Am I the only one who thinks that shame is the reason we had a pretty subdued remembrance of the Sandy Hook shootings yesterday? Beautiful little children were killed, it was awful, and Congress didn’t change a fucking thing. Here’s CNN’s shitty round-up of where we are one year later.
Whether the United States has reformed its gun laws after the Newtown massacre may depend on your point of view.
Clearly, America affirms a right to bear arms.
President Barack Obama was unable to persuade Congress, as he vowed in Newtown’s aftermath, to “come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics” about gun reform.
Obama failed to even expand background checks on firearm buyers, though he signed 23 executive actions to strengthen existing gun laws and take related steps on mental health and school safety.
However, Paul Barrett, author of “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun,” said it’s easier today to own a firearm in some states than a year ago.
The story continues by listing those places that have reformed their laws, but the framing is the way the gun lobby likes it. We freedom loving Murcans decided that we just weren’t ready for more gun legislatin’. We love our “right to bear arms” more than we want to keep kids and teachers safe from psychos with arsenals. A few librul states did something but they don’t count.
Bullshit.
Obama did everything he could with executive power. Republicans and “conservative” Democrats in Congress loved their jobs so much they couldn’t even enact simple changes that a vast majority of the population agrees upon, because they were piss-pants scared that the NRA and a small minority of gun nuts would put them out of office.
The natural human response to this gross cowardice and dysfunction is to look away, and that’s more-or-less what we did yesterday.