Today marks the solemn anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, where 26 people - 20 of whom were 6 and 7 years old - were gunned down with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. President Biden rightly emphasized the need for decisive action on gun violence, calling for bipartisan measures like universal background checks.
Eleven years after Sandy Hook, our nation is still grappling with a pervasive gun violence epidemic, as we all well know. We also know that a majority of Republican and unaffiliated voters support universal background checks, red flag laws, waiting periods, and raising the minimum age to buy a gun. Policies like the National Safe Storage Act are also widely popular in both parties and might have prevented the deaths at Sandy Hook, and countless other tragedies.
And yet, for some reason - maybe fealty to the gun lobby or pure derangement and spite - this is what the Republicans running for Congress in this district are saying:
As wild as guns-by-mail may sound, the fact is that dealers are already allowed to ship guns to customers through the mail. And, as with other gun safety regulations, loopholes and workarounds leave guns in the hands of murderers every single day. As we all know.
Especially when it comes to guns, the rhetoric from the right is nonsensical, divisive, aggressive, and obviously, beyond extreme. On this issue unfortunately traditional Republicans are just as bad as Leisy when it comes to their voting records, even if their rhetoric is less insane.
The crisis of gun violence is completely out of control and GOP House candidates are so out of touch with reality, that red districts around the country are turning blue. And we can, and will, do it here too. It's not a political calculation - it's a moral imperative to stand up to the extremism that's killing our kids.
