President Obama's attempt to refine (really, tighten) American gun control laws, featuring, among other things, a more thorough background check for potential firearm owners, was defeated on the Senate floor yesterday during a Republican-led filibuster.
It was a rage-inducing letdown for gun control advocates—and, for that matter, anyone who felt that more obstacles needed to be put between people and their guns in the wake of December's Sandy Hook massacre, during which 20 students and six teachers were killed. Ninety percent of Democrats supported the additional safety measures, while 90 percent of Republicans opposed it. In a subsequent speech explaining the day's proceedings, President Obama was visibly angry: "[This is] a pretty shameful day for Washington [but] I see this as just Round One."
Surrounding Obama during his speech were Newtown families and former Rep. Gabby Giffords, the target of an infamous assassination attempt outside a Tucson Safeway in 2011. Giffords survived a gunshot to the head, and six people on the scene were killed (including one 9-year-old girl).
Giffords, whose rehabilitation has been a slow, painful process, subsequently penned a scathing, powerful op-ed in the New York Times about the Senate's decision and the filibuster's ulterior motives for killing the legislature—for instance, the NRA's massive $25 million contributions to campaigns whose interests are also in their favor.
"I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like 'tough vote' and 'complicated issue.' I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither," Giffords, who recently visited Cosmopolitan with husband Mark Kelly, wrote.
The shutdown of these enhanced background checks was a particular blow; it was a major component of the proposed overhaul of the current gun ownership climate in America, and national polls showed that nine out of ten Americans supported it. For the last ten years, the institution of any kind of gun control legislation, from the extreme to the basically minute, has been locked in sort of a "two steps forward, one step back" environment; as some push for enhanced gun control laws, other push for the expansion and lesser government policing of gun ownership rights.
Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) articulated the filibuster argument in The New York Times: "Like most Americans, I want to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and dangerous mentally ill people, [but the change] overly burdens a law-abiding citizen’s ability to exercise his or her Second Amendment rights and creates uncertainty about what is and is not a criminal offense."
But the fight isn't over. As Giffords wrote: "I’m furious. I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe. We cannot allow the status quo — desperately protected by the gun lobby so that they can make more money by spreading fear and misinformation — to go on."
Follow Anna on Twitter: @annabreslaw
Image via Getty Images
From Cosmopolitan.com. Visit Handbags reviews and advice for best reference here
Korin Miller
Michelle Ruiz
Dara Adeeyo
Elisa Benson