As if to reveal that they will get off their duffs when circumstances so require, congressional Republicans moved swiftly Wednesday to demand motion on a measure to guard U.S. Supreme Courtroom justices from the specter of violence.
They have been responding to the arrest of an armed man outdoors the Maryland house of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. Inside minutes of the arrest, Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), was on the Senate flooring demanding that the Home go a invoice rising safety protections for Supreme Courtroom justices and their households “earlier than the solar units immediately.”
“Home Democrats have to cease their multiweek blockade in opposition to the Supreme Courtroom safety invoice,” McConnell mentioned.
Two kids, whose our bodies had been pulverized by bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped aside, that the one clue as to their identities have been the blood-spattered cartoon garments nonetheless clinging to them, clinging for all times and discovering none,
— Uvalde, Texas, pediatrician Roy Guerrero, describing what he noticed on the hospital following the bloodbath
Sounds fairly pressing. The one cause we will think about for any additional delay is that Home members have been tied up in the course of the day Wednesday taking testimony from survivors of and witnesses to the Might 24 Uvalde, Texas, college bloodbath, during which an 18-year-old gunman slaughtered 19 schoolchildren and two adults as regulation enforcement officers stood uselessly close by.
As CBS Information reported, Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at Robb Elementary College, informed the Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform in prerecorded testimony that her class was watching a film when the gunman got here into their classroom, “informed her instructor, ‘Good night time,’ and shot her within the head.”
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He then shot Cerrillo’s classmates. “I grabbed slightly blood and put it throughout me,” Cerrillo mentioned. “I received my instructor’s telephone and referred to as 911. … I informed her that we want assist, and to ship the police in our classroom.” They didn’t come.
On the listening to, Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde pediatrician, described what he noticed when the our bodies of two kids killed within the college arrived at his hospital.
“Two kids, whose our bodies had been pulverized by bullets fired at them, decapitated, whose flesh had been ripped aside, that the one clue as to their identities have been the blood-spattered cartoon garments nonetheless clinging to them, clinging for all times and discovering none,” he mentioned.
Felix and Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi was slain at Robb Elementary, issued a requirement very similar to McConnell’s.
“At the moment, we stand for Lexi, and as her voice, we demand motion,” Kimberly Rubio mentioned, calling for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. “We perceive that for some cause, to folks with cash, to individuals who fund political campaigns, weapons are extra vital than kids, … At this second, we ask for progress.”
The listening to was a part of Home Democrats’ effort to go a bundle of gun legal guidelines to lift the minimal age for getting semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21 and outlaw high-capacity ammunition magazines. GOP leaders say their members will vote in opposition to the invoice.
That mentioned, McConnell’s demand and the Home listening to collectively level to an answer to the GOP’s blockade of gun legal guidelines: Mix the Home bundle with the Supreme Courtroom safety act the GOP is so insistent on passing into one invoice.
Cross each, or neither. That’s the deal.
As we’ve written earlier than, the one approach to transfer smart gun security laws by Congress is to power the Republicans to vote. Make them get up and clarify why they’re against banning the type of assault weapons that may shred a human physique to the purpose that solely a DNA match can determine the sufferer.
And now, they will get up and clarify why a menace to a Supreme Courtroom justice’s house needs to be extra pressing than an precise assault on defenseless kids. Once more: Cross each, or go neither. And do it earlier than the solar units immediately.
