Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) questioned the wisdom of a push by congressional Democrats to enact legislation in the immediate aftermath of a tragic shooting in Boulder, CO earlier this week.
Kennedy suggested Democrats were using this moment to enact gun control because he did not think they believed in the Second Amendment as interpreted by the federal government.
“Look, these killings were terrible,” he said. “They were horrible. I’m reminded though that, you know, America is a big country. We’re free, and one of the prices we pay for that freedom is that you’re always going to have some people who abuse it. Freedom is risk. But we have got to concentrate on is how to control that risk. You’re not going to stop the killings until you stop the killers. But you don’t stop drunk drivers by getting rid of all sober drivers, which is what many of my Democratic friends want to do with respect to the Second Amendment.”
“In my judgment, we do not need more gun control,” Kennedy continued. “We need more idiot control. How do we do that? We have already tried, the Republicans have. Senator Grassley, Senator Cruz had a bill to strengthen our national database. We regulate gun ownership in America. If you are convicted of certain crimes, if you have a tendency to violence, if you are mentally ill, and you want to buy a gun, your name has to run through a database. The problem is that the database has huge holes in it. And many federal agencies and state agencies are very cavalier about sending in the names. Grassley and Cruz’s bill, which I support, would have tightened up the database, and it would have cracked down on people who have guns who shouldn’t have guns.”
“Do you know why the bill didn’t pass?” he added. “Many of my Democratic colleagues filibustered it. Now, if you drill down far enough, what you’re going to find — I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush — but many, not all, many of my Democratic colleagues — they just don’t believe in the Second Amendment. They just don’t. I mean, we have heard it in terms of police officers. I mean, basically, the Democratic position is that if a bad guy shoots a cop, it’s the gun’s problem. If a cop shoots a bad guy, it’s the cop’s fault. You know, if it weren’t for double standards here, we wouldn’t have any standards at all.”
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