"There's nothing we can do about it."

Editorial: Silencers. Armor-piercing bullets. The shameless GOP agenda

Silencers? Armor-piercing bullets? Carrying concealed weapons across state lines?

No problem.

The Las Vegas massacre, the most deadly shooting in modern U.S. history, may have slowed Republican congressional efforts to relax gun controls. But it won’t stop them.

Before Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, killing at least 59 and injuring more than 500, Republicans were pushing NRA-backed legislation to loosen restrictions on weaponry.
The Sportsman Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act (you gotta love those euphemisms) would loosen federal regulation of gun silencers and legalize sale of armor-piercing bullets. Separate legislation would allow people with concealed weapons permits to cross state lines with their hidden guns.

Before Sunday, the House was expected to pass the bills soon. But on Tuesday morning, House Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about the SHARE Act, said he did not know when it would be scheduled for a vote. Translation: Let the furor die down and then get back to business as usual.

What’s amazing is that the bills are even being considered, and before Sunday were so close to a vote.

Republicans weren’t deterred by 49 killed at an Orlando nightclub; 14 in San Bernardino; 10 in Roseburg, Ore.; nine at a historic black church in Charleston; 20 students and six employees at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., or seven at Oikos University in Oakland. Just some of the mass shootings since 2011.

They weren’t deterred in June when a gunman wounded four, including Majority Whip Steve Scalise, during the Republican congressional baseball team’s practice.

Nor in 2011 when six died at a Tucson supermarket during the attempted assassination of Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head but miraculously survived.

The GOP and some Democrats are so addicted to NRA money that they continually ignore the repeated gun slaughters in this nation.

Indeed, they don’t even want to know the relationship between gun violence and public health. For two decades they have blocked federal funding for research on the topic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And now silencers, armor-piercing bullets and interstate transport of concealed weapons.

Silencers have been strictly regulated since 1934. The NRA wants to make them easier to obtain, ostensibly to protect hunters’ hearing. It just wants to help the gun industry sell more weaponry, even though silencers would make locating shooters in emergency situations, such as the Las Vegas massacre, more difficult.

As for armor-piercing bullets, they would only be legal if the manufacturer claims the ammunition is for “sporting purposes.” (Like when you just know that deer is wearing a flak jacket.) And the portability of concealed weapons permits across state lines would undermine attempts in states like California to limit who can carry a hidden gun.

The legislation claims to be about recreational use of guns. But it goes way beyond that. It’s time to look hard at the violence in our own nation, and end the proliferation of weaponry that feeds it.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/03/e … op-agenda/

You're both missing the point. Solutions are brought up every single time this happens. Powerless men, willing to accept the murder of little children on an almost daily basis, always argue against solutions with pre-packaged NRA talking points. They resort to semantics, false equivalency and circular logic.

I never said you owned a gun. I said you were a weak apologist. 600 people shot and here you are....

I know you well enough to know this isn't a legit question.

It's been shown over and over again. More guns = more deaths by guns. Less guns = less death by guns.

600 people shot and "nothing we can do about it." Give me a break.

You're right. Australia absolutely did it.

There is a very graphic video of the shooting on Live Leak. I read about it last night, and that was enough. I am not interested in watching something like that. However I believe all our Senators and Americans who think nothing can be done, SHOULD watch it. Watch something like that, the carnage, then come back and tell us there is no solution and this is the status quo.