Campaign Action
That deep-thinker, the up-and-coming hope of Republicans, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is once again demonstrating just how not-ready-for-prime-time he is. Still. Five years after that nationally televised, live water emergency in his state of the union response. This embarrassment again involves Rubio on a live, national stage, but there isn't much that's funny this time around.
It was one week after the fatal shootings at a Parkland, Florida, high school, and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was looking to show solidarity with an angry crowd of parents and students in his home state. He told them—and a national television audience—that 18-year-olds should not be able to buy a rifle and said, "I will support a law that takes that right away."
About 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) north, District of Columbia officials could only shake their heads in disbelief. The city already had a law barring 18-year-olds from buying rifles, yet Rubio was the main senator pushing legislation to end that ban, as well as D.C.'s prohibition of assault weapons.
"Rubio's gun bill should be a public embarrassment as well as a personal embarrassment to him," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington's nonvoting delegate in Congress. […]
Following the town hall, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser challenged Rubio to withdraw his bill. Rubio sent her a letter saying that he and Bowser "share a common goal" and that his bill seeks only to bring Washington "in line with federal law." If federal law changes—which Rubio said is his goal—then Washington’s laws would change as well.
Rubio is incapable of embarrassment, as he's repeatedly demonstrated. In this case, he's happy to completely lie about his position on guns, in front of a national audience. It gained him points there, and he probably figured he was never going to have to take that vote, and that no one was going to pay attention to what he is actually doing on the job. Except the NRA, and fighting the assault weapons ban in D.C. is a way for Rubio to keep that NRA score high, and the campaign contributions flowing.