It’s all about appearing to Do Something and getting the votes
Democrats aim for modest deal on guns
Senate Democrats say they are ready to accept a modest deal on gun-control legislation as they are eager to get something done in response to mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, even if it falls below their ambitions of previous years.
A bipartisan group of nine senators met Thursday afternoon to chart out a path for negotiations.
They say their top priorities are proposals to expand background checks and encourage states to set up red-flag laws to prohibit people deemed dangerous to themselves or others from owning firearms.
Democrats acknowledged from the outset that whatever deal they get is likely to be modest since it needs at least 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. (big snip)
Nineteen states already have red flag laws on the books, including New York, where a 18-year-old shooter killed 10 people with an AR-15 assault rifle at a Buffalo supermarket. Connecticut enacted the nation’s first red flag law in 1999 but that didn’t stop a 20-year-old shooter from killing 26 people at Sandy Hook with a Bushmaster assault-style rifle.
Even though Texas really doesn’t have one, it wouldn’t have stopped that nutter as well. The kid was apparently violent and abusive and threatening. And “expanded background checks” wouldn’t have caught that, either, nor, potentially, the others. Laws only work if people pay attention to them, if law enforcement enforces them. How many people will you see who blow off stop signs today and face no consequences?
The question here is, “what happens if they get these laws?” Will Democrats attempt to implement a death by a thousand papercuts process to get even more and strong restrictions? The devil is in the details of the background checks proposal: does it require registration of all firearms with the government? Do the Democrats then want even tougher then tougher then tougher gun control which primarily hits the law abiding, rather than the criminals?
How about this proposal: if someone wants to sell their firearm privately, they should be required to fill out a form that shows the ID number of the gun, notes that the buyer must go get a background check within 2 days, and it be notarized and filed at either a county/city clerk office, police station, or Sheriff’s office. That puts the burden on the buyer, not the seller. It means someone has the papers, and can follow through.
How about locking the doors for entry into schools? Having armed security at the main entrance?
The Blumenthal-Graham bill would empower law enforcement officers to file a petition with a federal court requesting that someone deemed to be danger be prohibited from owning a firearm. Their proposal would allow that person a speedy hearing to protest the order.
“It’s a grant program,” said Graham. “We’re not federalizing this. We’re trying to incentivize best business practices at the state level.”
Yeah, they’re federalizing this, and, there’s no way it is speedy.
How does one actually implement the so-called “red flag” laws? It’s clear that neither Salvadore Ramos nor Payton Gendron were reported to law enforcement prior to buying his weapons, despite having left significant warnings via social media.
Nikolas Cruz had many ‘encounters’ with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, but they always let him off with a warning. He assaulted a student in school, but the soft-hearted and soft-headed school board, eager to disrupt the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’, declined to report that to law enforcement.
If private citizens were unwilling to see Messrs Ramos and Gendron as serious enough threats to take some action, if the idiots in Broward County were unwilling to actually enforce laws already on the books, with what does that leave us? Nina Jankowicz and her Ministry of Truth scouring Twitter and Facebook, reading every message, trying to ferret out bad people? Perhaps some sort of government surveillance of email, looking for nut cases?
No, what we’ll have are people using the system to cause problems for their enemies, cheating wives or their boyfriends trying to get at husbands, beta males trying to take the alphas down a peg, gang members trying to get opposing gang members disarmed and into the ‘system,’ cheating husbands or their girlfriends trying to get cheated on wives checked on by the police, or just liberals trying a new form of ‘SWATting’ against sensible people. How about #woke teachers or school administrators upset when they find out some of their students are hunters? We’ve already seen efforts to get physicians and their staffs to ask patients, especially minor patients, if there are any guns in their homes!
In the end, they’re typical leftist ideas to get more and more government supervision of our lives, Minority Report thinking that we can somehow police impure thoughts of people who may not have committed any crime.
Unfortunately, here in TX, we can’t escape the 24/7 coverage. It seems, from the a.m. news, that the bad guy in Uvalde had been in ‘trouble’ with the local constabulary for a similar previous threat that was ‘covered up’ by his minor status.
Developing and I’m sure the reporting will change as it already has with a couple of other items.
Mr C wrote:
Sure you can:
I’ve told people before: due to my very limited hearing, I don’t bother with television news, but prefer to read the news online. That means I can choose not to read it at any given time. I’ve got 8 acres of farm of which to take care, cats and dogs and chickens to feed, and gardens to tend.
Perhaps that skews my perspective in ways it doesn’t for other people, but to me it seems simple: turn off the news every once in a while.
Dana: “turn off the television!”
That’s what I did two days ago when that filthy Upchuck Schumer stared flapping is poison partisan lips. Can’t take that pig. I can read what he spews but just can’t listen to his voice. Joyless Reid is the same. So I just turn it off and wait for the dust to settle. Sooner or later they’ll realize nobody’s taking our firearms away unless they have a death wish.
FJB
Sorry Dana, I don’t watch tv or read newspapers. I do online, and some radio; but the subject is being discussed out in public as well around here. I turned off network news some 20 years ago and haven’t looked back.
[…] William Teach discusses foot-in-the-door gun control proposals. […]
Joe Robinette Biden is totally responsible for the Texas school shooting and all the others.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGwgB19gXBBNWCtdYmVLidbj4MkS4_dBAN7PZ0cgqhqNJmYt9RKK6fMCiw6hP_1snLYQ0zxGF-BU_eoEtgrH_1aV8vC8gxfCGfTf-kBbQWHGDGXNX0Vv-Pipfxjcv1v-KfekqB3kP7adzbNQttxT6D0fAbnYJBOYU1tRheqBzTg9MDwnW7Q9B4y1J08Q/w512-h640/90mimb_cb50ad5c237c4469c2f577f8ecd6f9f3_893c87f5_540.jpg
Guns don’t kill people, conservatives kill people.
“No, what we’ll have are people using the system to……just liberals trying a new form of ‘SWATting’ against sensible people………..”
Amen.
In December 2012, a man entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut with a Bushmaster AR-15 model rifle and massacred 20 six and seven year old school kids and six staff members.
As a nation, we did nothing. We will do nothing now.
Dead kids are a small price to pay for keeping the GOP funded.