Now Congress is a bunch of “shameful” liars, according to President Barack Obama because the Senate didn’t vote for a slew of gun control amendments he demanded. In his remarks about the Senate gun bill’s demise, Obama took his hypocrisy and insults to new heights, revealing an arrogance of power we haven’t seen since President Richard Nixon’s Watergate.
Never mind that some Democrat Senators voted against the expanded background check proposed by Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-W.VA), Obama lambasted Republicans. “90 percent of Republicans in the Senate just voted against that idea,” said Obama. He added, “the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill.”
No, not the National Rifle Association (NRA), Republicans and Democrats told the American people they didn’t think this sprawling bill with all its amendments would do anything to prevent gun violence.
“Would it have prevented the most recent acts of gun violence? In all likelihood, no,” said Senator John McCain, even though he supported the Manchin-Toomey amendment for expanded background checks at gun shows and other commercial sales.
Who do you think Obama is referring to when he uses the word “allies” of the gun lobby? Republicans. Throughout his remarks, Obama castigated and insulted both Republicans and Congress, as if he was running an empire and they were his subjects.
“So all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.”
“But we can do more if Congress gets its act together.“
Seriously? Does Obama think insulting Congress, which makes up a third of government, is the best way to accomplish immigration reform and come to an agreement with Republicans on the government’s budget? In his gun outrage, Obama kissed his second term goodbye.
Obama might have more luck with Congress if he treated them like an equal partner rather than lecturing members like children how bad they are or telling them what to do as though they were pupils to his will. Equally disturbing was the president accusing the gun lobby and its allies of “spreading untruths about this legislation” and being “better financed.” What a crock! When things don’t go Obama’s way, suddenly the definition of the democratic process is changed.
If anyone spread untruths about a piece of legislation, it was Obama, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid about Obamacare. They lied how much it would cost. And the American people had no idea what was in the over 2,000 pages of the bill because as then-Speaker Pelosi said in 2010, “we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.”
As for Obama accusing the NRA of being better financed then Democrats that’s disingenuous also. Obama founded Organizing for Action, which he claims is a non-profit but looks and smells just like a Super PAC replete with a donate button. Perhaps it’s time for Obama to do some truth telling and stop thinking Americans are stupid.
But the biggest slap in the face Obama gave to anyone in his White House gun rant was to black America. Everyone recalls the tragic story of Hadiya Pendleton being gunned down in Chicago January 29th, days after performing at Obama’s 2013 inaugural. The city of Chicago, from which Obama hails and represented as a U.S. Senator, is plagued by gun violence, specifically black on black gun violence.
Yet, Obama never mentioned Hadiya in his remarks or the grim statistics of blacks killing and being killed by guns at a higher rate than whites. He uttered the word Chicago once. But Obama referred to the tragedy of Newtown and Gabby Giffords. Obama invited parents of the 20 slain kids of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut to fly on Air Force One but never offered Hadiya’s parents a flight.
The fact is the Senate bill never had a chance. It was so larded down with amendments and emotions intended to grab headlines that it fell under its own weight. This president truly thinks he’s special because he’s the first black president (and may be our last) and Congress must bow to his will. He’s got a lot of learning to do.
In April of 2007, a mentally disturbed student showed up at the campus of his school, Virginia Tech, brandishing two semi-automatic pistols, and murdered 32 students, teachers and school employees and wounded 17 others. Then he took his own life.
It was the one of deadliest mass shooting incidents in American history.
The nation was in shock, as it is now following the December mass murder at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
The press and public outcry was the same then as now. How can we stop horrors like this from occurring? We’ve got to stop criminals and nut cases from getting their hands on guns.
The tragedy spurred passage of the first major piece of federal gun control legislation since the assault weapon ban was passed in 1994.
The new law, signed by President George W. Bush in January of 2008, appropriated $1.3 billion for states to get the names of those deemed mentally ill into the FBI national data base used for gun-purchase screening. This supposedly would solve the problem of lax state compliance and make the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) more effective.
If only this had been the law of the land a year earlier, commentators opined, the Virginia Tech tragedy might not have happened.
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-NY, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said it would “close the wide gaps in our nation’s firearm background-check system to ensure violent criminals and the mentally ill no longer slip through the cracks and gain access to dangerous weapons.”
But a more sober message came at the time from the now late professor, American Enterprise Institute scholar and presidential Medal of Freedom recipient James Q. Wilson.
He wrote then: “The tragedy at Virginia Tech may tell us something about how a young man could be driven to commit terrible actions, but it does not teach us very much about gun control.”
Even if there were tougher background checks, Wilson continued, “access to guns would be relatively easy … many would be stolen and others would be obtained through straw purchases by a willing confederate. It is virtually impossible to use new background-check or waiting-period laws to prevent dangerous people from getting guns. Those they cannot buy, they will steal or borrow.”
Now, five years after Bush signed the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 into law, we have “déjà vu all over again.”
Not only have we tragically witnessed another deranged young man entering a school and murdering innocent youth, but we now must witness again politicians offering the same non-solution to allegedly deal with the problem: wider background checks.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, who is pushing legislation for universal background checks, was one of the original sponsors of the law that Bush signed five years ago.
It is even worse now. Adam Lanza, the deranged young Sandy Hook murderer, used a rifle from his mother’s collection in their home. No background check could deal with something like this.
Schumer will not solve the problem, yet he will make things worse by making it harder for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights to bear arms and protect themselves.
And exactly how might expanded checks impinge on both our privacy and our rights?
Those who have ever seen a psychologist may be at risk. Those who have any kind of infraction on their record may be at risk.
Some states require doctors to counsel women considering an abortion that the procedure can result in various emotional problems. Might women receiving abortions in these states have difficulty purchasing a gun?
Let’s stop playing games. The problem is people, not guns. Our society suffers from a deficiency of personal responsibility -- not from an excess of personal freedom.
Now Congress is a bunch of “shameful” liars, according to President Barack Obama because the Senate didn’t vote for a slew of gun control amendments he demanded. In his remarks about the Senate gun bill’s demise, Obama took his hypocrisy and insults to new heights, revealing an arrogance of power we haven’t seen since President Richard Nixon’s Watergate.
