Posted on 01/11/2011 9:04:15 PM PST by Second Amendment First
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is rejecting gun-control legislation offered by the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in response to the weekend shootings of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and 19 others in Arizona.
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) announced plans Tuesday to introduce legislation prohibiting people from carrying guns within 1,000 feet of members of Congress.
King, who has previously called for the removal of illegal guns from the streets, made the announcement alongside New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, one of the nation’s loudest voices for stricter gun laws.
King said the legislation is not intended only for the safety of government officials but also to protect the public. He said elected officials are not necessarily more important than constituents, but by protecting them in this way, they would feel safer in meeting federal officials at public events.
“The fact is they do represent the people who elect them, and it’s essential, if we’re going to continue to have contact, that the public who are at these meetings are ensured of their own safety,” King said.
King’s legislation got the cold shoulder from Boehner and other Republicans after it was announced.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the Speaker would not support King’s legislation.
The office of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the majority leader is reserving judgment until the King bill is finalized.
“Mr. Cantor believes it’s appropriate to adequately review and actually read legislation before forming an opinion about it,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring stated in an e-mail.
The immediate rejection of King’s legislation by Boehner illustrates the difficulty gun-control advocates will face in moving forward with any legislation.
Even Capitol Hill’s most ardent gun reformers don’t anticipate any changes to the nation’s gun laws will be forthcoming in the 112th Congress. They say the combination of a GOP-led House and the powerful gun lobby is simply too formidable to take on over an issue that’s become a proverbial third rail of Washington politics.
“Anything you can get through the gun lobby is going to have little consequence,” Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), a longtime supporter of tightening Second Amendment restrictions, said in a phone interview. “I don’t see the likelihood of much progress — I don’t see much hope.”
Aside from King’s proposal, longtime gun-control advocates Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) are working on legislation to prohibit high-capacity ammunition magazines like those allegedly used by Jared Lee Loughner, the 22-year-old college dropout who’s been charged in the Arizona rampage.
Meanwhile, some lawmakers say the public debate about whether incendiary punditry helped ignite the Arizona rampage has overshadowed the more important role that mental health played in the deadly shooting.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said the sometimes violence-laced remarks from Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and other political commentators should be toned down, but were likely not the impetus for the shooting spree.
“Whether you blame them or any of those things on what happened, I don’t think is the issue,” Brown said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Rather, the reportedly erratic behavior of Loughner should have raised red flags about his mental health, Brown said — flags that might have led to treatments that could have prevented the tragic shootings.
“The mental health issues here haven’t been talked about much. We don’t really have much of a mental health safety net in this country. You know, there’s almost nobody watching today,” Brown said.
Although Loughner’s behavior reportedly set off enough alarms that he was expelled from community college and denied entrance into the military, he had no problems buying a hand gun from a local sporting goods store in November .
“This young man should have been [red-flagged] when he was thrown out of that community college,” Brown said. “The mental health safety net’s pretty shredded in Arizona, as it is nationally.”
King’s proposal perplexed some members of Congress, who wondered how it would be implemented because members are so mobile and often encounter individuals without knowledge that a congressional event is taking place.
“I think my concern would be, how do you put a 1,000-foot bubble around a member of Congress and what are you going to do about judges and Cabinet secretaries?” asked Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). “If you get past the logistics of it, it would seem to have a ripple effect throughout the upper echelons of appointed and elected officials.”
A spokesman for the National Rifle Association, Andrew Arulanandam, said this week that it would be “inappropriate” for the group to comment on potential reforms so soon after the tragedy.
>> [the public debate about incendiary punditry] has overshadowed the more important role that mental health played in the deadly shooting.
Negligence can be deadly. Even if the City managed to prevent Loughner’s gun purchase, he could have still killed using any other type of weapon.
Was Loughner’s condition ever evaluated after the numerous expulsions from the community college?
GOOD, Mr. Speaker...
now ..
Don’t go “Wobbly” on us!!
He has no choice, he’s from NYC. Sorry FReepers from New York, but I don’t understand the fear of tools that most of the population there suffers from, if they aren’t wielded by someone with a union card.
this ain’t no KneeJerk unless you know something that EVERYONE else doesn’t know.
i hope when Nanny Pelousy hears this every sound bite burns her ears
this ain’t no KneeJerk unless you know something that EVERYONE else doesn’t know.
i hope when Nanny Pelousy hears this every sound bite burns her ears
If the Republicans want to borrow a leaf from the Democrat playbook and use this tragedy to grab an issue and ride it I would suggest using this incident to publicize and reform the outrage that decades of fashionable liberal “deinstitutionalization” of the mentally ill have brought us.
Because schizophrenics can’t be committed and end up on our streets and jails America sees most of its mentally-ill citizens routinely condemned to a life in the gutter. The homeless-industrial complex and the lefty lawyers guild have seen to it. This would be one ripe, juicy tomato ready for squashing. I’d like to see the dem politician willing to take a public stand for the status quo in the face of an all-out political/PR offensive.
Then there’s this little matter of marijuana legalization. I recall reading mentions for a decade now of research proving that teenage pot use leads to a much higher rate of schizophrenia. Mark David Chapman (John Lennon R.I.P.) was also a heavy pothead as a teen. This would be another nice, heavy, paddleboard to (constructively) belabor the Left with.
Why hasn't this been done before? I mean, you know, it's so simple!
Well a mentally ill person is not going to listen to the law anyway.
At one time I had a lot of hope for Cantor but he's striking me as being way too soft. This is a bill that is nothing more than kneejerk stupidity on its face and Cantor's office acts like its something that could be seriously considered. King needs to be told without playing games just how ridiculous the bill really is.
It’s interesting that the shooter’s arena was a liberal event and the only known nearest gun (other than the shooter’s) was being carried by a kid in his early 20s not in attendance but buying cigarettes away from the scene who hears the shots and moves toward the sounds and ends up sitting on the shooter’s neck. Seeing the shooter already subdued the kid never even bothered to pull out his gun but assisted in holding the shooter down until sheriffs arrived.
Like any manager, expect Cantor to be respectful of his troops in public -- especially when discussing their actions with the press.
We aren't privy to what is being said in private. Nor should we be.
If this 1,000ft rule was in place before the shooting, it would not have stopped it. The law abiding citizens would not have had their guns and the criminals would done what they would have done anyway.
boo hoo
Good points, but I'll be happy if the Republican just get back onto the agenda they've already established. I don't think the people who elected them are asking them to do anything about this situation, except to honor the dead and wounded.
Crazy happens. It's a fact of life on planet earth. It can't be legislated out of existence. If anything, Boehner needs to toss back any ridiculous knee-jerk bills the House Dems offer right now. He's already tossed back one.
now, what is he going to do about all the current gun laws? Less regulation = more freedom.
YOU WORK FOR US........ AND IF YOU Drive THE UNBALANCED MINORITY OF the US public WHO HAPPEN TO BE CRAZY AROUND THE BEND........take your medicine.
We are witessing a liberal fascist race AWAY from further accountability. They fear for their very lives. I kinda like that.Perhaps they will see that its just not a good idea to keeop screwing their constituents, as they intend to keep doing, which is why they want , "additional protection."
Manwhile the left withers under the wages of politicizing the Arizona tragedy. A POX ON THE LEFT!!!
The ARIZONA corpses are not even cold in the ground and the left is attempting to prevent the roll back of their totalitarian health care bill by changing the issue based on this horrible tragedy? EFF THEM!!
OH WILL AMERICA EVER REMEMBER THIS IN 2012!!!!!
OBAMA MUST GO. RESIGN OBAMA!!!
I applaud Boehner - better nip this idiotic idea in the bud before it gets demagogued by the left.
“Rep King is just trying to jump on the political bandwagon.”
No, he’s just scared of getting shot, and also a stupid Liberal gun-grabber who has the usual Liberal delusion that gun laws work.
“Roving, random felon bubbles.”
Roving, random, felon generator!
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