(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Why Do Republicans Love Guns? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-24 You would think that in the aftermath of the recent horrific, mass shootings, which even have occurred in Southern states, that at least a few members of the GOP House caucus would find some way to join with the other side and come up with some kind of mild measure to cut back on the violence caused by guns. Maybe those stalwart defenders of the 2nd Amendment aren’t quite ready to abandon one of their most cherished beliefs, so we shouldn’t expect them to jump onto the assault rifle ban bandwagon quite yet. But isn’t there some other, less dramatic way that the GOP can figure out to demonstrate some degree of worry for the seemingly endless shootings that are taking place? According to Gallup, more than 60% of American adults are dissatisfied with the gun-control laws we now have on the books and would like to see gun regulations increased. And while 54% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are satisfied with current gun laws, this number is a drop from the 69% who were satisfied two years ago. Think the gun-control issue won’t be an electoral concern in 2024? Think again. I get weekly emails and snail mails from the NRA and the gun-control groups like Brady and Giffords, and next year’s election is mentioned almost every time. Even after the killing of three adults and three children at a Christian school in Nashville, the House GOP Majority Leader, Steve Scalise, refused to talk about any kind of gun -control legislation in positive terms. Meanwhile, back in 2017, Scalise took a bullet in his rear end during a practice session of the GOP House baseball team. How can we explain or even just understand the complete and total refusal of the GOP House caucus to acknowledge the unending spate of gun violence which, if you recall, was blamed on the life stressors caused by Covid-19 in 2020-2021, but the Pandemic has now receded while gun violence seems to be getting worse all the time? The truth is that we can’t explain it, but given the fact that the ten states with the highest current rates of gun violence all send a majority of House members to the GOP side of the aisle, there would be at least a slight murmur about this issue from the red team. To the contrary, the GOP’s reaction to gun violence has been to introduce a bill in the House – H.R. 1095 – which would make “an AR–15 style rifle chambered in a .223 Remington round or a 5.56x45mm NATO round to be the National Gun of the United States.” I’m quoting from the text of the bill. So far, this bizarre piece of legislation only has five sponsors, including (of course) Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and George Santos. Can you imagine something this crazy as representing the response to shootings in Uvalde, Nashville, and a few other supermarkets and public sites? But before you take what I have written so far and consign the GOP to the nuthatch of history, let’s not forget that the primary reason that someone sits in a Congressional House seat is because he or she wants to get elected again. And to keep a seat in a legislative body where everyone has to face the voters every two years, you better make sure that what you say and what you think is what those voters want to hear. The Rand Corp. recently published research which breaks down household gun ownership on a state-by-state basis, and I happen to think that this particular study (as opposed to many others) is pretty good. Rand estimates that 32.4% of American households contain at least one gun. But of the 25 states which gave Trump a plurality in 2020, you would find a gun in more than half the households in 14 of those states. Only 2 states which gave Joe a plurality, contained gun-owning households above 50%, and they were Oregon -.508% and Vermont - .505% respectively. Let’s not forget that what matters in Congress is which party has the majority and this number increasingly reflects the outcome of elections in just a few states for the Senate and just a few CDs for the House. In that respect, no matter how devastating gun violence may prove to be, it may be an issue which the GOP has no choice but to ignore. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/24/2165642/-Why-Do-Republicans-Love-Guns Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/