Doing nothing OKs slaughter
IGNORE THE OBVIOUS, SAYS GOP
My heart breaks for the victims and their families, and for the community of Sutherland Springs in Texas. Of the five worst mass shootings in our history, three of them have occurred in just the past 17 months. Think about that. In a small town in America, nearly 7% of the town’s population was slaughtered, just because they went to church that day. The weapon he used was based on a military weapon designed for a war zone. But this was not a war zone. It was a church. People were singing, and praying and savoring life.
I reject the notion that it is “too soon” to act. If not now, then when?
People who don’t want to have an honest conversation say we need to wait. Well, for how long? Because we wait, we wait, and we will see evil rear its ugly head over and over again — and we are told to wait again.
We have enough information today for Congress to do its job, and try to keep our constituents safe from gun violence.
We had enough information before yesterday to act.
But what Congress does not have, is the political will to act. This must change.
Thoughts and prayers are not going to stop the next mass shooting.
Merely talking about something, something, for the mentally ill to obtain guns isn’t going to stop the next deranged person with hate in their soul from committing yet another mass murder.
And the Second Amendment does not mean that Americans should have to risk getting shot because they walked down the wrong street in a city, or decided to go to a music festival in Las Vegas, or a nightclub in Orlando, or an elementary school in Newtown, or a movie theater in Aurora. Or a church on a Sunday in Texas. After each of these horrific acts of violence, what happened here in Congress? Nothing. More than a month after Las Vegas, we still can’t even tackle the most obvious fixes — like banning bump stocks.
Plain and simple, Americans are being slaughtered, and Congress is refusing to protect them.
And I hear my colleagues who rightly say we can’t pass laws to stop every instance of a deranged gunman who wants to kill innocent men, women, and children — just like our other criminal laws won’t necessarily stop every instance of crime.
But there is no excuse for not even trying.