Gabby Giffords on the Senate's Shame

I am as politically fired up for the 2014 midterms as I have ever been as a citizen.

Yesterday's vote and what it represents to our democracy are that alarming to me.

It's not a party issue, given a bipartisan bill and the strong public support for such minor tweaks to existing laws. So I am happy to work against both Dems and Repubs that voted in their own NRA-funded interest yesterday.

 

I'm confused. Would the bill that was voted on have been able to prevent Sandy Hook if it were the law of the land before that happened?

 

There were actually three bills voted on. Some of those bills most likely would have saved lives at Sandy Hook.

 

Could you explain? I only followed the background checks.

 

Until we have an alternate Earth, you can't run that experiment.

The kinds of laws that would *most likely* prevent another such event are *probably* stronger than the milquetoast bill that was presented, but you well know that's not the point. The milquetoast bill was the palatable solution to preventing at least *some* future tragedies. It actually had a mental health component and made sensible (tiny) changes.

The first point to me is not your question at all: it is a truly broken democracy, given the strong bipartisan support of a (really trivial) bill before the Senate.

The second point to me is that the NRA has activated me with their blatant lies and distortions. I get to see their propaganda first hand, since my dad belongs to them and shares the (completely absurdist) letters. The NRA letters make some of the more winger posters here look mild by comparison. They are truly incredible.

 

There was also an assault weapons ban that was voted on, and a separate high capacity magazine bill that was voted on.

The shooter at Sandy Hook used an assault rifle and high capacity magazines those could have. Furthermore there's evidence that 11 children at Sandy Hook escaped when the shooter changed magazines. If he'd had to do that more times it makes sense more children would have escaped.

The background checks had the best chance of passing though.

But again even if all three passed nothing was going to change because the House isn't close to passing any law on gun control.

 

Thank you for actually answering without being snarky.

I didn't ask if it was good policy. The President and Gabby Gifford's article directly tie the failure of this law to pass the Senate as a betrayal of the victims of Sandy Hook. My question was whether the two are related beyond guns being involved. Would this bill have been able to prevent Sandy Hook? Or are they just using those victims for political convenience?

I have not followed the gun control issue closely (too busy lately, not posting much in the D&D) in the Senate so I didn't realize there was more to the vote than the background checks. Which is why I asked.

 

Where does this 90% number come from?

Rocket River
never known 90% of Americans to agree on anything . .

 

I never said I oppose the legislation. I'm out of the loop on the legislation so I neither oppose it nor support it. I only heard that there were expanded background checks, which I do support with certain caveats. The last time I checked in on this legislation was when Senator Feinstein complained on the Senate floor that they weren't bringing the other issues to vote. Now it appears they did.

I do oppose using the victims of Sandy Hook as a political tool and dragging them out to television anytime you want to shame your opposition.

 

That mental health component was actually presented by the Republicans that increases enforcement and reporting on mentally ill people.

It lost because the Democrats, not the Republicans.

Link to Mental Health component

Here is the link to all of the things that were voted on yesterday.

Link

Two more components are being voted on today.

And if you look at how people voted on things state by state you would notice that many Democrats that voted the "NRA way" are in states that have large numbers of hunters and gun enthusiasts. Seems to me they are voting the way their constituency would have them, not just some special interest.

 

Don't forget to use some variant of "shame" or "shameful" to characterize any disagreement with your position.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/.../National-Politics/Polling/question_10030.xml

BTW, that took all of 2 seconds to type into the google

 

"among a random national sample of 1,001 adults"

Would you support or oppose a law requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows?

If you ask 1001 random people this question without pointing out what exactly that law would entail.

Also, if you look at that poll over time, The level of opposition is steadily decreasing.

 

Shall I post polls from other organizations that show the same result?

 

So if we take away the guns why won't people just start using bombs, plain old arson, or vehicular homicide?

I am not disagreeing with her argument, but I kind of get annoyed when anyone brings up the "think about the children" argument. Because we know that no one really cares about the children unless they are their own.

 

Do you understand the way polls work? Do you understand why that's a significant sample size and probably accurate?

 

Sure.