6.5.22: It is Us and Not Just Washington That Has to Decide

"Meet The Press" is preempted today by The French Open.

Since Wednesday, this has been top of mind for this week's column and that is if we should apologize for providing what we thought was a snide, hyperbolic, ludicrous example of a tragic mass shooting and three days later that exact scenario occurs. In Tulsa, Oklahoma a man bought an AR-15 and then hours later entered a hospital to kill the doctor who performed a surgery on him, along with anyone who tried to stop him. 

A group of Senators has ten days to come up with something bipartisan, bipartisan meaning cojoling 10 Republican Senators that it is in their political interest to pass some form law, a package of laws, that will slow the steady stream of mass gun violence EVERYWHERE in America. The aforementioned package puts on the table red flag laws, waiting periods, expanded background check (not universal) and raising the age to 21 to purchase an assault weapon.

All those proposals would be steps in the right direction, but frankly, at this point it's like holding back a flood with a two-foot wall. And if this group of senators do not come up with a proposal they can bring to the floor, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will bring a House bill to the floor which Republicans and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) will surely not vote for. As Americans, we can only hope these Republican Senators are being sincere in their negotiating efforts because we've seen this tragic theater play out too many times.

If no common sense gun-ownership legislation gets passed through Congress and Republicans win control of Congress in the fall, we are truly living in a broken democracy where the minority is in control. Our Constitution was constructed to respect the rights of the minority vote, not to have the minority vote control the majority.

If Congress does manage to pass something, anything, it will not serve as any kind of adequate panacea for the anxiety parents across this country feel who fear simply dropping their kids off a school, especially if mass shootings continue in spite of new legislation.

Make no mistake, if nothing stems the tide of these mass shootings and gun violence writ large, we, not only the politicians, we will have decided to put the Second Amendment and access to guns over our very own lives.