President Biden gave a prime time speech tonight on gun violence in America, and it was a tour de force. And in the content, he laid a very clear message to the GOP, Move on comprehensive gun control, or face the voters wrath in November.
Biden hit all of the right notes. He opened talking about the angst that he and Jill had felt in paying their respects at the Top’s Supermarket in Buffalo, and meeting with family members, and then touching every one of the 21 photographs of the 19 slain children and 2 teachers at the Uvalde school. And the grief of families begging him to do something, anything!
Biden was masterful, because he kept the spotlight on the children. Columbine, Sandy Hook, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school, the Robb elementary school in Uvalde. He kept the conversation laser focused on the kids. This was an obvious play on the minds and emotions of every American parent with children, Democratic, Republican and independent.
And the single most dominant word in the speech was the word Enough! Personally, I stopped counting when the tally passed 30. He would slash open each new wound, and then earnestly utter Enough! This is a beautiful play to a nation sick toits soul with the slaughter of the innocents. He repeatedly responded, showing people that he understood their anger, grief and frustration.
And then Biden showed what almost a half a century in congress does if you pay attention. He put forth a slate of common sense gun regulations, approved of by the vast majority of the country, including Republicans and NRA members. There was one that caught my attention immediately.
In this country, if you’re a bar owner, or any other public establishment owner that serves alcohol, and it can be proven that you served an already inebriated customer a drink that led to him killing, or maiming, or injuring someone with his car while driving over the limit, then you are personally responsible for damages to the family. Why shouldn’t Gun manufacturers not be held up to the same standard?
And then Biden lays down his marker. He was complimentary of the House Democrats passing even more gun control legislation in the coming days, and complimented Democratic and GOP Senators working for gun reform that could pass the Senate. But he made it clear that from where he was standing, as the President of the United States, gun control would be the defining issue of the 2022 elections. And the GOP had better damn well better be ready to come down on the side of the angels, or pay the price in November.
This is premier politics at its finest. Biden is right to lay down this marker, right now, in early May. Because right now, gun control is a red hot issue, and the Senate is already moving on at least moderate proposals to stem the tide. But Biden already knows that this is going to happen again, and again, and again after that. And tonight, he placed the GOP on notice that they either support some comprehensive measures of gun control, especially in the Senate, or the Democrats are going to hammer them with this every step to the November elections.
Biden knows this game inside out, and front to back. The Democrats will have no trouble in keeping the gun control debate front and center from now until November, simply because the insaniacs out there will do that for him. The only question is, how far is the GOP willing to go to blunt the damage. Don’t touch that dial.
We have lost so many, too bad or nothing laws. Someone really needs to give this country some real facts about the second amendment and pound it home
The GOP picked their hill to win or die on and that is any gun to anyone at any time. Their supporters expect them to do this and any member of the GOP who does not toe THIS particular party line will not win any elections. Our President can throw down any markers, gauntlets, or what have you but it will fall on deaf ears where the GOP is concerned.
You know, it would be one thing is these ‘pube mothers would express outrage if a pregnant woman was gunned down and she lost her fetus but republican hypocrisy is absolute: any killing performed using a firearm, provided that person is a white xtian, is not actually a killing/murder.
One thing tho’ Murf-if the Democrats were capable of staying on message there would be hefty democratic majorities in Congress and useful gun laws would be in place because reactionary morons like alito, thomas, scalia, etc. would never have made it onto the S.C. Now that there are 5-6 of the idiots on that bench we can expect some real asininity to be generated there.