90% of Americans...
.. are being held hostage by the NRA, the Russian-backed, tax-exempt extremist group that controls the GOP
“Do you realize that 90% of Americans, regardless of political party, want background checks, universal background checks? 90% of us,” said Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. “We are being held hostage by 50 Senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we the American people want. They won’t vote on it because they want to hold on to their own power.”
“What are we doing? Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate? Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority, if your answer as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their lives, we do nothing,” said Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a lawmaker whose district endured the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor. “This isn’t inevitable. These kids weren’t unlucky. This only happens in this country and nowhere else. Nowhere else do little kids go to school, thinking that they might be shot that day. Nowhere else do parents have to talk to their kids, as I have had to do about why they got locked into a bathroom and told to be quiet for five minutes just in case a bad man entered that building. Nowhere else does that happen except here in the United States of America, and it is a choice. It is our choice to let it continue… I’m here on this floor to beg, to literally get down on my hands and knees, and beg my colleagues find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely.”
“They fucking failed our kids again… This was predictable. But it was also preventable,” said Fred Guttenberg, who became a gun control activist after his 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida in 2018.
We cannot pretend
We cannot pretend that anything will change as a result of the latest massacre of elementary school children in America.
We cannot pretend that the Republican Party will do anything to stop the next shooter, teenage or otherwise, from slaughtering a classroom full of children, or shoppers in a supermarket, or revelers at a nightclub, or worshipers at a church, or music fans at a concert.
We cannot pretend that Matthew McConaughey, who was born in Uvalde, Texas, will have any impact on the debate by stating, “This is an epidemic we can control, and whichever side of the aisle we may stand on, we all know we can do better.”
We cannot pretend that the Republican Party will disavow its funding or its endorsements from the Russian-backed, tax-exempt terror group known as the NRA.
We cannot pretend anything will happen because, as Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote this morning: “Systemic gun violence is part of a Republican political design to destabilize American society.”
90% of Americans want action on guns.
And yet again gun violence is on the ballot.
But the GOP plan is to continue holding 90% of the country hostage, to run out the clock on our gun control outrage once again, to tighten their grip on power in November, to take control of the “election machinery” to ensure victory in 2024, and to fucking fail our kids forever.
#VoteBlueToSaveOurKids.
#GUNSAFETYNOW xxxx change the language from "ban', 'limit' etc, and use the language of safety for children and us all xxx thnxxx
I have to disagree. 90% of Americans aren’t being held hostage by the NRA. They are being held hostage by the politicians who are subservient to the NRA. Why? Because said politicians can very well say “no” to the NRA. In essence, the NRA is just asking - they aren’t holding a gun to anybody’s head (no pun intended - um, well, maybe). Perhaps the NRA is putting pressure on said politicians. but who amongst us has not had to deal with “pressure“ to conform or to do something illegal or unethical in our lives? Right – most of us turn that shit down. Said politicians didn’t have to run for office or accept any conditions from the NRA to be in office. They could run on their own recognizance, credibility, reputation, record, experience, expertise…you know, all the things any of us need to get a job.. But most of them take the money and the easy way out.