President Joe Biden asked exactly the right question after the latest mass killing in Texas: "When in God’s name are we going to stand up to the gun lobby?"
He could also ask which political party is almost universally supportive of the gun lobby, and which is so instrumental in America’s weak gun laws? The Republican Party is in the hip pocket of the NRA. Whenever we suffer another mass shooting, legislation is brought forward to ban mass-killing weapons, limit the amount of ammunition someone can buy, improve background checks or outlaw body armor for personal use. These efforts are stopped by Republicans.
Biden also pointed out, "These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world." This is in large part because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s fatally wrong interpretation of the 18th century’s Second Amendment, which was meant for a state’s "well regulated militia" to bear arms. It doesn’t mention an individual’s right to own a gun.
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Republicans and the gun lobby hide behind our court’s interpretive failure to justify a Wild West atmosphere of open uninhibited gun ownership. Please consider this at election time.
Mark Quinn, Madison