Lucas, 2016 started with a major victory: President Obama took executive
action to step up enforcement of our gun laws and reduce the devastating
daily toll of gun violence.
Enforcing the laws we have on the books is critical for public safety -- and something the gun lobby has claimed to support in the past. But the NRA is actively trying to roll back the President's efforts to do so, vowing to fight his actions "more aggressively than we have ever challenged anything." [1] And now their allies in Congress are threatening to introduce a bill that tries to block these common-sense efforts.
It's a political play at the expense of our safety, and it's unacceptable.
President Obama's actions will crack down on illegal gun trafficking by making sure that high-volume gun sellers get licenses and run background checks. Congress, on the other hand, has done nothing to reduce gun violence since first-graders were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. And if that weren't shameful enough, the same politicians who blocked common-sense gun safety measures after Sandy Hook are doing everything they can to block the president's actions.
This month, gun-lobby-backed senators hauled Attorney General Loretta Lynch before a Senate committee hearing to discuss the President's actions -- but used the opportunity to politically grandstand instead of discussing any real policy questions. And a prominent House member threatened to defund the entire Department of Justice to try and block the president's stronger enforcement of our gun laws. [2]
This is political grandstanding at its worst, and it comes at a dangerous cost. It's further proof that the NRA's favorite politicians will stop at nothing to protect the gun lobby -- while doing nothing to protect American lives.
Join Everytown and Daily Kos in telling your senator and representative to stop this extremist bill and fight to protect the president's common-sense actions.
The gun lobby is powerful -- but so are the American people. I know we can win this.
Keep fighting,
Carissa Miller, Daily Kos