as controlling the most lethal weapons: the AR-15s, Bushmaster .223s and related military-style assault weapons. The proof of the pudding? As the Denver Post front page story put it:
"The law has prevented some potentially dangerous people from owning guns. Yet since that signing last summer the tally of mass shootings in the United States has only grown."
Get that? Only grown. And as a recent TIME editorial noted, by 1,460 mass shootings since Jan. 1, 2021. So Kim Strassel in her op-ed piece last year had a right to gloat because she knew- as I knew - the Democrats had simply surrendered to get any kind of bill passed. The Post adding:
"One of the Republican negotiators of the gun law - Texas Sen. John Cornyn - has said any new compromise is unlikely"
And why would it be otherwise given the Reeps have basically gotten all they could ask for? The upshot of it all is that the fetish cult of assault weapon worship appears here to stay. Why? Any number of reasons. Start with bogus and inflated 2nd amendment interpretations, i.e. making a collective right an individual right, and for weapons no Founder could even conceive. And further would never have tolerated IF ever conceived!
Then, on 'Real Time' last Friday I heard the most cockamamey excuse from panel guest James Kirchick. That is, the Right is dug in on assault weapon ownership because their open displays make the "snowflakes" cry and lose their minds. Un no. They guntards are dug in because they know these weapons are "cool" to be seen with given they are featured in every major TV series (Walking Dead, Last of Us etc.) or action films one can think of. And so they can dismiss as "incidental losses to madmen" the bodies blown to smithereens, which a recent Washington Post story revealed in detail, after 6 were slaughtered by a kook in Nashville, e.g.
What does an AR-15 do to a human body? A visual examination of the deadly damage. - Washington Post
That graphic account follows one last summer on '60 Minutes':
How destructive AR-15 style rifles can be - YouTube
As CBS Scott Pelley pointed out the AR-15s now number 11 million in this country and they're rarely used for hunting, target practice or protection. They are used for mass murders. There is no good reason to own one. Dr. David Baum in a separate ABC interview made a similar point after the Highland Park, IL shooting:
”There is no good reason anyone needs to have a high power rifle of the type used. These are injuries no one should have to see. This was a mass casualty situation. It's a sickening tale of what's wrong with this country.”
As I noted earlier that absurd bipartisan gun law basically handed a mid-term election year gimme to the Repukes. Without it, it is possible the House would have remained in Dem control. The Reepos knew it given the bill that passed last summer was nowhere as sweeping as a package of gun measures passed nearly along party lines in the (then) Dem House. That law would have barred the sale of semiautomatic weapons to people under the age of 21, and banned the sale of large-capacity magazines.
Republicans now, however. are energized - even after the Nashville slayings- to fight for their high powered, lethal toys. Never mind these asswipes claim to be "pro-life" they are only that for a nascent set of unconscious cells. They are fully prepared to let 9-year-old actual children get blown to pieces, even as they also deny affordable health and child care to younger children.
And with their spurious "bipartisan law' in their pockets - emphasizing mental illness - the Reeps can now blame every current and future mass shooting on kooks, nuts, and whackjobs. But as my tenured Psychology prof niece Shayl has pointed out, this is itself demented given how ordinary people can crack up and grab the nearest AR-15 to settle scores, domestic altercation, firing from a job.
Thus, a military-style assault weapon within easy reach becomes the go to means for reprisal, revenge in an instant of passion. Take away that instrument of lethality - even when an ordinary person loses it - and you remove the potential for mass casualties, mass deaths -and horrific injuries. What about knives, can't they do as much damage? Are we going to want to ban them too?
According to Shayl; "That's stupid. Even the fastest knife wielder will never kill or maim as many people - say in a crowded disco - as one impassioned killer armed with an AR-15 and multiple magazines."
Obviously, if Shayl is correct, and I believe she is, no amount of 'red flag' laws, or mental health surveillance, will save the day or spot the next mass murderer. It could be any one of 11-plus million AR-15 owners who suddenly - for whatever reason -go off the rails and grab their wonder weapon to settle scores. There will always be a "normal" who snaps, maybe after a job dismissal or bitter domestic fight. And who then morphs into a mass murdering freak no different from Kliebold or Harris (the Columbine killers).
So this is what the indifferent Republicans have left us with, and why Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D, NY) was right last week to blast these weasels as "cowards" for not doing more on actual gun control. As he succinctly put it:
"More guns lead to more deaths."
The Reepos want you to believe they are soundly "pro-life". Do not believe it for a second. At most they are "pro-proto-life". For it only in its most rudimentary form and which must include domination of women's bodies along with it.
They are quite content to allow the lives of 6, 7, 8 and 9 year- olds to be blown to smithereens. Oh, and young (teen) mothers to die from complications of premature pregnancy by denying them abortion - all to stake out their spurious claims for life.
See Also:
How the AR-15 became a powerful political, cultural symbol in America - Washington Post
And:
Deranged GOP "Policy" of "Teachers with Guns" Goes Up In Smoke After Uvalde Massacre
And:
New Zealand Acts To Implement Assault Rifle Ban - Why Not The U.S.?
And:
Again: There Is NO "Right" To Own An AR-15 -
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