Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) is echoing Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) in his conviction that there is still hope for this latest push in gun control legislation, despite signs from President Donald Trump that the effort has reached its cyclical end.
Right, we are all holding our breaths. Nothing is going to happen as long as the NRA has Trump on speed dial and he jumps to answer.
“Fundamentally, [it’s] a difficult task. That being said, the chances are looking better than they have ever looked at any time, certainly, since Sen. Manchin and I first pushed for Manchin-Toomey back in 2013,” Toomey told Politico.
Sorry Toomey, anything times 0 is still 0.
If you really want gun control, you needs D’s to hold the house, senate and Presidency (and probably the Supreme Court).
At midway airport this am. There is a sign on the screen after the note that reminds you that you can’t have a gun here:
“SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR LITTLE FRIEND!”
Toomey will back down to Trump simply because Trump has increased his and his backers .
Guns don’t kill people. People with guns kill people. People without stringent background checks and high capacity magazines really kill people.
Toomey has done this routine before, to no avail. And we’ve seen Trump “project optimism” that the Chinese will fold and make a deal about 20 times now – and each time, the Wall Street oligarchs have bought on the “optimism,” and then promptly dumped the market. Hmm, makes one suspicious.
Random observations:
As always, make this a test of Trump’s political manhood. He has more power over Rs than any President has ever had over their political party – so all by himself he decides what is politically possible for Republicans. Frame this as Trump vs. the NRA. Make it stark so when he caves, it’s all on him.
Build a systematic, step by step strategy for firearms regulation. Enough of reacting to the NRA. However weak, background checks are a step in the right direction – but a strategy aims at changing the politics surrounding guns in a way that weak legislation cannot do.
Ds need to recruit gun owners. Here’s a suggestion – go find the legit, legal owners of firearms that were stolen and then used in crimes. Make them the face of the need for biometric safeties: if the thieves who stole their weapons hadn’t been able to fire them, this person wouldn’t be dead, that person wouldn’t have been raped, and so on. Make it personal and specific.
Biometric safeties, for example, are a technological advance. Americans do that. Insisting that guns cannot be safer is literally un-American.
Fund research into the actual damage done by firearms. Harvard did a brilliant study of suicide attempts – it isn’t that there are more suicide attempts in households with guns, but they are more successful.
Recruit insurance companies. Firearms manufacturers and owners are uniquely protected from negligence and malice.
Finally, defeat some NRA favorites in November, 2020. People who win elections are understandably reluctant to antagonize a well-funded, thoroughly organized group of voters – but they actually fear losing an election. Sending a clear message that the NRA cannot protect their own is how to get good stuff done.
…and I project optimism that Scott Baio will win the Tony Award for Best Actor next year for starring in “Hamlet” on Broadway.
Pat Toomey is as useless as teats on a Devin Nunes.
And any gun legislation he is in favor of will be just as useless.
Yeah! There false hope that watered down legislation that will solve nothing might get a vote until Mitch or Donald kill it strongly.
We must win 2020 and we must take down the NRA in court and expose the corruption. Until then the dying continues as punishment for our national sin of allowing these people in power.
Dozens of times every year you can find stories of children injured, maimed or killed by guns carelessly left within their reach by the adults caring (ahem) for them. Very often a follow up story reveals the local prosecutor declines to press any charges whatsoever against either the gun owner or the adults that were supposed to be supervising the children. Usually the grief and pain being suffered by the parent is cited, along with the fact there are other children still in the home and some sort of court sanction or penalty will only make their lives more difficult and complicated.
What other crimes can you be let off the hook for due to the fact now you’re sad and have kids to raise? You can’t rob a bank, burn down an office building or rape a person and see the prosecutor decline charges because you’re sad and busy raising kids. But leave a loaded gun on the coffee table and a kid is killed for your neglect and often that’s the end of it as far as the law is concerned. Just an unfortunate accident. Nothing to see here, move along.
Toomey said that based on a conversation he had with Trump late last week, Trump was still “very interested”
And having recently emerged from a two-year stint under a rock, Toomey believed him.
This is why parents in these godawful circumstances should be recruited, to be the poster people for biometric safeties.
The point isn’t to punish 'em. The point is stop making so many of 'em.
Add:
Where can I buy tickets?
Melania should be required to carry a gun… just in case Don encounters any porn stars.
“Shooting Porn Stars” would make a good name for a punk metal band. Just sayin’…