Washington made great strides late in the week by deciding not to filibuster the (poor excuse of a) gun safety bill. On a 68 to 31 vote, the Senate managed to allow debate…
We live in an odd and sad country when simply allowing debate is a major accomplishment in politics. Thank you, Republican Party of the Obama era; we tip our hats to thee for being such worthy leaders (with fingers crossed and the smell of rotten eggs in our noses).
Keep that point mind: the Senate has allowed debate (i.e. did not filibuster). They haven’t passed anything, and most definitely not even hinting that anything will get through the House – the House which is still very much controlled by the more extreme factions of the Republican Party. Here, I’m addressing only the extremes. There are plenty of reasonable people in Republicanland, but the problem is they’re too comfortable and are letting the crazies run the party – so that’s where I focus this post.
There is a chance that something will get thought the House, but by the time the poor bill makes it through it will not only be riddled with holes, but it will have so many amendments that it will likely do more harm than good. The country will probably get a very weak law called universal background checks, but it will only apply to one additional area: gun shows. Private sales, straw purchases all that activity that gets guns into the hands of the wrong people will still go on. Mainly because the NRA and Republicanland have been so good in the last decade or so developing the ‘slipper slope” argument around any and all issues: guns, marriage, religion, food, everything. It’s a simple argument that simple people cling to, so it works well for the republican base.
We also must not forget that this is the same group of politicians (republicans in the Senate) who sided with Syria, North Korea, and Iran in voting against a U.N. treaty to help prevent the sale of weapons to known terrorists… you know… because republicans want to sell guns to terrorists?
Republican gun paranoia context
Make another note of that issue: the U.N. treaty is entirely about INTERNATIONAL weapons sales to known and suspected terrorists – it has nothing whatsoever to do with how the Second Amendment applies to sales and citizens int he United States…. unless you’re trying to buy a gun from Iran… The extreme right-wing of the Republican Party has built up such a demon in the U.N. that they have now refused to ratify two treaties: one that encourages all countries to improve disability access (republicans voted against that because they think that would mean the UN will come into their homes and kidnap their children). That treaty was modeled on the Americans with Disabilities Act… and is less strict… hence meaning the treaty has no impact in the U.S.A… but republicans in the Senate voted against it anyway. Now, republicans are siding with the three worst countries when it comes to “respectable government insofar as it doesn’t kill its own people” in not supporting a treaty that says, “Hey… let’s not sell guns to terrorists.” They are so terrified of the U.N. for some unknown reason that they’d rather side with countries who regularly kill their own citizens for sport. Literally, those are the republican bedfellows: Syria, Iran, and North Korea. The republican base is terrified of the U.N., which is one reason why they are increasingly “unlimited gun rights.”
The gun safety legislation is already very weak. At best we can hope for stronger background checks and finally saying to one another “you know what? gun trafficking is probably a bad thing.” However, we must never overestimate the paranoia of the republican ideologue. Every single gun law that we started with was 100% logical, reasonable, and was constitutional. The stripped-down version we have now is entirely due to republican fear of losing in primaries. If anything actually gets out of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, John Boehner will be very hard pressed to get the crazies in the House to give a majority. He can’t get his own bills passed that are non-controversial… how in the world do we think he’ll get even the weakest gun laws passed?
Will gun laws ever pass in Congress? Yes… but not now. Democrats have to win back the House first. Background checks might make it, but there will be so many loop holes that it will only be a “feel better about ourselves” sort of bill. We don’t get a law that means anything, or a law that will actually do anything until we get rid of the extreme right in politics.
Right now we have a Republican Party who are giving speeches about racial inclusion by referencing Abraham Lincoln, we have over 300 laws just in 2013 of republicans trying to put even more restrictions on abortion… there’s no way with that level of ultra-conservative lashing out that meaningful gun laws will get passed. It’s what is. This is what happens when the first black man becomes president: hyper-intense old-white-world backlash to legislate every last über-conservative “value” they can – because the world is changing. The country will age out of it, but lordy… I hope America grows out of the white conservative backlash soon… say by 2016?
