If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The issue with the current Republican Party is not a superficial messaging problem, nor is it about a particular policy position such as immigration or gay marriage. It's about the larger product itself. The concept of the party is murky and the murky messaging follows.
Why do so many young men engage in mass killing in the United States? There are a variety of possible answers to this question.
Roxanna Green never imagined a life in the public eye but when her 9-year-old daughter, Christina-Taylor, was killed on that fateful day in Tucson, Arizona, she became a voice for gun control. She recently returned from Washington, D. C., disappointed, disgusted but not surprised.
Who exactly does the NRA represent -- its card-carrying members who were mostly in favor of expanding background checks or the gun manufacturers who thrive on being able to easily sell their machines of death?
In comedy and in life, there will always be people who want to bring us down. So all I can do is utter this humble prayer: When the crisis hits, may God give us the courage to stay the course, to straighten up in defiance, and to always -- always -- run toward the blast.
You have been profiles in courage. And it saddens me that your courage could not be honored by the passage of sensible gun control legislation.
Do Americans really value the right to bear firearms -- and not just any firearms, but ones that are designed to kill as many people in as short a time as possible -- more than they do the safety of their children?
Charles E. Grassley, the Republican senator from Iowa, actually said, "Criminals do not submit to background checks now. ... They will not submit to expanded background checks." If you won't pass a law because you think criminals won't abide by it, then you have no right to govern.
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. I also believe it is the tragedy that will finally lead to real and lasting change.
Today we have developed automatic and all kinds of crazy guns that our forefathers, if they were still alive, would not be okay with. Personally, I prefer to use non-lethal weapons. A gun is fine, but let's talk about the bullet.
As we focus spotlights on the people who voted the wrong way, let's also focus on the people who could turn them around.
Even the most cynical amongst us were stunned when the U.S. Senate voted down a watered down, bipartisan, partial background check for gun purchases that's supported by some 90 percent of Americans and 74 percent of NRA members. This happened because money has near-complete control of our political system. The NRA outspent the Brady Center to Control Gun Violence by 73 to 1 last year. As Gabby Giffords said in her brilliant New York Times op-ed, senators betrayed the people because of a deep fear of the NRA unseating them from office. The NRA has that power because they have and spend real political money.
Ninety percent of Republicans voted against an issue 90 percent of the American people support. A bipartisan bill that was so watered down, it was translucent.
Plenty of people who are rural, older, and white aren't regressives on guns, abortion, equal marriage, and immigration. And plenty who are urban, younger, and non-white are. But if you want to explain what's happening in America on these issues you have to understand what's happening to the nation demographically.
If I were a non-Christian looking from the outside in, I don't think it would be unreasonable to think that American Christians' two highest priorities right now are keeping the government from taking away our guns and stopping gay people from getting married.
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