Discussion: America's Largest Mass Shooting Is Reshaping How Congress Debates Guns

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Shorter GOP: “We’ll submit a watered-down version of what we believe the NRA could live with, and if the Democrats support it, then we’ll see to it that it fails.”

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I think it has a lot to do with Hillary being a nominee and taking gun safety as a priority issue.
If the Dem nominee wasn’t a big supporter of gun safety i don’t think this would be happening in this way.

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That only took 16 years! Democrats self-neutered on gun control following Gore’s defeat in 2000. As a life-long Democrat, it’s nice to see some are finally regrowing a pair.

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How did they self-neuter?

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The NRA supports the purchase and theft of guns by criminals and terrorists…all in the name of the constitution. The Republicans have fallen for it. Congressman Holding of NC doesn’t care. As long as he is safe in the House where guns are not permitted, constituents in his district can shoot each other. He is scared to death of the NRA and doesn’t understand the constitution when it talks about the “well regulated” militia. He is more interested in eating at fancy restaurants and prefers to legislate “in the background.”

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We need to do our part as well. Everyone here needs to contact their senators, urging them to support this bill.

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This doesn’t have as much to do with Hillary as it has to do with 49 dead Americans and 90% of voters wanting to stop terrorists from having easy access to guns. What the hell is wrong with the other 10%?

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It wasn’t so much self neuternig, as it was neutering by SCOTUS. US. v. Emerson came out in 2002, and that was the first ruling that declared there was an individual right to bear arms, followed quickly by the expansions in US vs. Heller, which created a right to self protection as well as directly struck down gun bans.

That combination made gun control legislation difficult and tricky…tricky because any new laws were almost assuredly going to be fast tracked before a Scalia led republican majority that was going to overturn them AND use it as an opportunity to continue to expand their definition of gun rights.

Which again, brings us back to why electing Hillary is so vitally important. A 5-4 Democratic majority could and probably would see overturning both of those rulings and bring us back to the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that we have had for over 200 years…that its a collective right of states to have militias, and not an individual right to own every freaking firearm ever made.

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Oh please, it has nothing to do with Hillary and everything to do with the GOP being in the pocket of the NRA, to the tune of $36m to the 56 Republican senators who voted against the wishes of even their own constituents.

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In short, sell military-grade assault weapons to terrorists on the streets of America.

But don’t worry. Your Congressman is safe, thanks to bans on all guns anywhere near him.

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Where does it show that people want terrorists to have easy access to purchase weapons? Let’s see, There is a group of people that wants to give due process to the detainees in Gitmo and are fighting hard to either release them or bring them into the US. That same group of people is demanding that due process be suspended for both US citizens and others on the no-fly list that was compiled without due process and people don’t know they are on it until they attempt to use commercial airlines. Now, which other amendment does there need to be shredded? However, let’s look at numbers, not feelings; deaths due to knives were at least 5 times more than rifles according to the FBI. Of course handguns were the overwhelming ‘choice’ for killing.
https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fbi.gov%2Fabout-us%2Fcjis%2Fucr%2Fcrime-in-the-u.s%2F2013%2Fcrime-in-the-u.s.-2013%2Foffenses-known-to-law-enforcement%2Fexpanded-homicide%2Fexpanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls&h=lAQFZFQq5

However, why isn’t gun control at the top of the list for those same people when we’re looking at the numbers from Chicago, NY, Baltimore, DC, Houston, NOLA, etc.?

Something like reshaping a turd into a lemon.
The new shape doesn’t look quite as disgusting and leaves a little better taste in your mouth but it’s still a lemon.

Republicans are either for sensible gun control and not beholden to the NRA or they aren’t. If they really wanted to pass a law and do something they’d see to it that it happened. All of the bullshit 2nd amendment excuses are just that, excuses.

If this was a bill to lower taxes on gun manufacturers, these rat bastards would pass it faster than a speeding bullet, whilst leaping tall buildings even.

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“Which again, brings us back to why electing Hillary is so vitally important.”

I think it’s fair to say that the importance of electing Hillary is over-determined—many times over.

Just looking at this from the perspective of an alien coming to this country: it is simply astounding that it takes a huge fight to just maybe make it possible that potential terrorists be prohibited from freely buying assault weapons. 15 years ago one never would have believed this.

The talk was that Gore lost TN because he favored gun control. Whether or not that was true, Democrats (at the federal level at least) either went silent on gun control or, in some cases, actively campaigned as gun rights supporters, in effective discarding the opportunity that Democratic control of the 111th Congress and the presidency would have allowed to, for instance, reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

Maybe it will take rocks and bottles tossed in the House.
Paul Ryan saying this sit-in was a stunt. That’s an insult to the memory of the entire civil rights movement to me. Other repub members call the democrats terrorists or sympathizers. That shows their ignorance on the subject.

In my opinion the NRA has blood on their hands.
This debate is about slowing down the killing because no law will stop it. But republicans don’t want the killing to even slow down.
Shaming Paul Ryan and the other repub members won’t work because the NRA owns them. Body and soul.

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You should have told Omar Mateen about this. It would have saved him a bit of time, trouble and money if he knew he could have just brought a knife to Pulse.

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Anyone with half a brain must realize that nothing can stop a determined terrorist from getting his hand on firearms. We can’t even stop illegals and drugs from getting into our country and with the amount of firearms that already exist here, there’s no way to stop the acquisition of them. In some States a person could procure a gun quicker through the black market then at a gun store. If all the law abiding citizens of the country turned in their weapons that would still be a drop in the bucket. This is just another political gimmick. A cynical ploy to win support at the expense of those killed by a terrorist. The Government can’t even enforce the laws they have now let alone any new feel good gun laws. Having said that, I do think that gun regulations should be standardized on a federal level. I’m in the minority of pro Second Amendment types. Living in California I’m used to the way the State handles the purchase of firearms. Although I disagree with it’s onerous Drop testing restriction which are just meant to discourage gun manufacturers from selling their products.
10 day waiting period? Fine.
Background Check? Obviously Fine
Basic Firearms Testing? Fine
Restrictions on Private Party selling and closing gun show loopholes? Fine

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@Lauren Fox…This is not the largest mass shooting in America’s history. Please reword the title and intro sentence.