Senate Republicans Argue Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police Are to Blame for Gun Violence

[babylonsister]

So many rethug dicks, so little time.

https://www.motherjones.com/mojo-wire/2021/03/senate-republicans-argue-black-lives-matter-and-defund-the-police-are-to-blame-for-gun-violence/

Senate Republicans Argue Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police Are to Blame for Gun Violence
Matt Cohen


A day after a gunman opened fire inside a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, killing 10 people, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to debate a series of proposals aimed at reducing gun violence. Though the hearing was scheduled weeks ago, it took on a new urgency in light of Monday’s shooting and another that occurred less than a week ago where a gunman went on a shooting spree at massage parlors in the Atlanta area, killing eight people.

Despite the recent massacres, Senate Republicans still delivered some of the familiar, debunked rebuttals against the common sense gun proposals, like that the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, or that criminals don’t follow the gun laws already in place. But at Tuesday’s hearing, Republican lawmakers introduced new, misleading talking points in their arguments against passing gun control legislation: That the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements that arose last year led to a spate of violent crime and shootings in cities across the country, and that people need guns more than ever to defend themselves.

In his opening statement, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that Black Lives Matter protests and the “defund the police” movement may have lead to an “1,268 additional deaths” last year. Grassley did not cite where that number came from, but it matches one found in a recent report from the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice that found that the homicide rate rose nearly 30 percent in 2020 than the previous year and “that translates to an additional 1,268 homicides across the 34-city sample.” Nowhere in the report did it mention that Black Lives Matter protests were a cause for the rise in homicides.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) used the hearing as an opportunity to angrily rant against the political “theater” that he says Democrats engage in every time there’s a mass shooting. “Every time there’s a mass shooting, we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these murders,” Cruz said. Cruz also blasted Democrats who, in the past, have called out Republican lawmakers who in the past refused to support gun control measures in the wake of mass shootings, instead just offering the victims and their families warm wishes. “I don’t apologize for thoughts and prayers,” Cruz declared. “And I believe in the power of prayer and the contempt of Democrats for prayers is an odd sociological thing.”

Link to tweet

snip//

In his closing remarks, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, delivered a swift condemnation of Cruz’s “ridiculous theater” comment, saying that he didn’t “believe any part of it was ridiculous. It was dead serious.”

[AZProgressive]

1. I guess blaming video games doesn't work anymore

Of course this is false since the US has the highest rates of gun ownership & violence out of developed countries.

He is dishonest on the issue. I won't get involved in discussing it but I recommend reading We Do This Til We Free US by Mariame Kaba to learn more

[Celerity]

2. Those fuckers would blame us LGBTQ folk for the deaths if a RW xian QMAGAt shot and killed 50

at a Gay Pride parade.

The nation is being ripped into shreds by their Olympian-level gaslighting and lies. The entire concept of object truth is being eviscerated.

[smirkymonkey]

6. +1000

So tired of it. It's out of control. They don't even attempt to deal in the truth anymore.

[sanatanadharma]

3. So they think gun violence began very recently

Saying "that the Black Lives Matter and defund the Police movements that arose last year led to a spate of violent crime and shootings in cities across the country, and that people need guns more than ever to defend themselves" is a clear admission that more guns cause more deaths.

[Iliyah]

4. These talking points has left the building . . .

along with the crisis at the USA's border.

Deflections galore. More and more "factual" information is flowing slowly out regarding January 6, 2021 and it will soon be revealed who in the federal and state government plus "donors" were actually involved in the insurrection.

[abqtommy]

5. Riddle me this: Why are there still any surrectionist seditionist reTHUG fascists left in

The House or The Senate? They should've all been expelled by now!