We had a very lively and healthy debate here at AVC a while back about gun safety. I am very much in the camp that we need to put a lot more restrictions on what guns should be on the market and how. But regardless of where you are on gun safety, the vast majority of Americas (between 70% and 90% depending on how and who you count) believe that background checks should be run on everyone who wants to buy a gun.
But getting background check legislation passed by the Senate is proving challenging. How is it that 70-90% of Americas support this idea and we can't get the Senate to pass the legislation? Well that is gun safety politics in America.
Tomorrow the Senate will bring the bill to the floor for a vote. It looks the Republican threat to fillibuster has passed. Smart move by the GOP. Fillibustering a bill that 70-90% of Americans support seems like a bad idea. But there is still the question of how the vote will go.
Over the past decade, my wife and I have been generous givers to Democrats running for Senate. I imagine that of the fifty-five Democrats in the Senate, we have donated to at least half of them. The data is online somewhere but I don't have the time to find the data and link to it.
In the coming days, we will get another data set. That being the list of Senators who voted against background checks. And I hope that data gets put online permanently like our giving history. Because that will be a list of Senators who are hostage to the NRA and do not need or deserve our support. We will get to see who they are in the coming days. I will be watching carefully. So should you.
