Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: GOP vs. the 90 percent on guns

http://www.denverpost.com/opinioncolumnists/ci_23057440/gop-vs-90-percent-guns
 
 
Hubbard: GOP vs. the 90 percent on guns
 
By Curtis Hubbard
 
In what should go down as a remarkable instance of political obtuseness, 
the U.S. Senate on Wednesday couldn't find the 60 votes needed to pass a 
watered-down gun background-check bill.
 
The measure failed 54-46, with 41 Republicans and five Democrats voting 
against the amendment.
 
Calling the outcome tragic would be an insult to the tragedies that have 
pushed the issue to the fore. So let's settle on shameful.
 
Further troubling is that more senators voted for an amendment making it 
easier to carry a gun than for the measure aimed at keeping guns out of 
the hands of those who shouldn't have them.
 
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., was one of 57 senators (44 Republicans and 13 
Democrats) who voted in favor of the "reciprocal concealed carry 
amendment," which forces states to honor permits issued elsewhere - even 
if they aren't up to their standards.
 
The amendment fell three votes short of the 60 needed, thanks in part to 
Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., having the sense to reverse his vote on 
the issue from 2009.
 
But the failure of that amendment doesn't change the fact that 
gun-rights supporters won the day.
 
The question is, at what cost?
 
Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough warned afterward that the 
vote would be a turning point for his party as it moves down the road 
"toward extinction."
 
"You do not ignore 90 percent of the American people on an issue of 
public safety," he said.
 
That's a reference to a Quinnipiac University poll showing nearly 90 
percent of Americans supported universal background checks.
 
You couldn't find that level of consensus if you asked 10 Americans 
whether the sky is blue. In fact, it's hard to find any issue - or 
person, for that matter - held in such high regard.
 
Tom Jensen, whose Public Policy Polling firm regularly gauges public 
opinion, found that out firsthand two years ago.
 
"There are only two things I've ever found polling at 90 percent 
favorability or better," he told me Thursday. "They were Abraham Lincoln 
and Jesus Christ."
 
Universal background checks, in comparison to the 2011 poll Jensen 
referenced, have higher favorability than George Washington (86 
percent), Martin Luther King Jr. (74 percent), Santa Claus (67 percent) 
and Steve Jobs (62 percent).
 
Speaking of jobs, many in the GOP (which stands for, take your pick, 
"Guns Over People" "Grisly Outcomes Persist" or "Guns are Our 
Profit-makers") don't seem to be worried about theirs.
 
They largely ignored threats from billionaire Michael Bloomberg to go 
after lawmakers who voted against the measure.
 
The Bloomberg-backed group Mayors Against Illegal Guns spent $12 million 
earlier this year targeting 15 senators on the issue. Of them, only five 
- Republicans Susan Collins and Pat Toomey and Democrats Joe Donnelly, 
Mary Landrieu and Kay Hagan - voted for expanded background checks.
 
That ad foray was described to me by one political operative as 
Bloomberg "putting a toe into the water on the issue."
 
He'll have to take the plunge now, because in looking at those who voted 
"no," none of the Republicans are viewed as particularly vulnerable next 
year and the Democrats all hail from states where they are unconcerned 
about their left flanks.
 
But this is new territory.
 
In addition to Bloomberg, the issue has champions in President Barack 
Obama, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, many of the families 
impacted by the shootings in Newtown and Aurora and - most important - 
the overwhelming majority of the American public.
 
Gun-rights advocates have shown the impact a vocal minority can have in 
the gun debate. It's past time for the majority to overwhelm them.
-- 
Namib
.....
αἱ ψυχαὶ ὀσμῶνται καθ᾽ Ἅιδην (Eraclito)

 
 
Bene.
 
-- 
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of  freedom, must, like men,
undergo the  fatigues of supporting it.”  - North Idaho 21st Batallion of
Light Foot

 Bene.
 
meglio!
http://video.repubblica.it/mondo/seattle-sparatoria-in-condominio-5-morti/126185/124682
 
http://qn.quotidiano.net/esteri/2013/04/24/878693-sparatoria-in-illinois.shtml
 
 

 
M
 
Taci, cretino
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