It was ironic that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s latest listening to to cope with the tragic killings of seven individuals in Georgia coincided with the much more tragic, however all too predictable, occasions in Boulder, Colo., the place a possible deranged man opened hearth on unsuspecting consumers and vaccine seekers at a grocery store, killing 10 individuals. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), tanned and rested from his latest journey to Cancun throughout Texas’ latest vitality disaster, sought to out-Trump Trump whereas the “former man” was on lockdown from Twitter. On the listening to, Cruz, who enjoys an A+ ranking from the now-bankrupt NRA, referred to as the efforts of the Judiciary Committee to deliver some type of cheap restraints on the out-of-control variety of deaths attributable to gunfire, merely “theatre.” I agree that it’s “theatre,” however it’s “theatre of the absurd.”
The GOP has already received the main battle concerning the “proper to bear arms” on account of the Supreme Courtroom’s 2008 determination Heller v. District of Columbia, holding that the proper to personal arms – unrelated to membership in a militia – is protected by the Second Modification. What was “absurd” about Cruz’s remarks was his false accusation that the Judiciary Committee’s intent was to take away the arms from “lawful residents.” This was plainly unfaithful; as unfaithful as Cruz’s inaccurate competition on Jan. 6 that President Biden didn’t legally win the 2020 election by over 7 million votes or that Biden’s election was obtained by large fraud.
What Cruz and the remainder of the GOP are doing is making an attempt to learn out of the Heller case Justice Scalia’s clear assertion that the proper to personal arms will not be with out cheap limitations. Because the Heller courtroom acknowledged: “[N]othing in our opinion ought to be taken to forged doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally sick, or legal guidelines forbidding the carrying of firearms in delicate locations reminiscent of faculties and authorities buildings, or legal guidelines imposing situations and {qualifications} on the industrial sale of arms.” {Emphasis added.} As an alternative, within the face of a veritable avalanche of gun violence, the GOP refuses to think about any limitation on possession or sale of weapons, together with, after all, the weapon of selection of the mass assassin, the military-grade AR-15.
Let’s think about among the related statistics and think about the GOP’s irrational stance towards any regulation on the sale and possession of firearms:
A survey performed by Pew Analysis Middle in September 2019 discovered that 60 p.c of Individuals say gun legal guidelines ought to be more durable, up from 57 p.c the earlier yr and 52 p.c in 2017. This assist was divided largely down occasion traces, with 86 p.c of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying gun legal guidelines ought to be stricter than they’re as we speak, in contrast with 31 p.c of Republicans. A more moderen Gallup Ballot had the bulk at 57 p.c, however notably solely 9 p.c thought that the regulation was too strict. Lastly, and extra particularly, the web site Politifact discovered that 90 p.c of the American public supported background checks on all weapons!
In September 2020, the Small Arms Survey decided that the U.S., with solely 4 p.c of the world’s inhabitants, owned 40 p.c of the firearms, making the U.S. the very best per capita proprietor of firearms on the earth. The survey estimated that there are 393 million firearms within the U.S. Final yr, some 50 million firearms had been offered and predictions are that that quantity might be exceeded this yr! It’s well-known that the NRA has had a direct affect on elections and largely for the good thing about the GOP, each by direct political contributions and thru its Tremendous-Pac. Within the latest Judiciary Committee listening to, Sen. Kennedy (R-La.) drew the false analogy of drunk driving accidents and loss of life to these of deaths by firearm, contending that this didn’t imply that we must always take all automobiles off the street. What he didn’t think about was the relative social good thing about vehicles to that of the possession of AR-15s or the truth that, versus firearms, drunk driving enforcement and penalties have elevated exponentially lately, versus the regulation of firearms. In 1983, whereas 58 p.c of the 42,589 individuals who died in a collision had been killed in an alcohol-related collision, by 2018, lower than 30 p.c had been associated to alcohol: https://driversed.com/trending/driving-under-influence-do-strict-dui-laws-really-work.
The Washington Put up has simply reported that 2020 was the worst yr recorded for loss of life by gun violence with practically 20,000 deaths, and a further 24,000 deaths by suicide with a gun. Does anybody imagine, with firearm gross sales anticipated to exceed 50 million this yr, that the variety of deaths by gun violence will go down with out regulation? Furthermore, think about the nightmare state of affairs of what would have occurred had the armed insurrections been armed with AR-15s on Jan. 6 on the Capitol!
What if, per the modest proposals advance by the Senate, deaths by gun violence might be decreased by 28 p.c as has occurred with drunk driving deaths? Now that may be actual theatre, not of the absurd, however a hit present!
