Last Saturday, a racist murdered 10 Black people at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket. He was able to kill so quickly and efficiently because he had a gun. A sane society might address the obvious problem, but the gun lobby’s pet Republicans refuse to do anything except shift the blame.
PREVIOUSLY: Same Clueless A-Holes Blaming Video Games For Racist Gun Violence Again
After every regularly scheduled massacre, Democrats call for sensible gun control laws. This time was no exception. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Tuesday that the Buffalo shooting shows that “we need a national gun policy that is common sense like we have here in New York. We need this everywhere. And we’ll all remember that it started here in Buffalo, New York.” (That last sentence was admittedly weird.)
During his speech in Buffalo yesterday, President Joe Biden said, “We can keep assault weapons off our streets, we’ve done it before.” He’s most likely referring to the the Assault Weapons Ban that Congress passed in September 1994 and President George W. Bush let expire in 2004. This was obviously a while ago and the political landscape was different: conservative Southern Democrats were a major obstacle to passage, and the Clinton administration worked with moderate Republicans from the suburbs. Those “moderates” are all gone now, but we’re still stuck with conservative Democrat Joe Manchin who opposes an assault weapons ban.
The Republicans who exist in reality and not Biden’s old photo albums have solidified their opposition to gun safety measures. The Hill gives Republicans credit for quickly denouncing racist mass murder — hooray? — but Republicans just as quickly offered up the same stale excuses for their almost sociopathic inaction.
Senator John Barrasso, a member of GOP leadership, said Tuesday, “It just doesn’t seem to be helpful to me to go after law-abiding citizens and our Second Amendment rights, so I’m going to continue to hold that position.” When former Republican House Rep. Peter King from New York voted for the assault weapons ban, he bluntly stated, “I know people on the Second Amendment side go nuts when you say this, but what is the purpose of an assault weapon?”
The 18-year-old racist killer bought his death machine at a vintage gun shop in Endicott, New York. The owner confirms that he ran a background check but nothing came up. However, last June, state police investigated the shooter and ordered a psychiatric evaluation. The NRA and Republicans have pushed back against Democratic efforts to keep guns away from mentally ill people. They claim this violates the mentally ill’s constitutional gun rights without “due process.” So, presumably, now that the Buffalo shooter has murdered all those people, a future background check might flag him as a problem.
Iowa GOP Senator Chuck Grassley insulted America’s collective intelligence Monday with this bullshit:
“I think I heard a Black person from Buffalo on television say that guns don’t kill, people kill. So what are you going to accomplish by gun control?” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said on Monday. “Particularly, if it’s a violation of the Second Amendment?”
I love my Black people, but any Black person who claims after a mass shooting that “guns don’t kill, people kill” is a moron. If that racist asshole didn’t have a gun, any number of Black ladies on the scene could’ve put him in check with their handbags.
A 2021 Pew Research study showed that 75 percent of Black Americans support stricter gun control laws, compared to just 45 percent of white people, who are mentally living in the Wild West. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, “each day on average, 30 Black Americans are killed by guns and more than 110 experience non-fatal injuries.” Guns aren’t making us safer.
But I guess these studies aren’t as rigorously peer reviewed as whatever an old white guy happens to catch on TV.
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