How to Stop Gun Violence: Vote Against Republicans

The bodies of the mass shooting victims at Marjory Stoneman High School in Florida (see the image of the victims above) were barely cold before Republicans like Marco Rubio - who received over $3 million from the NRR - or Richard Burr - who has received over $6 million in NRA money - began their worthless mantra of "thoughts and prayers" about victims and their families while making it clear that they will do nothing to change America's federal gun control laws to lessen the slaughter of innocents.  The NRA and the gun manufacturers who lurk behind it in the shadows are their true masters.  Children, families and average Americans mean nothing to them despite disingenuous pretence to the contrary.   So how do Americans end needless gun violence and decrease the prevalence of mass shootings.  As a column in the Washington Post notes, the solution is pretty straight forward.  Vote every Republican at every level of government possible out of office. That is the only way that meaningful change will occur. Even David Jolly, a former Republican Congressman from Florida has admitted this truth and said it was urgent that Democrats retake the majority in the House of Representatives.  Here are column highlights: 

Last night, as the country watched the aftermath of yet another mass shooting at an American school — the 239th school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012 — word came that President Trump didn’t want to make a statement about it. Apparently his aides prevailed upon him, so this morning he came before the cameras and monotonically read some words off the teleprompter, none of which addressed what we might do to make more school shootings less common.  Trump offered a slightly extended version of “thoughts and prayers”

If we actually want to do something about gun violence, both the dramatic mass shootings and the relentless toll of 30 or so gun homicides we experience each and every day, there is something we can do. It’s simple and straightforward. Are you ready? Here it is: Don’t vote for Republicans.

I’m sorry if you find that too partisan. And I realize that there are many reasons you might have for voting for candidates of one or the other party that have nothing to do with guns. But the fact is that one of our two parties has in recent years decided that it will stop any and all efforts to address gun violence, no matter how reasonable they are and no matter how much of the public favors them, even something like universal background checks that is supported by more than 90 percent of Americans.

So if you vote for Republicans, you are voting to make sure we do absolutely nothing about this problem, a problem that kills around 30,000 Americans every year. . . . . if you vote for Republicans, you are most certainly voting to make sure we do nothing about gun violence.

Again and again, in the aftermath of these massacres, media figures lament that “Washington” and “politicians” and “Congress” can’t seem to get it together to act.

But it is Republicans who have stopped any attempt to address gun violence. Not the city of Washington, not the system, not the institutions — Republicans. The Senate doesn’t filibuster every gun safety bill — Republicans do. The House doesn’t refuse to allow those bills to come to a vote — Republican leaders do. Washington didn’t pass a bill last year making it easier for people with mental illnesses to buy guns — Republicans in Congress did, and Trump signed it.

The NRA is made up of loathsome ghouls, but it’s also an interest group like any other. Doing its bidding is a choice. Whatever power the NRA has flows through elected officials, nearly all of whom are Republicans who have made a choice to ally themselves with the organization. . . . . The NRA can be beaten, and all it takes is for people who don’t agree with its goals to get out and vote. . . .

I’m not saying that voting for Democrats will in and of itself solve the gun violence problem. . . . . Because they’re politicians, they have to be pushed and prodded and made to fear for their jobs if you want them to do the right thing. 

But while voting for Democrats is no guarantee that we’ll begin to solve the gun violence problem, voting for Republicans is a stone-cold, absolute, ironclad, 100 percent guarantee that we won’t.

[I]f you actually care about gun violence, every time you step into a voting booth you have a choice about whether you’re going to at least make an attempt to do something about it. Or whether you’re going to cast a vote for doing nothing.

As a former Republican myself, the sad reality is that today's GOP (and its Christofascist and white supremacist base) is a blight on America.  Worse yet, the GOP will not change from within.  Only repeated electoral losses and marginalization of all things Republican offer any hope for long term change.  Next time you step into a voting booth, picture the faces in the image above, or those of the victims in Las Vegas or the Pulse night club and then vote against the Republican candidates.  It truly is that easy.  And you can start in your local elections and then again in November, 2018 and in every election cycle thereafter.