Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA
A few of the political observers said on the cable networks that it may be different this time – that the outrage over availability of assault weapons to commit atrocities like the one in Parkland this week just might have reached its peak. Legislative action to control guns may be on the way.
They are wrong.
Why? Because the people who control our Congress owe their jobs in part to the National Rifle Association. It was the NRA’s money that helped get them elected. Both branches of Congress are led by the Republican Party. Guess which party’s representatives are the biggest recipients of that dirty money.
Sen. Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the Senate, said after the shooting that killed 17 people and injured at least 15, most of them students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: We shouldn’t “politicize” the massacre. Oh goodness no! Politicizing means doing something to stop it. If McConnell and his ilk did that, they’d incur the disfavor of their benefactor. Think of how ungrateful that would seem.
Rep. Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan, the Republican leader of the House, said Congress needed to “take a breath and collect the facts. We don’t just knee-jerk before we even have all the facts and the data.”
Really? A 19-year-old man already has been arrested and confessed to the shooting. He brandished an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, the military-styled weapon used in many other horrific attacks in recent years. It’s been recovered. So what other facts do you need, Rep. Ryan?
Sen. Marco Rubio
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said on the Senate floor that politicians weren’t too blame for the mass shootings. Well no, Democratic politicians have been trying for years to stop the proliferation of guns such as the AR-15, which the shooter was able to purchase at a store. And then there are the Republican politicians. They’ve quashed every Democratic effort.
But of course, who would expect Rubio to say anything else? He is No. 6 on the list of U.S. senators who have received the most money from the NRA during their careers. His total is $3.3 million.
I owe my soul to the NRA
As a Palm Beach Post story noted this week, “Fealty to the NRA has long been a political winner for GOP candidates.”
President Trump
An MSNBC host opined that young people may have the best chance at getting Congress to prevent circulation of deadly weapons useful only for mass shootings. A group of students from the Parkland high school demonstrated and shouted demands for legislation to protect them from any more people with an ax to grind and a gun to kill. If these youngsters organize, perhaps politicians will be shamed into acting.
But they face formidable opposition from pols who kneel at the altar of three values: the power and the glory and the money. The model whose life is almost solely dedicated to such shallowness is President Donald Trump, who typically abdicated his leadership role by remaining mum about a need for action on this issue, instead blaming local officials for the deed.
Removing those three idols from these people who control our fate is likely our sole hope of forging change. Take away the first, i.e., power, and the other two golden calves will crumble, as well. Kicking these craven, unprincipled dregs from office is the road to progress. The way to do that, of course, is in the voting booth.
Sen. Chris Murphy
But who should we replace them with? Well, look around. Who have held the reins of power throughout our nation’s history? Testosterone-fueled white men.
To be sure, there are staunch proponents of peace and civility, of economic fairness and justice for the downtrodden, among white males in Congress. Take Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, for example. “If you are not working today to try to fix this, to try to stop these shootings, then you’re an accomplice,” he told the Senate this week.
Female Power
Megyn Kelly
The most concerned voices, however, have been heard among the female ranks. Megyn Kelly, who at Fox Noise, er, News, was surrounded by the Neanderthalish male types who are leading our nation over the cliff, took direct aim at Congress on her MSNBC show.
Sen. Kamala Harris
“No gun reforms are getting through,” she said. “They’re not. And most of the ones that will be proposed in the wake of this shooting will be utterly meaningless and wouldn’t have even arguably prevented this killing. The NRA is too powerful, our politicians are too weak, and the guns are too ubiquitous.”
Here’s what Kamala Harris, the Democratic senator from California, had to say: “We cannot tolerate a society and live in a country with any level of pride when our babies are being slaughtered … This cannot be a political issue. We have to have smart gun safety laws.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
Harris formerly was attorney general of California. “I had to look at autopsy photographs,” she said. “When you see the effect of this extreme violence on a human body, and especially the body of a child, maybe it will shock some people into understanding.”
Her calm, measured voice is gaining an audience. She is expected to be a candidate for president in 2020. Harris is relatively young at 53, of black and Indian descent, and demonstrably intelligent and capable.
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Sen. Joe Biden
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is considered another likely female presidential candidate. Joe Biden also might run, along with Bernie Sanders – two male politicians who champion the middle and lower classes and shun Wall Street elites.
If all four of these highly principled and effect public servants run, the choice in the Democratic primaries will be awfully difficult to make. But picking one of them over any candidate put forth by the morally impoverished Republican Party will be as easy as choosing Dutch crust apple pie over a Christmas fruitcake.