The Tampa Bay Times got their hands on a House GOP caucus memo that gave members talking points to respond to constituent questions about mass shootings and the need for common sense gun safety legislation. The answers are as disgusting and disheartening as you would imagine. They contain the normal boilerplate bullshit, repeating the mental health and video game mantra, even though those myths have been debunked for decades. No Republican can explain, since mental health problems and violent video games proliferate throughout the world, why the US is a singular outlier when it comes to gun violence generally and mass shootings specifically. They will dance around the issue, blaming EVERYTHING except the actual problem – the omnipresence of guns and the ease by which they can be obtained.
Worse, this memo coached House members how to answer the problem which is the answer in the room…violence of extreme right-wingers and white supremacists. Here’s the coached question: “Do you believe white nationalism is driving more mass shootings recently?” Here’s the official House caucus answer: “White nationalism and racism are pure evil and cannot be tolerated in any form. We also can’t excuse violence from the left such as the El Paso shooter, the recent Colorado shooters, the Congressional baseball shooter, Congresswoman Giffords’ shooter and Antifa.”
The letter actually called the El Paso shooter, who was a white supremacist and hated immigrants, a person “from the left”. They later tried to say that was “a mistake” – no shit, Sherlock. What the letter blatantly did, though, and what they always do, was to discourage members from telling the truth and to try and frame a false equivalency that “both sides do it”. Well, both sides don’t do it. Not even close. The Anti-Defamation League actually keeps track of domestic violence, and through 2018, not even counting the violence from this year, 73% of domestic violence in America was committed by rightwing extremists and white supremacists.
So, let’s sum up. The messaging experts for the GOP are coaching their members to lie, equivocate, obfuscate, and distract from the actual problem of gun violence in America. That problem is fourfold –
- It is well known that there are now 400 million guns in circulation in America today.
- Guns are easily obtainable in many states, and Republicans have been systematically dismantling gun safety laws for the last 3 decades. The assault weapons ban was allowed to expire by Republican leadership and the GWB administration in 2004, kicking off massive growth in assault weapons manufacturing.
- White supremacism and rightwing extremism exploded during the Obama administration, driven by the corporate backed Tea Party movement which normalized the anti-government, pro-gun culture.
- Trump has encouraged this culture and has used social media to vilify everyone non-white and non radical conservative.
The combination of these forces has been explosive. Our homicide rate, which is multiples above the rest of the developed world. Even so, that rate has been declining, however, in recent years, as red states have stupidly weakened gun laws and encouraged the proliferation of assault weapons, our homicide rate is increasing. Worse, the incidence of mass shootings has also exploded. To date this year there have been 262 mass shootings. There have been almost 9,300 deaths and almost 19,000 wounded. The gun violence in America eclipses the entire developed world. Travel advisories have been issued in other countries advising against traveling to the US due to our gun violence.
And what are Republicans doing about this? What is Moscow Mitch, Trump, and the other shitbags in Congress doing? Lying. Deflecting. And hiding. They’re all hiding. Now is the time for the spotlight of normal Americans calling bullshit on the do nothing Republicans. Call your Congressperson and Senator. Write to your local paper.
Raise hell. Until we get His Orangeness out of the WH, that’s all we can do.
Well, apparently the Bureau of Prisons decided he wasn’t crazy enough to keep in a federal prison mental hospital for his entire ten year sentence.