Reality Check Time in the Gun Regulation Debate – Sorry People, No Bill is Going to Pass

And No Eugene Robinson, It’s Not Harry Reid’s Fault

Reality bites, so they say, and the reality of the current debate on whether or not to add sensible regulation to gun ownership in this country is that after all the debate nothing will be done.  Whatever bill passes the Senate, if any does, will not be approved in the House.  The current posturing on the issue is for public consumption only, the idea is to look like legislators are doing something when they are not.

Eugene Robinson

Opinion Writer

Harry Reid’s surrender

So it is disheartening to see an opinion piece by Eugene Robinson, an otherwise intelligent and knowledgeable person that condemns Senate Majority leader Harry Reid for the failure to have an assault weapons ban in the current doomed legislation pending in the Senate.

Shame on Harry Reid for killing any prospect of an assault weapons ban. I understand why he did it, but that doesn’t make it right.

Mr. Robinson wants the Senate to vote on the ban, to put Senators on record that they want to allow Americans to own assault weapons freely and unencumbered. 

The worst way to respond to the shocking massacre in Newtown, Conn.,would be to let political self-interest stand in the way of meaningful action. The parents of those 20 slain children deserve a vote on the assault weapons ban. The families of the 30,000 Americans who will be killed by gunfire this year deserve a vote. Bringing the measure to the floor of both the Senate and the House is the least Congress can do.

Exactly what a failed vote would accomplish is not clear.  Everyone knows who is opposed to banning assault weapons, just as everyone knows the vote to ban them will fail and just as everyone knows there will be no political repercussions against those who want every American to own an assault weapon. 

If Mr. Robinson wants to fume and rant on this issue, he should do so against the people who are the problem, Conservatives who feel that somehow the 2^nd Amendment means that anyone can own a weapon designed for military action and designed to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible.