Posted on Apr 1, 2023
The Nashville school shooting highlights the partisan divide over gun legislation
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https://www.npr.org/2023/04/01/ [login to see] /school-shooting-assault-weapons-ban-history
America's latest mass shooting, this time at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., has recalled nightmarish memories and raised one of the most vexing of political questions.
Before the funerals had even begun for the three children and three adults slain on Monday, the well-practiced roaring and debate had resumed in Congress. And so had the usual expressions of exasperation, because those who have followed the issue in recent decades have had an education in frustration and futility.
Democrats this week were once again asking how a person disturbed enough to use military-style weaponry on children could have such easy access to such weaponry. They want more legal restraints on guns.
President Biden this week called for the reinstatement of a ban on military-style assault weapons, a ban first instituted in 1994 but allowed to lapse a decade later. Bills that would restore the ban had already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 25) and House (H.R. 698) this year, following the Chinese New Year mass shootings in Southern California.
America's latest mass shooting, this time at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., has recalled nightmarish memories and raised one of the most vexing of political questions.
Before the funerals had even begun for the three children and three adults slain on Monday, the well-practiced roaring and debate had resumed in Congress. And so had the usual expressions of exasperation, because those who have followed the issue in recent decades have had an education in frustration and futility.
Democrats this week were once again asking how a person disturbed enough to use military-style weaponry on children could have such easy access to such weaponry. They want more legal restraints on guns.
President Biden this week called for the reinstatement of a ban on military-style assault weapons, a ban first instituted in 1994 but allowed to lapse a decade later. Bills that would restore the ban had already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 25) and House (H.R. 698) this year, following the Chinese New Year mass shootings in Southern California.
The Nashville school shooting highlights the partisan divide over gun legislation
Posted from npr.org
Firearms and Guns
Violence
Children
Schools
Nashville
Posted 1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."On Dec. 12, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20 — described by counselors as fascinated with mass shootings — killed his mother and took guns she had legally purchased to a Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
There he shot dead 20 children, ages 6 and 7. He also killed six adults on the school staff. Then he killed himself.
The national shock at the time is hard to appreciate a decade later, as there have been so many like it. But the sadness of that Christmas season contributed to a sense that something, finally, would be done.
But the 113th Congress came and went in 2013 and 2014 without passing notable gun legislation. A compromise measure on background checks, offered by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey, got 54 votes in the Senate but needed 60.
As for prospects for reviving gun legislation in the current Congress, the situation looks much as it did a decade ago. The 118th Congress has a Senate where Democrats have a nominal majority that depends on the cooperation of several independents. Feinstein is still in the Senate, the longest-serving incumbent Democrat, but planning to retire next year.
The current House, like that of a decade ago, has a Republican majority led by a speaker whose power depends on placating a hardcore group known as the House Freedom Caucus."
..."On Dec. 12, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20 — described by counselors as fascinated with mass shootings — killed his mother and took guns she had legally purchased to a Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
There he shot dead 20 children, ages 6 and 7. He also killed six adults on the school staff. Then he killed himself.
The national shock at the time is hard to appreciate a decade later, as there have been so many like it. But the sadness of that Christmas season contributed to a sense that something, finally, would be done.
But the 113th Congress came and went in 2013 and 2014 without passing notable gun legislation. A compromise measure on background checks, offered by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey, got 54 votes in the Senate but needed 60.
As for prospects for reviving gun legislation in the current Congress, the situation looks much as it did a decade ago. The 118th Congress has a Senate where Democrats have a nominal majority that depends on the cooperation of several independents. Feinstein is still in the Senate, the longest-serving incumbent Democrat, but planning to retire next year.
The current House, like that of a decade ago, has a Republican majority led by a speaker whose power depends on placating a hardcore group known as the House Freedom Caucus."
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