Earlier today, Sen. Tim Kaine called on Majority Leader McConnell – who of course won’t listen – to hold votes on bills to prevent gun violence. According to Sen. Kaine, “we haven’t had a meaningful debate about gun violence and gun safety regulations and laws on the floor of this body since April of 2013.” But after the Virginia Beach shootings and all the other shootings over the past six years, Kaine argued, it’s now time to pass:
“…two bills that have been passed by the House by strong margins that are now pending before this body…one is a bill that would require background checks on all firearm sales in the country…the second bill that’s pending here also deals with the background check system and it deals with a quirk that’s been known as the Charleston loophole.”
Kaine added, “I hope we will take up federal legislation that I have filed with others to restrict high-capacity magazines…I would like to ban high-capacity magazines and limit them to ten.” And, finally, “I hope we would consider legislation senator Klobuchar of Minnesota has promoted this for years to prevent domestic abusers from keeping guns.” Are these all no-brainers or what? Of course, Mitch McConnell and his party are a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby, so don’t expect any action from them. Instead, we’re going to need to vote them out of office in November 2020 and replace them with those who WILL take action, not just on gun violence prevention but on so many other issues.
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