Time to act … again!

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

President Biden said the following today while commenting on the Boulder. Colo., massacre that left 10 people dead, including a police officer who rushed to the scene when the shooting started.

“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps that will save lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act,” Biden said in remarks at the White House following Monday’s shooting. “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. … We should do it again.”

OK. Do you think it will happen? Do you believe that lawmakers who snuggle up to the gun lobby are going to do the right thing?

Neither do I.

Which makes this latest plea for sane gun-control laws yet another exercise in extreme futility in this most recent moment of misery.

As The Hill reported: Biden called on the Senate to “immediately pass” two House-passed bills that would expand background checks for firearm sales, noting that both passed the Democrat-controlled lower chamber with some Republican support. One of the bills would close the so-called Charleston loophole by extending the initial background check review period from three to 10 days. The bill is linked to the 2015 shooting in Charleston, S.C., in which a white supremacist killed nine Black Americans at the Mother Emanuel AME Church.

Biden urges Congress to pass assault weapon ban | TheHill

Republican senators are likely to filibuster any effort at meaningful reform. It takes 60 votes to break the filibuster; that means a 50-50 Senate requires 10 GOP senators to cross over. They won’t do it.

I am beyond weary listening to gun lobbyists declare that any effort to strength gun laws somehow masks some nefarious plot to disarm Americans. I long have maintained that there must be a legislative solution that remains faithful to the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which allows citizens to “keep and bear arms.”

I am not alone in this belief. Sadly and tragically, the gun lobby with its big money and its bullying strategy continues to keep these remedies off the books. The result is inevitable: More Americans are going to die the way those 10 victims perished in Boulder.

Shameful.