The Manchin-Toomey Expanded Background Checks Bill to regulate purchase of guns by Al Qaeda terrorists, gang members, rapists and murderers, and mentally unstable people at gun shows and on the internet, went down to a defeat in the US Senate yesterday, only able to gain a vote of 54-46, when 60 votes was needed to overcome the filibuster which holds up action unless that number is reached.
This is a slap in the face of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and the others who were victims in Tucson; those killed and wounded in the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado; and the massacre of 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
It also comes right after the Boston Marathon Massacre, which left three dead and 170 wounded, and it says to the nation that we are not willing to do the simple act of requiring expanded background checks as a minimum.
Four Republicans were courageous enough to oppose the National Rifle Association, while four Democrats were unwilling to do what was right, because of their fear of retribution when they came up for reelection, three of them in 2014.
But as much as one wants to keep his job, if a Senator has no principles except his or her own advancement, it means we have forgotten what our government is all about–doing what is best for the American people, and preserving their security and safety, the first and most important role of any government!
Probably only if these four Democratic Senators and the 42 Republicans who voted against expanded background checks had members of their own families killed or wounded, would they get the message!
This is a sad moment in the history of the US Senate, particularly when up to 90 percent of Americans and 80 percent of gun owners support such expanded background checks to preserve some of the lives of our children and our loved ones!