I have previously posted my observation that the surest way to get nothing done is

[Atticus]

to insist that you have 100% of everything you might need to implement a plan that is 100% certain to succeed. I think that's what the Republicans are now doing about passing stricter gun laws.

NOTHING will totally eliminate all possible future mass shootings any more than traffic laws can prevent all fatal auto accidents. But, because Republicans can always point out how a law may fail or be evaded, they oppose doing ANYTHING.

Using this same "logic", no baseball player should swing at a pitch unless he's sure he will hit a home run.

"Ridiculous" is not a strong enough term to describe this.

[agingdem]

1. Mitch is an "of the moment" guy...

Trump was responsible for January 6..voted against impeachment…reaching out to Sinema instead of Chris Murphy, in the meaningless effort to “show” bipartisan gun safety support…again, of the moment…and when the Uvalde rage and furor are yesterdays’ headlines Mitch will walk away, like he always does..and the same can be said of his coterie of rancid Republicans

[bottomofthehill]

2. Something is always better than nothing.

Clearly what we are doing now is not working. If it’s only background checks on all purchases we are better off, if it is just banning sales of assault styles weapons, we are better off, if it is requiring insurance on firearms, we are better off, if it is only red flag laws, we are better off. If we wait for all, we may get none. Take the low hanging fruit and fight for the more difficult parts but any one of those proposals may save lives. Let’s not make perfection the enemy of the good. Let’s do some good.

[3Hotdogs]

10. Is that thinking,

How we got Manchin and Synema?

[bottomofthehill]

13. Yes, because with out them it would be a 52/48 senate with republicans controlling

There would be no judges moving, very few of the cabinet secretaries that we see now would be confirmed, the transportation bill would be nowhere, so yes, it is exactly that type of thinking. If we can elect more democrats than the ones that we have on the fringe are less important, but where would we be now, and in the judiciary, twenty years from now if not for the slimmest of majorities in the senate.

You may be able to elect a different democrat in Arizona but not a chance in West Virginia.

Do I wish we were at the point LBJ was at with 68 Democrats in the Senate, hell yes, but reality dictates and we are not there.

[madville]

3. I think the Republicans are gonna go for

Passing universal background checks to include private sales, except among family members. It’s about the only thing that could get the votes to pass. Of course that wouldn’t have prevented this latest tragedy because the shooter passed his background checks, but it’s the most likely thing to get enough Republican support.

[localroger]

4. See also: Covid vaccines don't completely prevent you from getting Covid

...so obviously they're worthless, amirite?

[Wounded Bear]

5. The perfect as the enemy of the good...

[Cheezoholic]

6. You are correct

The fact they can't offer at least 1 simple common sense step that could at the very least save just one life going forward reveals the selfish cowardice innate to who they are.

[Kaleva]

7. Is there something on your mind that might reduce mass shootings by 50%?

Or somewhere around that figure?

[WestofDenver]

8. Another application of same logic

I think can be seen in the justification for voting suppression... voting process must be provide 100.00% certainty of 100.00% accuracy. Its a feint...a fig leaf to cover their attempts to choke off participation.

[Ohioboy]

9. I remind people with this thinking that success is often hard to measure

For example, Gun Nuts will claim that strict gun laws in cities like Chicago don't work because they still have high rates of gun death.

To this I ask, "How do we know the numbers of gun deaths wouldn't be even higher if the laws were less strict?" It's really hard to know just how many deaths such laws may be preventing. Maybe those strict laws are truly working and the proof is the numbers aren't higher.

[KS Toronado]

11. Want to see some meaningful gun laws passed?

Give Nancy and Chuck all the elected Ds they need for a majority in the midterms, GOTV

[bottomofthehill]

14. Winner!

This will help, but we still have the nuts at the court to worry about.

[gulliver]

15. This

People who fail to vote Dem for any reason are failing the world. Moreover, their interests should be considered secondary to the interests of those who do vote. And if Republicans want to do something to screw over those who failed to vote against them, the Dems should simply stand back and let it happen. Priority for anything goes to the people who vote.

[Warpy]

12. I tell them perfection is for plaster saints

and we will always fall short of it.

I also admit that men bent on murdering their families will chose axes, knives, shovels, whatever comes to hand, killing them one at a time. Mass murder is different, it's indiscriminate, focuses on strangers, and requires a weapon capable of accomplishing it in minutes, rather than in hours. Semi auto guns, both rifles and pistols, make mass murder easy, too easy. Otherwise, they'd have to do more planning, like the Texas tower shooter did, or assemble and control dangerous materials, like Timothy McVeigh did. There a reason mass murder was so rare for so long, the country wasn't flooded with semi auto guns.

People love their guns, they love infrequent reloading, they love not having to aim all that precisely because they can fire multiple shots so quickly. That's exactly why we need to get those guns off the street.

People will continue to kill each other, we're not plaster saints on this planet. We just need to make it harder for them to kill large numbers of random strangers as efficiently as they do now.

And yes, the majority is always going to be inconvenienced by the bad choices of the few. It's why we have traffic lights and parking lots have stripes one is expected to park between, not facing every which way at random. From our very beginning,behavior was codified to prevent the few from endangering the many with brutishness and assholery. This is no different.