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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRepublicans' Latest Anti-Gun-Control Excuse: It Hurts Minorities
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/03/republicans-gun-control-racismMass Shootings
Republicans Latest Anti-Gun-Control Excuse: It Hurts Minorities
The GOP is suddenly extremely concerned about racism.
By Bess Levin
March 24, 2021
If youve paid any attention at all to the Republican Party recently or not so recently, one thing youve probably noticed is that racism is basically one of its core tenets. Whether its suppressing the Black vote, glorifying lynchings, whitewashing history, or just coming out and saying theyre afraid of Black people, members of the GOPs feelings about nonwhite people are clear. Yet according to Republican lawmakers, they care deeply about minorities and other disenfranchised groups, which is why they are...opposing gun control legislation.
During Tuesdays hearing on gun violencein the wake of two mass shootings in the span of a weekSenator Mike Lee explained that the party refuses to restrict access to guns because it would infringe on the rights of minority communities. Per BuzzFeed:
Chris Cheng, a witness invited by Senate Republicans and a sports shooter who won the season four championship of the History Channel show Top Shot, related gun control to a historic pattern of infringing on minority rights that included the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. We need to defend ourselves, he said. Congress is not currently considering any legislation to take away guns or bar any group of people from owning them, though President Joe Biden did call Tuesday to renew the ban on assault weapons enacted in 1994 that expired a decade later.
This new and bizarre argument for doing nothing to try and prevent gun violence in the U.S. follows the standard ones trotted out by Republicans every time the discussion of stronger gun control measures comes up, which include, as New York magazine notes, New laws wouldnt have prevented this; It takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun; and Guns protect our freedom, among others. Elsewhere in anti-gun-control arguments that make no sense, Senator John Kennedy told Fox News on Tuesday, In my judgment, we dont need more gun control, we need more idiot control. (Apparently Kennedy liked this line so much that he essentially repeated it.)
Link to tweet
Yes, theres definitely an idiot control problem in the U.S., though Kennedy is apparently unaware of where its actually coming from.
regnaD kciN
(26,044 posts)underpants
(182,733 posts)Thing. This became that Hitler took guns from everyone (he didnt) and that gave rise to...Hitler.
Ocelot II
(115,659 posts)They don't want them to vote, have government benefits or good jobs, but all of a sudden they're concerned that they can't get guns? I thought they especially didn't want those inherently dangerous Black people to have guns.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Hard to see a Senator turn on his own constituents like that. But as far as that goes, Republicans are also dead set against "red flag" laws that deprive the unstable and the angry from getting access to firearms. But what the hell? When you're opposed to any regulation of firearms whatsoever, any excuse will do, even if it contradicts what you just said.
East-A-Squared
(14,505 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)and youll see communities that would love to have gunz eliminated.
HUAJIAO
(2,382 posts)was as a sop to Southern states to assure whites the right to have guns to protect them against and control blacks....