Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, perhaps having seen the polling on how badly he's trailing Democrat Russ Feingold, decided he'd better distance himself from Donald Trump on the issue of a ban on Muslim immigration.
"The best way to prevent the homegrown-inspired attacks is literally positive engagement with Muslim communities," Johnson said. "Making sure that any immigrant population that comes into America assimilates, becomes part of our culture. That has been our history, it has made us strong."
He must have memorized that. It's a relatively complete and coherent thought. You know he can't maintain that. He doesn't, once the subject turns to guns.
"I want to err on the side of constitutional liberty and freedom," he said. "Take a look at what's actually going to work. The people that are proposing banning assault weapons, well, first of all they're already banned. Assault weapon is a fully automatic, those are already banned. So they start talking about assault style. OK, what does that mean? Those can be hunting rifles. All these proposals, I've always heard in terms of additional gun control. You stack up what they're proposing against past instances, well, that wouldn't have prevented the vast majority of those instances, so what would the point be other than reducing our constitutional liberties and freedoms."
Despite the fact that his ignorance on gun laws was highlighted pretty widely on Monday, he doubled down on this.
The kind of semi-automatic weapon that killed 49 people and injured 53 more on Sunday is not banned. That's the same gun that killed 14 people and wounded 22 more in San Bernardino; an AR-15 killed nine in Roseburg, Oregon; killed five and wounded four at Santa Monica Community College; one killed 12 people and wounded 70 more in Aurora, Colorado; and an AR-15 killed 20 small children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. That weapon is legal, Sen. Johnson, and it is not a hunting rifle—unless you're talking about hunting humans.
But you've got those NRA talking points down with that "constitutional liberty and freedom" bit. That $1.3 million+ you've received from the gun lobby has bought them that much. It won't however, guarantee you will keep this Senate seat.
Please give $3 to help Russ Feingold stand up for Wisconsin again.