For too long, watching one horrific shooting tragedy after another, those of us seeking sensible gun laws have asked, "What is it going to take?" "How big a tragedy is going to have to occur before Congress wakes up and creates the change that is too long overdue?"
I believe that question was answered when a different kind of tragedy occurred. As it turned out it didn't happen in a school, or a movie theater or on a street corner. It happened right before our eyes, in the United States Senate.
Last week's vote on sensible gun reforms was a tragedy. That is not hyperbole. As a result of the vote that was taken, people will die. Convicted felons, domestic abusers, and dangerously mentally ill will continue to be able to get guns at gun shows and on the Internet without background checks, no questions asked, and they will use those guns to assault and kill innocent people.
It happens every day in our country. It happens to people like Ricky Birdsong, who was shot and killed while walking his daughters down the street. And Jitka Vesel, murdered by an ex-boyfriend who stalked her and purchased a gun on the Internet to shoot her. The Senate could have done something about it. But they didn't. Cowards.
Instead, the United States Senate, the people who have been sent to Washington, D.C., to represent us, failed to do that. More than 90 percent of the American public supports the bipartisan expanded background checks legislation that was defeated. That kind of consensus doesn't exist on anything in our country, no less legislation addressing guns. (One of my favorite observations over the past few weeks is that background checks are more popular than kittens, baseball, and apple pie). And on top of that, background checks would make us all safer. But the Senate still voted no.
And that is a tragedy. I also believe it is the tragedy that will finally lead to real and lasting change. Over the past several months the winds on the gun violence issue have unquestionably begun to shift. The American public has begun to pay attention. The very fact that there was a vote at all, that the filibuster was so soundly defeated and there was even a close vote on a bipartisan bill are all signs of real change that would have been considered almost unthinkable a few months ago.
Newtown woke up a lot of us, and the heroic efforts of those families and other victims and survivors over the past several weeks made an unquestionable impact on many elected officials. But just as inspiring as those who have experienced gun violence first hand, has been the passionate support of millions of people who have not, because, in the end, that is what is going to be required to create real change. It will not be based only on sympathy; it will be because the American public demands it.
And that is why the vote will be the difference maker -- because it is all of the tragedy of gun violence wrapped into one graphic demonstration of how blatantly and brazenly our will and safety are being undermined by Congress. The outrage of the American public has been taken to another level. It is palpable. And thanks to the Senate vote, we now know where to direct that anger. We now have a place to focus all the pain, heartbreak, and outrage that this issue has caused -- on members of Congress who not only do not care about the tragedy of this issue, but who are literally helping to perpetuate it.
I am confident that history will show that this vote in Congress was a turning point, that it occurred because a handful of elected officials thought it was more expedient to put the interests of the gun lobby ahead of the people they have been elected to represent, that they thought they could just continue to get away with it. And I am confident that history will also show that they finally pushed us -- the American public -- too far.