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A Senate in the Gun Lobby’s Grip

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them.

On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have made it harder for criminals and people with dangerous mental illnesses to get hold of deadly firearms — a bill that could prevent future tragedies like those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va., and too many communities to count.

Some of the senators who voted against the background-check amendments have met with grieving parents whose children were murdered at Sandy Hook, in Newtown. Some of the senators who voted no have also looked into my eyes as I talked about my experience being shot in the head at point-blank range in suburban Tucson two years ago, and expressed sympathy for the 18 other people shot besides me, 6 of whom died. These senators have heard from their constituents — who polls show overwhelmingly favored expanding background checks. And still these senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them.

I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on.

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

People have told me that I’m courageous, but I have seen greater courage. Gabe Zimmerman, my friend and staff member in whose honor we dedicated a room in the United States Capitol this week, saw me shot in the head and saw the shooter turn his gunfire on others. Gabe ran toward me as I lay bleeding. Toward gunfire. And then the gunman shot him, and then Gabe died. His body lay on the pavement in front of the Safeway for hours.

I have thought a lot about why Gabe ran toward me when he could have run away. Service was part of his life, but it was also his job. The senators who voted against background checks for online and gun-show sales, and those who voted against checks to screen out would-be gun buyers with mental illness, failed to do their job.

They looked at these most benign and practical of solutions, offered by moderates from each party, and then they looked over their shoulder at the powerful, shadowy gun lobby — and brought shame on themselves and our government itself by choosing to do nothing.

They will try to hide their decision behind grand talk, behind willfully false accounts of what the bill might have done — trust me, I know how politicians talk when they want to distract you — but their decision was based on a misplaced sense of self-interest. I say misplaced, because to preserve their dignity and their legacy, they should have heeded the voices of their constituents. They should have honored the legacy of the thousands of victims of gun violence and their families, who have begged for action, not because it would bring their loved ones back, but so that others might be spared their agony.

This defeat is only the latest chapter of what I’ve always known would be a long, hard haul. Our democracy’s history is littered with names we neither remember nor celebrate — people who stood in the way of progress while protecting the powerful. On Wednesday, a number of senators voted to join that list.

Mark my words: if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s. To do nothing while others are in danger is not the American way.

Gabriel Giffords
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-g
rip.html?_r=1& Victim’s Sister Fires Back At Pro-Gun Senators: ‘We’re Not Props… We’re Not Going Away’

Carlee Soto, sister of Victoria Soto, a teacher killed in the Newtown massacre, appeared Thursday morning on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd and excoriated the senators who voted against the gun control bill.

“You tell your story,” Soto said, “you tell how your loved one died, and they just look at you with this blank look. There’s no compassion in their eyes, they don’t really care, they’re going to vote no anyway.”


Soto had been part of the concerted effort of Newtown families to lobby Senators in support of the bill, a team that also included Gabrielle Giffords. Their campaign fell short when every measure of the gun control legislation failed to clear the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle on Wednesday.

“We knew before going into the vote, before going into the gallery, that we weren’t going to get the sixty votes that we needed,” Soto told Todd. “It was heartbreaking to see our denators go, ‘Your loved ones died, oh well.’”

Soto displayed particular disdain for Senator Rand Paul, who had accused Barack Obama of using the Newtown families as props in the gun control debate.

“We’re not props,” Soto said, with a significant dose of disgust in her voice. “[Obama] is standing with us, helping us fight our fight for our loved ones, and if you think that, then you’re just absurd. That’s an awful thing to think.”

Soto promised that the effort to pass gun control reforms was not over. “The feeling that me and my family and everyone else that has lost someone to gun violence is a horrible feeling,” she said, “and we don’t want anyone else to have to feel this pain that we have to feel.”

“We’re not going away. We will keep fighting until something happens, until changed is made.”

Todd closed by praising Soto’s resilience in the wake of her sister’s death. “I don’t know how you guys do it,” he said, “throwing yourself in the middle just months after mourning the loss of your sister. I am impressed with your bravery.” http://www.mediaite.com/tv/newtown-victims-sister-fires-back-at-pro-gu
n-senators-were-not-props-were-not-going-away/ a setback for those who have supported national gun control legislation since the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, a "compromise" gun bill proposed by Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) and Joe Manchin III (D-West Virginia) met defeat on the floor of the Senate Wednesday afternoon in a 54-46 vote. The legislation, championed by President Barack Obama, would have expanded background checks on those interested in buying guns.

A majority of the Senate voted in favor of the measure. But the bill needed 60 votes to pass due to procedural steps taken by Republicans who opposed the bill, according to CNN.

Family members of victims from Sandy Hook and other recent shootings looked on from the gallery as the votes were cast, according to the New York Times. According to the Times, two family members shouted "Shame on you!" at lawmakers before Vice President Joe Biden asked for decorum.

"Vote went no 54 we needed 60. I'm sorry Vick I tried," tweeted Carlee Soto, daughter of shooting victim Victoria Soto, shortly after the vote.

"[Majority leader] Harry Reid voted 'no' but because of him we will have a second chance at the vote. He is on our side but had to vote no to get a second vote," she added later.

In Connecticut, gun control legislation has received a wholly different legislative reception.

Earlier this month, the general assembly passed -- and Gov. Dannel Malloy signed -- a bill giving Connecticut some of the toughest gun laws in the country. The legislation includes not only universal background checks, but also sweeping new gun laws that include expanded bans on high-powered weapons, high-capacity magazines.

"We are fortunate in Connecticut to be represented by two people in the United States Senate – Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy – who are clearly working to improve public safety," said Malloy following Wednesday's vote. "When the Senate cannot come together on an issue that is supported by the vast majority of Americans, there is little to no hope that common sense will prevail. The members who voted against this proposal should be ashamed of themselves." http://newtown.patch.com/articles/expanded-background-checks-fail-in-s
enate was expected by anyone who’s seen more than five minutes of Morning Joe in the past couple months, Joe Scarborough was upset this morning after the Senate failed to pass a measure that would expand background checks for gun purchases. Calling out those who voted against it, Scarborough emphatically stated that this Republican Party is headed toward “extinction” — and a new one will take its place.

Most of the times, “when you lose, you lose,” Scarborough said. But this time is different. “This is just the beginning” — and the fight won’t end until we have a better background check system. Mike Barnicle agreed with Scarborough, noting that President Obama wasn’t the one who lost yesterday. “The president did not suffer a defeat,” he asserted. “The American people suffered the defeat yesterday in the United States Senate.”

As Barnicle went on to illustrated how the Senate is a “broken” institution, the discussion turned toward filibuster reform, and how the talk about it didn’t result in any action. If Democrats had pushed to change the rules, Scarborough posited, this bill would have passed.

“You do not ignore 90 percent of the American people on an issue of public safety,” Scarborough charged, following Mika Brzezinski‘s praise about how he’s always right about political ramifications:

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“Mark it down, this is going to be a turning point in the history of the Republican Party as well. And let those out there chattering, let them chatter away all they want to and scream like hyenas. … This party that killed this background check yesterday — this party is moving toward extinction. A new Republican Party is going to replace it. And this is going to be a vote that people will look back on and say, ‘That party, that extremism, that was unsustainable.’”

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http://www.mediaite.com/tv/scarborough-goes-off-on-gop-for-voting-agai
nst-background-checks-this-party-is-moving-toward-extinction/: Actual People Care More About Guns Than Any Other News Story

The Pew Research Center For The People And The Press actually does measure how much people care about various issues in the news, and their most recent survey ( http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/08/gun-debate-draws-more-interest-
than-immigration-policy-debate/]) indicates that Americans care more about the gun debate than any other issue, and have for most of this year. In the January 3-6 survey, 34% of Americans said they were following news on the gun debate very closely, a close second to the fiscal cliff’s 38%. Since then, the gun debate has dominated the survey every time it’s been included:

Most recently, the gun debate edged out North Korea, 37%-36%, while immigration remained flat, at 23%, since February. At its peak, the gun debate was being followed either “very closely” or “fairly closely” by 72% of Americans, and remains at 65% of Americans closely following it.

The real test will be how this issues fares now that the first round of post-Newtown legislative action has been sabotaged, and whether committed activists like Gabby Giffords can keep it alive in the minds of Americans long enough to make a difference in 2014. http://www.mediaite.com/online/poll-actual-people-care-more-about-guns
-than-any-other-news-story/

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