Author: patd

Another Reason to Vote for Change Down Ballot

Attribution: Gun Control Congress Failure by Christopher Weyant, CagleCartoons.com

Excerpt from: ‘We’re all sitting ducks’ without more substantial gun control, Warnock says | US gun control | The Guardian

Vance “talks about hardening our schools and making them secure – well the reality is this is happening in spas, in shopping malls”, Warnock said on CNN. “It’s happening in houses of worship, in medical clinics.

“What are we going to do? Make the whole country into a fort?”

He told NBC: “We’re all sitting ducks. And any country that allows this to continue without putting forward just common sense safety measures is a country that has – in a tragic way – lost its way.”

Warnock alluded to an April 2023 Fox News poll which reaffirmed that the vast majority of Americans favored strengthening gun safety laws. And he said Congress took an encouraging first step toward treating such public support as a mandate when it enacted bipartisan legislation that expanded background checks for the youngest gun buyers while funding mental health and violence intervention programs.

But what was the first major federal firearms safety bill to pass Congress in nearly three decades was “clearly not enough”, Warnock said, noting how the US continues recording a number of mass shootings that is disproportionate at the global level.

Warnock said polls show most in the US overwhelmingly support universal background checks. Furthermore, Warnock said that large numbers of Americans support banning general access to assault-style rifles and semi-automatic firearms.

Yet federal lawmakers have not been able to get enough votes to clear procedural hurdles preventing Congress from meaningfully consider either issue. Warnock on Sunday blamed that reality on congressmembers who – out of ambition or fear – accept financial support from the wealthy gun industry.

“We are at an impasse because there are people in … politics … who are doing the bidding of the corporatist gun lobby even as they line their pockets with the blood of our children,” Warnock said.