Tag: background checks
5 Reasons Democrats Should Be Proud Of This Presidential Primary

5 Reasons Democrats Should Be Proud Of This Presidential Primary

If you’re a Democrat, chances are you appreciate both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

The more time you spend online, the harder this may be to believe. But it’s a poll-tested fact, even in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the Vermont senator’s appeal presents the biggest challenge to the former Secretary of State.

Both candidates have fervent, occasionally raving supporters who oppose the other, although the fanatics are a minority. Both candidates are historic in their own right. And even though Sanders is new to the Democratic Party, both candidates have found record support and represent the kind of energy necessary to grow the Obama Coalition and restore the New Deal consensus.

That doesn’t mean this campaign hasn’t been contentious and won’t get worse. It will, especially if the contest gets even closer. But there are several reasons to be proud, which is something you can rarely say in politics.

  1. Sanders is speaking to the great crises of our time. Our economy is eating itself: “In 1980, the top 1 percent had about 8 percent of national income. Today it’s closing in 24 percent. The bottom 50 percent of Americans in 1980 shared about 18 percent of national income. Today it’s down to 11 percent, down a third…” billionaire-turned-wealth-inequality-activist Nick Hanauer explained last year. “All you have to do is put that data in an Excel spreadsheet and just run the extrapolation out 30 years. The numbers are scary, right? Because the top 1 percent will control in the mid 30s — 35, 36, 37 percent of national income — and the bottom 50 percent of Americans will share 5 or 6 percent of national income. At that point you don’t have a capitalist democracy anymore. You have some kind of feudal system.”  Few Americans speak to this crisis — and its twin environmental crisis of climate change — as well as Bernie Sanders. He recognizes that we need a “political revolution” to change the dynamic. Some say that’s unrealistic, but it makes perfect sense in two ways. For Sanders to win even the nomination would require a remarkable upheaval, greater even that what Barack Obama pulled off when he barely beat Clinton in 2008. To implement his agenda, he would need Democratic majorities even larger than those swept in with Obama in 2008. If this doesn’t happen now, it needs to happen someday soon. Stopping the tide of conservative economics isn’t enough — it must be reversed. Our Republic depends on it.
  2. Clinton is speaking to the most immediate disasters we face. For Hillary Clinton to champion repealing the Hyde Amendment — which denies access to reproductive rights to poor people who get government health care — is in many ways as idealistic (and difficult to imagine becoming real) as Sanders’ Medicare for All plan. By campaigning on promises for which Democrats don’t have the votes in Congress, the left risks aping the right’s empty promises to the base. But just as Sanders is making a larger case for a new role for government, Clinton is staking a claim for defending reproductive rights, which are definitely on the ballot in 2016. The next president could be the first since Nixon to appoint four justices to the Supreme Court, possibly in one term. Both Clinton and Sanders would appoint justices who would defend reproductive rights, voting rights, civil rights, and labor rights. But who can put the immediacy of this issue before voters most effectively? While Sanders wants a political revolution, Clinton wants to build on the 90 percent of Americans who now have health insurance instead of letting Republicans immediately chip away at that number. More than any other single American, Clinton helped push forward the notion of universal healthcare in America — and we are closer than ever to that reality. But more than anyone, she knows the costs of that effort and the fury of right wing attacks on the people who fight for progress. Her argument is not as radical as Sanders’, but it is as essential: Help me keep and build on Barack Obama’s progress, or watch much of it waste away as quickly as the progress of the 90s faded under George W. Bush.
  3. Both candidates rise when challenged to present fresh policy ideas. The Democratic Party has moved left in the last decade, but only to keep up with the American public. On issues like mass incarceration, the drug war, LGBTQ rights, and background checks on gun purchases, the vast majority of Americans have embraced more progressive positions. When Sanders and Clinton were challenged by activists like #BlackLivesMatter, they produced policies to reflect this changing reality. These visions don’t please everyone, but they reflect a party that’s not trafficking in failed perspectives of the past. On Wall Street regulation, Clinton constantly had her credibility challenged due to her husband’s second-term embrace of deregulation, her own votes, and her affinity with donors from the financial sector, many of whom were her constituents in New York. Still, her policies to regulate shadow banks have been praised by Paul Krugman and reflect the reality that Dodd-Frank has been more effective than many critics will admit. Still, we face a Securities and Exchange Commission captured by industry and a revolving door between government and the banks that barely even squeaks, as lobbyists try to undo reform. Pushing Clinton on this issue just makes sense. Sanders’ vote to give gunmakers broad legal immunity reveals a rare instance where he sought to empower corporations. Given that Congress has largely blocked even basic efforts to study gun violence, pushing Sanders on this issue also makes sense. And when the candidates have been pushed, they’ve generally stepped up.
  4. Both candidates have avoided the personal mudslinging endemic to tight races (so far). The 2016 Republican primary race is a cesspool, with the frontrunner wielding a giant firehose that spews sewage. Racism, sexism, and personal attacks are the primary currency of that contest, and the biggest spender of that currency is winning. Sanders has refused to indulge right wing attacks on Clinton’s email use as Secretary of State. He has sidestepped personal attacks on Bill Clinton’s personal life, while his criticisms of Clinton’s integrity have been hazy and glancing. His supporters have been vicious toward Clinton, but generally peddle in fact not innuendo. Clinton’s surrogates have often matched or outdone Sanders’ backers vitriol. Primary elections are about flooding an opponent’s hull to learn whether there are any leaks. Going too easy on a candidate leaves him or her exposed in a general election, while indulging unfair attacks can inflict lasting damage. Thus far, this primary has tested both candidates’ weaknesses without weighing them down for the general election.
  5. The Democratic candidates aren’t damaging their party the way Republicans are.
    In a recent NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll, a substantial plurality of respondents said the GOP primary has damaged the party’s image by featuring its worst hucksters and clowns, as these polarizing figures gain more and more prominence. “In the poll, 42 percent of registered voters said the primary race has made them feel less favorable about the GOP, compared to just 19 percent who said they feel more favorable,” NBC’s Carrie Dann reported. “Thirty-eight percent said the brawl for the Republican nomination hasn’t changed their view of the party as a whole.” In the same poll, a majority of 54 percent said the Democratic primary hasn’t changed their view of the party at all.
Amy Schumer Promotes Gun Check Legislation With Cousin Sen. Chuck Schumer

Amy Schumer Promotes Gun Check Legislation With Cousin Sen. Chuck Schumer

Comedian and actress Amy Schumer went to Capitol Hill on Monday, teaming up with a famous cousin of hers — Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — to promote legislation to strengthen background checks for gun purchases.

A visibly emotional Ms. Schumer highlighted the matter’s relevance, after the mass shooting late last month at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana.

“For me, the pain I share with so many other Americans on the issue of gun violence was made extremely personal to me on Thursday, July the 23rd when John — I’m not even gonna say his name — when this — he sat down for my movie Trainwreck at the Grand Theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana. Two lives were tragically lost, and others injured. And I’ve thought about these victims each day since the tragedy.”

The shooter, John Russell Houser, killed two people and injured nine others, then fatally shot himself. Houser bought his gun legally, despite a history of legal and mental health issues.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, evidence suggests that Houser might have targeted a showing of the movie Trainwreck because of its feminist themes, or his decision may have been driven by anti-Semitism toward Schumer herself.

“We’ll never know why people choose to do these painful things. But sadly, we always find out how,” she added. “How the shooter got their gun — and it’s often something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. And today’s push makes so much sense, because it seeks to address the ‘how.’ We need a background check system with holes — without holes and fatal flaws. We need one with accurate information that protects us like a firewall. The critics scoff and say, ‘Well, there’s no way to stop crazy people from doing crazy things.’ But they’re wrong — there is a way to stop them. Preventing dangerous people from getting guns is very possible.”

(Video via The Associated Press.)

Reagan Spokesman, U.S. Anti-Gun Activist James Brady Dies, 73

Reagan Spokesman, U.S. Anti-Gun Activist James Brady Dies, 73

By Robert MacPherson

Washington (AFP) — Former White House spokesman James Brady, a tireless advocate for gun control after being severely wounded during a 1981 attempt on the life of his then-boss Ronald Reagan, has died at the age of 73.

In a statement to U.S. news media Monday that specified no date or place of death, Brady’s family said he passed away “after a series of health issues.”

“We are enormously proud of Jim’s remarkable accomplishments — before he was shot on that fateful day in 1981 while serving at the side of President Ronald Reagan and in the days, months, and years that followed,” they said.

Brady was among four people shot and wounded — including Reagan himself — when John Hinckley Jr. tried to kill the newly-inaugurated president on a rainy day outside the Washington Hilton hotel on March 30, 1981.

His serious head wound left him with partial paralysis and slurred speech. Unable to return to work, the Illinois native nevertheless retained the title of White House press secretary throughout the Reagan administration.

– Sought tougher gun laws –

With his wife Sarah, Brady took a front-and-center role in efforts to enact tougher handgun laws in the United States, notably through an advocacy group that came to be known as the Brady Campaign.

Success came in November 1993 when President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act, which required background checks for anyone buying firearms from a licensed retailer in the United States.

He remain committed to gun control throughout his life, saying on Capitol Hill in 2011: “I wouldn’t be here in this damn wheelchair if we had common-sense legislation.”

“Jim was the personification of courage and perseverance,” said Reagan’s widow Nancy Reagan in a statement.

“He and Sarah never gave up, and never stopped caring about the causes in which they believed.”

More than two million attempts by prohibited individuals to buy firearms have been foiled since the “Brady Bill” — which did not extend to gun sales between individuals — came into force, said Brady Campaign president Dan Gross.

“Jim never gave up fighting and never lost his trademark wit,” said Gross, whose own brother suffered a traumatic brain injury during a shooting at the Empire State Building in New York.

– ‘Saved many lives’ –

“In fact, there are few Americans in history who are as directly responsible for saving as many lives as Jim,” he said in a statement.

At the White House, where in 2000 the press briefing room was renamed in Brady’s honor, spokesman Josh Earnest told journalists he was “saddened” by the news.

“He was somebody who showed his patriotism and commitment to the country by being very outspoken on an issue that was important to him and that he felt very strongly about,” Earnest said.

“He leaves the kind of legacy that, I think, certainly this press secretary and all future press secretaries will aspire to live up to.”

For his attempt on Reagan’s life, Hinckley — who got his .22 pistol from a pawn shop in Texas, and claimed he was trying to impress actress Jodie Foster — was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Now 59, he resides at a Washington mental hospital, but has court permission to pay regular visits to his mother’s home in Virginia.

AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan

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Two Years After Aurora, Where’s The Gun Reform?

Two Years After Aurora, Where’s The Gun Reform?

It’s been two years since the tragic Aurora, Colorado theater shooting, which killed 12 people and injured 70. But although many politicians, including President Obama, vowed that the nation would finally do something to strengthen gun regulations, Congress still hasn’t passed a single gun control law since. In fact, Congress hasn’t passed any major gun reform since 1994’s Assault Weapons Ban, which expired 10 years ago.

That doesn’t mean that nothing has changed, however. Months later, after the Newtown elementary school shooting in December 2012, the president set up a task force to address the issue. He promised to send Congress proposals for strengthening gun control, and he urged lawmakers to ban assault weapons, pass a universal background check law, and limit high-capacity ammunition clips.

He then signed 23 executive orders into law in January 2013. These included reducing barriers to background checks, researching the causes of gun violence, and improving mental health services. As Forbes explained at the time, “It does not appear that any of the executive orders would have any impact on the guns people currently own – or would like to purchase – and that all proposals regarding limiting the availability of assault weapons or large ammunition magazines will be proposed for congressional action.”

In other words, Congress still needed to act. In April 2013, the Senate voted to expand the background check system, a reform that 90 percent of Americans supported. But the amendment failed to to gain the 60 votes it needed to advance, due to pressure from the National Rifle Association and the lack of support from some red-state Democrats such as North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp.

President Obama called the vote “a shameful day in Washington.”

Obama took two more executive actions in August 2013. He banned military weapons that the United States had sold or given to allies from being imported back into the country. These weapons, however, are rarely used at crime scenes.

The president also attempted to close a loophole that allows felons and anyone else who can’t legally purchase a gun to register firearms to a corporation. The new rule requires anyone associated with that corporation to go through a background check. But that rule only applies to guns regulated under the National Firearms Act, which only regulates very deadly weapons such as machine guns.

Meanwhile, Congress still hasn’t passed any major gun legislation. The only step in the right direction was in May 2014, when the House passed an amendment that would increase funding for the country’s background check system.

In June, 163 House Democrats wrote an open letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), asking him to allow a vote on legislation to address gun violence. If he doesn’t allow a vote, it could resurface as a major issue in the midterms.

Even though there hasn’t been substantive national action to reduce gun violence, some states have taken gun control into their own hands.

Colorado’s state legislature passed laws that required universal background checks and limited gun magazines to 15 rounds of ammunition. Two Democratic state senators were recalled shortly thereafter, in an effort that was heavily supported by the NRA.

New York also passed new gun control and mental health laws. Other states have improved their background check systems, limited magazine capacity, and worked to prevent the mentally ill from accessing guns.

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 64 laws have strengthened state gun regulations since the Newtown shootings, and 70 laws have weakened them.

Photo: Rob Bixby via Flickr

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