Villages Dems Club

Sumter Democrats

The Villages Democrats

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A blog for Democrats and Independents

Editor  - Jerry Meyer

The Following is re-printed From the Ditch Mitch Campaign

Earlier this month, America witnessed two more mass shootings within less than 24 hours of each other. Thirty-one more innocent lives were stolen, and thirty-one more families had to plan funerals, joining a club none of them ever wanted to be a part of.

In the days that followed, you couldn’t turn on the news without seeing the victims’ stories or hearing political talking heads discuss what should be done to prevent the next tragedy from happening.

Suddenly, even Republicans seemed on-board with the idea that something had to be done. Donald Trump came out in support of passing universal background checks. Republican congressmen sent out press releases saying they supported passing gun laws. And then, just four days after the massacre, something happened that we never expected to see: Mitch McConnell called for not just thoughts and prayers, but passing legislation.

"What’s happened after every one of these shootings is there’s been a temptation to just engage in political discourse rather than actually passing something… The key to this honestly is making a law and not making a point… The urgency of this is not lost on any of us, because we’ve seen entirely too many of these outrageous acts… What we can’t do is fail to pass something by just locking up and failing to pass. That’s unacceptable. What I want to see here is an outcome."

- Mitch McConnell; August 8, 2019; News Radio 840 WHAS

It was incredible. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. Could it be possible that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell would actually pass something – anything – to address gun violence?!

Of course, we know now that Mitch McConnell didn’t actually mean any of those words. He doesn’t actually intend to hold a vote on a gun bill. It was a lie. Already Donald Trump is now telling reporters that – never mind – actually, he agrees with the NRA. Our existing background checks are strong enough. We don’t need to ban assault weapons or high capacity magazines. We don’t need to pass a law. We don’t need to do anything.

Mitch McConnell was just stalling. He was hoping that Trump would say or do something outrageous between then and now (like trying to buy Greenland or saying something anti-Semitic). He was hoping that we would forget. He was hoping that we would move on until the next massacre. And unfortunately, it appears that once again, we have.

In 2015, after a mass shooting in Oregon that you’ve probably forgotten even happened because there have been so many countless ones after it, reporters gathered in the White House press briefing room to hear President Obama speak. They expected that he would give his usual condolence speech to the nation. But that’s not what happened. It was not his “routine” response. We saw something we rarely saw. We saw an angry Obama:

"Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We’ve become numb to this… This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction. When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer. When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we make communities safer. When roads are unsafe, we fix them to reduce auto fatalities. We have seatbelt laws because we know it saves lives. So the notion that gun violence is somehow different…"

- President Barack Obama; October 1, 2015

President Obama was right. And if we had listened to him then, imagine the countless lives we could have saved. If we want to get something done and finally pass gun reform – any gun reform – then we need to break the routine.

We need to stop forgetting about mass shootings until the next one occurs. We need to stop letting politicians like Mitch McConnell get away with pretending to care but then never actually holding a vote. We need to stop allowing the NRA and the gun lobby win. We need to stay angry. We need to keep protesting. We need to keep donating. We need to keep voting. And if we want to get anything done on gun reform, we need to defeat Mitch McConnell when he’s up for reelection in 2020.