Sen. John Kennedy (D-Mass.) speaks to Congress on Jan. 15, 2019.
A vicious shooting at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday (March 22) left 10 people dead. This has brought the issue of gun ownership back to the forefront of debate. In the heat of the moment, Boulder County District Court Judge Andrew Hartman was seen as a “hero” for upholding the Second Amendment when he halted the city’s ban on assault weapons and high-capacity weapons.
Since the shooting in Colorado, there has been a broad debate on gun ownership, from the federal government to members of Congress to the local level. From President Biden considering executive orders to restrict guns, to Democratic lawmakers passing bills to tighten gun sales, the wave of “gun bans” has intensified. However, Judge Hartman overturned the city’s law, which no longer prohibits the city from “possessing and transferring commonly owned assault weapons.
In the court order, he wrote: “The Court finds that only Colorado (or federal) law may prohibit the possession, sale, and transfer of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”
Bipartisan members of the federal Senate are debating exactly what measures would be most effective in preventing mass shootings. Democrats have said they favor a universal and comprehensive background check law, while Republicans argue that an older measure similar to the proposed new one is already familiar and that it would have little impact on mass shootings.
Biden on Tuesday called on Congress to pass the bill and take other measures to ban assault weapons. He said, “I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common sense steps that will save lives in the future and urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee convened a hearing Tuesday morning titled “Constitutional and Common Sense Steps to Reduce Gun Violence,” in which senators opposed current gun laws proposed by Democrats. And Republicans have little support for Democratic gun control legislation.
The House also passed two bills last week that would tighten gun sales regulations and send the measures to the deeply divided Senate. The two bills, the Bipartisan Background Check Act and the Enhanced Background Check Act of 2021, are designed to expand background checks on individuals who attempt to buy or transfer guns.
Senator Cruz: Gun ownership should only be restricted to criminals, fugitives and mentally ill individuals
While most Democrats support the House-passed bill and other recent gun control measures, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) opposes such measures, saying they would have little to no effect on stopping mass shootings.
What they (Democrats) are proposing will not only not reduce crime, but will make it worse,” Cruz said. In this country, those areas with the strictest gun control have higher crime and murder rates instead. Because when you disarm law-abiding citizens, you make them more likely to become victims.”
Cruz noted that he and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) first introduced a bill in 2013 called the Grassley/Cruz Act, which was later renamed the “Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act of 2018.
Cruz said their bill, if passed, would likely have prevented the recent mass shooting at Stonewall-Douglas High School in Sutherland Springs, Fla.
The Grassley/Cruz bill, co-sponsored by Senator Grassley and me, is legislation that targets violent criminals, targets felons, targets fugitives and targets access to guns for people with serious mental illnesses,” he said. When they illegally try to buy a gun, they can be put in jail.”
Senator Kennedy: No need to control guns, just idiots
Republican Senator John Kennedy (R-MA) also questioned the motives of congressional Democrats who used the tragic shootings in Colorado as an excuse to quickly enact relevant legislation. He argued that America doesn’t need to control guns, just idiots.
Kennedy believes the Democrats are using this moment to impose gun control. He said, “These killings are horrific …… But America is a big country. We are free, and one of the prices we pay for that is that there will always be people who abuse it. But you can’t stop drunk drivers by getting rid of all sober drivers. We don’t need more gun control, we need more control over more control over idiots.”
Kennedy continued, “And what do we do about it? Republicans have tried. Senator Grassley and Senator Cruz have created a bill to strengthen our nation’s database. We want to regulate gun ownership in America. If you have been convicted of certain crimes, if you are violent, if you are mentally ill and want to buy a gun, your name must be entered in the database and show no problem before you can do so. This will crack down on people who shouldn’t have guns, but do.”
“But do you know why the bill didn’t pass? Many of my Democratic colleagues were against it. They just don’t believe in the Second Amendment. I mean, basically, the Democratic position is that if a bad guy shoots a cop, that’s a gun problem. If a cop shoots a bad guy, it’s the cop’s fault. You know, if that’s not a double standard, we don’t have any standard at all.”
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