With 90% of Americans, 80% of Republicans and a similar percent of gun owners, including NRA members, supporting universal background checks 46 US Senators, mostly Republicans but also some Democrats, voted to block the passing by majority vote of even the watered down bill that would have expanded background checks to include sales at gun shows, much less a bill that would require universal background checks as virtually all Americans wanted and a truely sane gun policy would demand.
This craven and cowardly vote by these 46 Senators puts their continued political support by the NRA above the lives, wishes and what is best for all Americans. With this vote, I believe that each and every one of those Senators has enabled the avoidable killing of many more Americans than the Boston Marathon Bombers killed. And within a short while, each of these Senators, individually, will have enabled the killing of more people than were killed or injured at the Boston Marathon. I’m not exaggerating and I am serious. Here is how I came to this conclusion.
Felons, those legally declared mentally unfit to have firearms and some other classes of violent offenders that present a danger to society cannot buy weapons at gun stores because of the currently required background checks. But there is an easy way around these life saving checks. 40% of all purchases of firearms are at gun shows and private sales where no background check required and, except for stealing a weapon, is the place most of those prohibited from buying guns get their weapons. Essentially 100% of prohibited gun sales happen without background checks.
According to most media reports, about 30,000 people are killed by firearms a year. Some by suicide, some by accident and about 10,000+ are murders or killings in the commission of a crime. With laws requiring universal background checks and no straw purchasing, it would be much harder for criminals and those others deemed unfit to have firearms to get them. Will it prevent them all from getting guns? No. Will it prevent many? Yes. Will this help save lives? Yes.
By effectively blocking a vote on universal background checks, which would have passed by a majority vote, (the way the Senate is supposed to decide things) each of the 46 Senators who blocked the vote is responsible for helping enable 10,000/46 or 217.4 preventable gun deaths a year.
OK, let’s be very generous and allow that 75% of those murders would happen using stolen guns or guns already owned. That still means that each of the 46 Senators has helped enable the gun death of 217.4 x 25% or 54.3 persons a year. More than 1 preventable gun death a week for each of the 46 US Senators who voted against the will of 90% of Americans. Do you think NRA support for these Senators is worth 54.3 people getting killed a year? And, if you consider Senators only are up for election once every 6 years that means 54.3 people x 6 years or well over 300 people will die by being shot for each of these Senators to keep in the good graces of the NRA.
Now, collectively, these 46 Senators helped enable the murder of more than 46 persons a week. AND, this number does not include those who would have been hindered in committing suicide that are part of the 20,000 killed each year that the above numbers of deaths don’t even count.
