Republicans Bravely Announce Plans to Do Nothing to Stop Mass Shootings

One happy by-product of a terrible year that’s kept millions of people at home has been the sharp reduction in mass shootings in the U.S.—in 2020, there were just two, the last one occurring within days of the World Heath Organization officially declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. And while the coronavirus is far from over—in fact, new cases are on the rise in 27 states with worrisome variants “spreading rapidly”—various parts of the country opening up because “it’s springtime” has led to a return to prepandemic life for many, which in America means a return to looking at one’s phone and learning that countless people were just murdered. And that, of course, means having to once again hear from spineless Republicans whose top priority is ensuring someone intent on killing a bunch of people can buy a gun to do so as quickly as possible.

During a hearing on gun violence on Tuesday—one day after a lone gunman killed 10 people in Colorado and a week after a separate gunman killed eight people in the Atlanta area—Senator Ted Cruz moaned that “every time there is a shooting, we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these murders.” In a little catnip to the “they’re taking our guns!” crowd, he added, falsely, that Democrats want to strip “law-abiding citizens” of their right to bear arms:

Called out for offering “thoughts and prayers,” i.e. the constant refrain of shameless politicians who insist on doing nothing to prevent mass shootings, Cruz sneered, “I don’t apologize for thoughts or prayers,” saying that he “believe[s] in the power of prayer.” (Incidentally, prayer has yet to get gun control legislation passed.)

Picking up where Cruz left off, Senator John Kennedy compared mass shootings to drunk driving, forgetting that one must obtain a government-issued license to drive a car and register that vehicle, which makes it considerably more difficult to drive drunk than it is to get a gun and kill 10 people while they’re grocery shopping.

And then there was Senator Tom Cotton, who thinks mass shootings in the U.S. are not an issue of ridiculously lax gun laws and the stranglehold the NRA has on people like him, but a matter of rhetoric:

Echoing Cruz, Senator Cynthia M. Lummis opined that “Every time that there’s an incident like this, the people who don’t want to protect the Second Amendment use it as an excuse to further erode Second Amendment rights.” (In fact, people use “incident[s]” like these as prime examples of why gun control legislation is necessary.) For his part, freshman Senator Tommy Tuberville, who doesn’t know the three branches of government, said Tuesday, “I think we’ve got enough background checks.” In other words, the GOP is not going to do a single thing to stop gun violence but they look forward to pretending to care after the next mass shooting, which is presumably just around the corner.