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After every single time masses of people—and children—are slaughtered, there's the hope that this time will be different. Maybe this time is. Maybe the nation has been forced to deal with the fact that white supremacy has taken over the White House and is spilling over into neighborhood Walmarts and has an unacceptable body count. Maybe this time, with the direct through-line to Donald Trump, maybe this time it will be different for Republicans because this time it's a lot harder to hide.
So yes, Mitch McConnell and congressional Republicans are "under intense pressure to respond to this weekend’s massacres" as The New York Times’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports. Our responsibility is to not allow them to respond to that pressure by doing the absolute minimum so they can say they did something. Because the absolute minimum is what they're proposing with “red flag” bills.
Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Republicans for this in a press release, saying that the "notion that passing a tepid version of an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) bill—alone—is even close to getting the job done in addressing rampant gun violence in the U.S. is wrong and would be an ineffective cop out." He vowed that "We Democrats are not going to settle for half-measures so Republicans can feel better and try to push the issue of gun violence off to the side. Democrats in the Senate will seek to require that any ERPO bill that comes to the floor is accompanied by a vote on the House-passed universal background checks legislation."
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who is a leader in meaningless action, tweeted about that bill and another as the "bills we should pass right away which could prevent future terror attacks like the ones this weekend." Both bills are, conveniently, his. And both are pretty meaningless compared to the scope of the threat. Like his "red flag" bill to allow officials to take guns away from individuals deemed to be an imminent risk to themselves or others. Temporarily. Nothing in his bill would prevent said individuals from immediately getting another weapon of war on the internet or in a private sale.
Rubio whined at Schumer's statement, "I don’t know the logic behind it. If we have a chance to pass something that makes something better, why not pass it and keep working on the other things?" In other words, "why aren't they letting us do the least possible thing so that we can say we did something." They are not going to be working on other things and everyone knows that, including Rubio.
If forced to, and he might actually be this time, Mitch McConnell will do the absolute minimum and no more. Universal background checks on top of enhanced red flag bills would be doing something. Passing the House expanded background check bills would be doing something that might possibly make a difference. The Senate could come back tomorrow and do that, act right now, if McConnell called the Senate back into session. But he's not going to do that. He's going to stay in recess and hope that the pressure will decrease as time passes.
Schumer and the Democrats don't need to let him do that, by the way. They could ratchet up the pressure he's already feeling by coming back unilaterally, by taking over the pro forma sessions that are happening every third day and holding down the floor. It would make for awfully effective television, effective enough even to further shame McConnell and, if nothing else, tell the people grieving in Dayton and in El Paso and all over the country that at least someone wants to fix this mess.