This past Wednesday, the United States Senate refused to support any
legislation that would ban the sale of automatic weapons and large
ammunition clips. 45 craven U.S. Senators, 41 Republicans and 4
Democrats, voted against an even more modest compromise bill,
co-sponsored by Senator Joe Manchin (D -W.Va.) And Pat Toomey (R-Pa),
that would have closed some loopholes on gun purchases at trade shows
and from some third party sellers; and that required slightly more
expanded background checks, particularly before felons and mentally ill
persons, could purchase firearms. This legislation was defeated despite
the fact that 90% of the population of the country supports reasonable
gun controls. Collectively, the 45 Senators who voted "nay" represent
states with less than a quarter of the U.S. population.
During the days prior to the Senate vote, the Newtown parents and many of those who were affected by the carnage at Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tucson and Columbine had actively lobbied reluctant, undecided and wavering Senators. In person-to-person meetings, they begged them to support the proposed gun legislation on behalf of their loved ones and the still grieving families and the more than one million Americans who have had died from fire arms' violence in the past thirty-three years.
As reported by Jennifer Steinhauer in the New York Times ("Tangled Birth, and Death of a Gun Control Bill," April 19, 2013), the encounter of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely injured by gun violence in Tucson, with her one-time colleague and now Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican, from her home state of Arizona was especially poignant. Unable to speak clearly because of the gun shot wounds to her head that she had sustained, Giffords "grabbed his arm and tried - furiously and with difficulty - to say she had needed is vote. The best she could get out was the word,'need.'" Senator Flake who voted against the proposed legislation, told The Times' reporter, "I said I was sorry. I didn't know what else to say. It's very hard."
On Wednesday afternoon, after the Senate vote, President Obama, appeared on the steps of the White House with Vice President Biden and a number of the parents whose children were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre. Former Congresswoman Giffords and her husband stood alongside them. President Obama remarked that the Senate vote was a " pretty shameful day for Washington." The President noted that there were no coherent reasons why a majority of Republicans voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill and he stated his belief that it all "came down to politics" and a fear on the part of GOP Senators that "the vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections" and "that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment."
The following day, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Tx) took to the Senate floor in to defend his Senate votes on gun legislation and to take issue with the President's remarks. In a prepared speech, Senator Cornyn stated,"[I] say this more with sadness than anger -- I watched the President of the United States say it was a pretty shameful day for Washington on the national news. That was yesterday. And I agree but for different reasons than the President himself articulated. When good and honest people have honest differences of opinion about what policies our country should pursue when it comes to the Second Amendment and gun rights and mass gun violence, the President of the United States should not accuse them of having no coherent arguments or caving to the pressure.
"The President could have taken the high road, could have said, 'Ok now that we have been unsuccessful in these measures, let's move on to area where we know there is consensus, and that has to do with the mental health element in so many of these mass gun tragedies.' But instead, he chose to take the low road. And I agree with him, it was a truly shameful day.
"I, and many of my colleagues, are not worried, as some of the press like to portray it, about the gun lobby who would spend a lot of money and paint us as anti-Second Amendment. I don't work for them. I don't listen to them. I work for 26 million Texans, and I'm proud to represent them. And the views I represented on the floor of the United States Senate are their views. And if I don't represent their views, then I am accountable to them, and no one else.
"And no, those of us who did not agree with the President's proposals are not being intimidated, as he said yesterday. And it's false -- it's absolutely false to say it comes down to politics, as he said.
"For me, it comes down to a meeting I had with the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I told them that I was not interested in symbolism, in things we might be able to do that would have had no impact on the terrible tragedy that day or at Tucson, or Virginia Tech, or at Aurora, Colorado. I'm interested in trying to come up with a solution.
"I told them that day, the family members who came to visit with me, as we grieved with them for their terrible loss, I told them that, as I understood what they were telling me, they weren't coming to sell a particular political point of view or an agenda or a legislative laundry list of things they wanted to see passed.
"It really boiled down to this: These families who lost both children and parents and spouses want to make sure that their loved one did not die in vain. They want to make sure that something good comes out of this terrible tragedy. And why wouldn't we want to work together to try to help them achieve their goals?
"Instead of calling the President names and taking the low road, like he did yesterday, and chastising my fellow senators for their good-faith disagreement and the best policies to pursue in order to make sure these families' loss was not in vain, I'm here to ask for his help. I'm here to ask for every Members' help, to try to make sure that we actually continue to look for measures that we might be able to get behind to actually make things better, that would have offered up a solution to some of these problems."
"So I believe that there is actually a way forward for us, and I hope that Senator Reid, the Majority Leader, who controls the agenda on the Senate floor, will not choose to quit in our effort to try to find solutions, indeed something we need to pursue, instead of just symbolic gestures which would have had no impact on these mass gun tragedies."
Senator Cornyn's pious platitudes in defense of his own vote and those of his nay-saying colleagues could not obscure the fact that the U.S. Senate is a undeniably dysfunctional institution because of its disproportionately rural and unequal representation, compounded by its arcane and anti-majoritarian voting rules that protect and maximize the influence of the smallest minorities of influence groups. Its very existence raises a question as to how any serious student of government could possibly describe the United States as a functioning, transparent democracy that even remotely serves the public interest.
Aside from these profoundly troubling institutional concerns, Senator Cornyn's comments reek of hypocrisy. Throughout his senate career, Cornyn has been, most charitably put, a political australopithecine. In the 2004, for example, in a debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment, he released an advance copy of a speech he was to give at the Heritage Foundation. In that speech, he wrote, "It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right.... Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." Equally telling, on the critical issue of gun control legislation, Cornyn has consistently received an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association because of his unyielding opposition.
Senator Cornyn's comments are also preposterous on their face. Good and honest people do not have honest differences of opinion about what policies this country should pursue "when it comes to the Second Amendment and gun rights and mass gun violence." Scalia and his four linguistically- challenged colleagues in District of Columbia, et al v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008) notwithstanding, the text and syntax of the Second Amendment is unambiguous and defines a collective, as opposed to an individual, right subordinate to a requirement of formal military training: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a fee State, the right of people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In addition, all of the evidence compiled from Canada, Europe and Australia shows that rational gun control measures and uniform regulations, including licensing, training, and registration requirements, and limits on kinds and quantities of forearms have had dramatic and measurable effects in preventing gun violence.
Last week's debate over gun control legislation occurred in the immediate aftermath of the terror attack at the Boston Marathon. A few days before these almost parallel unfolding events, CNN and other news outlets reported on an Al Queda video from 2011 that had resurfaced. The video shows Adam Gadahn, who was born in California and who became an al Qaeda spokesman. In the video, Gadahn describes how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and he urges his fellow jidhadists to buy guns here. "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," Gadahn states, "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"
We now know from the execution of the MIT police officer, the shooting of an MBTA police officer, the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston terror suspects, after a ferocious firefight with police, and the apprehension of his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as the second terror suspect, that the two were heavily armed with automatic weapons and with a number of explosive devices that utilized gun powder as an agent. What will happen if, as is likely, the government's investigation shows that these two suspects obtained their firearms and gun powder here in the United States, whether through third parties or because of existing loop- holes that permit the unregulated sales of firearms, including semi-automatic weapons and assault-style rifles, at gun shows and through private sales?
In December of 2005, the good and honest Senator from Texas justified his support for the re-authorization of the Patriot Act with the statement "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead," and he implied that those who opposed the measure were soft on terror. As he declared in a homeland security statement released by his office, "Defending against threats to America's security will always be one of my highest priorities in the U.S. Senate. I'm committed to ensuring that our first responders have the training and equipment they need to protect our families, our homes, and our nation against any and all terrorist threats."
How will Senator Cornyn square those remarks with his unwavering opposition to any form of reasonable gun control once the evidence becomes incontrovertible that the lack of uniform gun control legislation does, in fact, pose a threat to America's security?
Over years, Senator Cornyn and his right-wing GOP colleagues have intimated that the concerns raised by many about the increasing abridgment of civil liberties since September 11, 2001 and fears about the possible rise of a surveillance or garrison state are naive and misplaced. Isn't their unwavering support for the unrestricted ability of zealots and terrorists to purchase guns for commit acts of violence here in the United States now sauce for the gander?
If it is discovered that innocent Americans have been murdered by terrorists who have taken Adam Gadahn's advice to heart, how will Senator Cornyn respond? Wouldn't his continued refusal to support reasonable gun control legislation be tantamount to aiding and abetting terrorism?
During the days prior to the Senate vote, the Newtown parents and many of those who were affected by the carnage at Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tucson and Columbine had actively lobbied reluctant, undecided and wavering Senators. In person-to-person meetings, they begged them to support the proposed gun legislation on behalf of their loved ones and the still grieving families and the more than one million Americans who have had died from fire arms' violence in the past thirty-three years.
As reported by Jennifer Steinhauer in the New York Times ("Tangled Birth, and Death of a Gun Control Bill," April 19, 2013), the encounter of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely injured by gun violence in Tucson, with her one-time colleague and now Senator Jeff Flake, a Republican, from her home state of Arizona was especially poignant. Unable to speak clearly because of the gun shot wounds to her head that she had sustained, Giffords "grabbed his arm and tried - furiously and with difficulty - to say she had needed is vote. The best she could get out was the word,'need.'" Senator Flake who voted against the proposed legislation, told The Times' reporter, "I said I was sorry. I didn't know what else to say. It's very hard."
On Wednesday afternoon, after the Senate vote, President Obama, appeared on the steps of the White House with Vice President Biden and a number of the parents whose children were killed in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre. Former Congresswoman Giffords and her husband stood alongside them. President Obama remarked that the Senate vote was a " pretty shameful day for Washington." The President noted that there were no coherent reasons why a majority of Republicans voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill and he stated his belief that it all "came down to politics" and a fear on the part of GOP Senators that "the vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections" and "that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment."
The following day, U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Tx) took to the Senate floor in to defend his Senate votes on gun legislation and to take issue with the President's remarks. In a prepared speech, Senator Cornyn stated,"[I] say this more with sadness than anger -- I watched the President of the United States say it was a pretty shameful day for Washington on the national news. That was yesterday. And I agree but for different reasons than the President himself articulated. When good and honest people have honest differences of opinion about what policies our country should pursue when it comes to the Second Amendment and gun rights and mass gun violence, the President of the United States should not accuse them of having no coherent arguments or caving to the pressure.
"The President could have taken the high road, could have said, 'Ok now that we have been unsuccessful in these measures, let's move on to area where we know there is consensus, and that has to do with the mental health element in so many of these mass gun tragedies.' But instead, he chose to take the low road. And I agree with him, it was a truly shameful day.
"I, and many of my colleagues, are not worried, as some of the press like to portray it, about the gun lobby who would spend a lot of money and paint us as anti-Second Amendment. I don't work for them. I don't listen to them. I work for 26 million Texans, and I'm proud to represent them. And the views I represented on the floor of the United States Senate are their views. And if I don't represent their views, then I am accountable to them, and no one else.
"And no, those of us who did not agree with the President's proposals are not being intimidated, as he said yesterday. And it's false -- it's absolutely false to say it comes down to politics, as he said.
"For me, it comes down to a meeting I had with the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I told them that I was not interested in symbolism, in things we might be able to do that would have had no impact on the terrible tragedy that day or at Tucson, or Virginia Tech, or at Aurora, Colorado. I'm interested in trying to come up with a solution.
"I told them that day, the family members who came to visit with me, as we grieved with them for their terrible loss, I told them that, as I understood what they were telling me, they weren't coming to sell a particular political point of view or an agenda or a legislative laundry list of things they wanted to see passed.
"It really boiled down to this: These families who lost both children and parents and spouses want to make sure that their loved one did not die in vain. They want to make sure that something good comes out of this terrible tragedy. And why wouldn't we want to work together to try to help them achieve their goals?
"Instead of calling the President names and taking the low road, like he did yesterday, and chastising my fellow senators for their good-faith disagreement and the best policies to pursue in order to make sure these families' loss was not in vain, I'm here to ask for his help. I'm here to ask for every Members' help, to try to make sure that we actually continue to look for measures that we might be able to get behind to actually make things better, that would have offered up a solution to some of these problems."
"So I believe that there is actually a way forward for us, and I hope that Senator Reid, the Majority Leader, who controls the agenda on the Senate floor, will not choose to quit in our effort to try to find solutions, indeed something we need to pursue, instead of just symbolic gestures which would have had no impact on these mass gun tragedies."
Senator Cornyn's pious platitudes in defense of his own vote and those of his nay-saying colleagues could not obscure the fact that the U.S. Senate is a undeniably dysfunctional institution because of its disproportionately rural and unequal representation, compounded by its arcane and anti-majoritarian voting rules that protect and maximize the influence of the smallest minorities of influence groups. Its very existence raises a question as to how any serious student of government could possibly describe the United States as a functioning, transparent democracy that even remotely serves the public interest.
Aside from these profoundly troubling institutional concerns, Senator Cornyn's comments reek of hypocrisy. Throughout his senate career, Cornyn has been, most charitably put, a political australopithecine. In the 2004, for example, in a debate over the Federal Marriage Amendment, he released an advance copy of a speech he was to give at the Heritage Foundation. In that speech, he wrote, "It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right.... Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." Equally telling, on the critical issue of gun control legislation, Cornyn has consistently received an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association because of his unyielding opposition.
Senator Cornyn's comments are also preposterous on their face. Good and honest people do not have honest differences of opinion about what policies this country should pursue "when it comes to the Second Amendment and gun rights and mass gun violence." Scalia and his four linguistically- challenged colleagues in District of Columbia, et al v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008) notwithstanding, the text and syntax of the Second Amendment is unambiguous and defines a collective, as opposed to an individual, right subordinate to a requirement of formal military training: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a fee State, the right of people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." In addition, all of the evidence compiled from Canada, Europe and Australia shows that rational gun control measures and uniform regulations, including licensing, training, and registration requirements, and limits on kinds and quantities of forearms have had dramatic and measurable effects in preventing gun violence.
Last week's debate over gun control legislation occurred in the immediate aftermath of the terror attack at the Boston Marathon. A few days before these almost parallel unfolding events, CNN and other news outlets reported on an Al Queda video from 2011 that had resurfaced. The video shows Adam Gadahn, who was born in California and who became an al Qaeda spokesman. In the video, Gadahn describes how easy it is to buy guns in the United States and he urges his fellow jidhadists to buy guns here. "America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms," Gadahn states, "You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle, without a background check, and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?"
We now know from the execution of the MIT police officer, the shooting of an MBTA police officer, the death of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston terror suspects, after a ferocious firefight with police, and the apprehension of his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as the second terror suspect, that the two were heavily armed with automatic weapons and with a number of explosive devices that utilized gun powder as an agent. What will happen if, as is likely, the government's investigation shows that these two suspects obtained their firearms and gun powder here in the United States, whether through third parties or because of existing loop- holes that permit the unregulated sales of firearms, including semi-automatic weapons and assault-style rifles, at gun shows and through private sales?
In December of 2005, the good and honest Senator from Texas justified his support for the re-authorization of the Patriot Act with the statement "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead," and he implied that those who opposed the measure were soft on terror. As he declared in a homeland security statement released by his office, "Defending against threats to America's security will always be one of my highest priorities in the U.S. Senate. I'm committed to ensuring that our first responders have the training and equipment they need to protect our families, our homes, and our nation against any and all terrorist threats."
How will Senator Cornyn square those remarks with his unwavering opposition to any form of reasonable gun control once the evidence becomes incontrovertible that the lack of uniform gun control legislation does, in fact, pose a threat to America's security?
Over years, Senator Cornyn and his right-wing GOP colleagues have intimated that the concerns raised by many about the increasing abridgment of civil liberties since September 11, 2001 and fears about the possible rise of a surveillance or garrison state are naive and misplaced. Isn't their unwavering support for the unrestricted ability of zealots and terrorists to purchase guns for commit acts of violence here in the United States now sauce for the gander?
If it is discovered that innocent Americans have been murdered by terrorists who have taken Adam Gadahn's advice to heart, how will Senator Cornyn respond? Wouldn't his continued refusal to support reasonable gun control legislation be tantamount to aiding and abetting terrorism?