USA gun lovers defend rights amid debate for more…

“Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk!”

“If only Sen. Portman hadn’t raised $3m from the NRA over the last *30 years*, about 10% of what he raised for his 2016 re-election alone, the senator *from Ohio* might not be so supportive of the rights of gun owners”. “Three hours later, we’re in the middle of another school shooting”.

Deranged individuals can buy AR-15s, walk into a school and start killing schoolchildren. At concerts, I think of the 58 country music lovers who were killed at a festival in Las Vegas.

Our elected officials need to begin enacting gun laws with some teeth.

Even President Trump has frequently stated that the answer to these killings could be arming more people as a preventative measure. Owning or possessing these firearms shall be punishable by the full force of the law. A man with a knife will not have as many victims as a man with a gun, especially when that gun can shoot 24 shots in 9 seconds (98 shots in 7 seconds with a bump stock).

Jolly offered advice to Democrats, saying they should build a coalition with law-enforcement groups who align on gun regulation.

In light of the horrific school shooting in Florida yesterday, see below for which Virginia legislators the blood-on-their-hands NRA has been giving to since 2007, the year of the Virginia Tech mass shootings.

I am not anti-gun per se. I parted ways with the NRA over 30 years ago.

Assault rifles at a gun range in Las Vegas.

The scenario is sickeningly familiar.

Opponents of gun curbs have sought to steer public debate onto the motives, and mental health, of people using the weapons, and Trump’s response was in step with that strategy.

And our nation’s reaction to this senseless bloodshed is also the same.

President TrumpDonald John TrumpTillerson: Russia already looking to interfere in 2018 midterms Dems pick up deep-red legislative seat in Missouri Speier on Trump’s desire for military parade: “We have a Napoleon in the making” MORE and many other lawmakers on Wednesday offered their thoughts and prayers to the victims.

That’s the standard response from USA politicians any time there is a mass shooting. That’s just in schools!

And then, those same average Americans – both liberal and conservative – tell us that they believe in stricter gun control while pushing fistfuls of cash at those who have the most to gain from the status quo.

Talk to a good conservative and they’ll tell you that they feel just very bad for those poor dead people, but it’s too early to discuss changing the laws while everyone is grieving the nonstop attacks. With the possible exception of Murphy, they won’t make good on that pledge.

“If someone who is mentally ill is slipping through the cracks and getting a gun, because we have laws on the books – we have a system to prevent people who aren’t supposed to get guns from getting guns – and if there are gaps there, then we need to look at those gaps”, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said during a press conference on Thursday.

Blame who you want, but shame on all of us. And not all laws are relevant to the rub-on-your-phone, swipe right or left, 45 rounds of bullets per minute world we live in now.

I am so troubled and saddened for the safety of our children going to school after the horrific killings in Parkland, FL on February 14.

In particular, our political leaders have been unable to solve an obvious and egregious problem.

A troubled teen – dubbed “mentally disturbed” by President Trump – opened fire at a Florida school almost one year after a law undid a regulation making it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun.

“Republicans are not going to do anything on gun control”, Jolly told The Washington Post on Thursday as the nation reeled from 17 deaths across the peninsula from his former district.

If nothing else, the Applebee’s racial-profiling incident where two black women were falsely accused of not paying for a meal the previous night (Feb. 12, 2A, “Black women say restaurant racially profiled them”) should put to rest the complaints that resulted last August after the NAACP issued its travel advisory for African-American travelers to exercise extreme caution in Missouri.