Booker: GOP Refusal to Pass Gun Laws ‘Dereliction of Duty’

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he believed Republicans’ refusal to pass “common sense gun safety” was a “dereliction of duty.”

Booker said, “There are common sense gun safety things that we can do in this country that majority of Americans agree on, like universal background checks, gun safety locks. There are things we agree on. The problem in America is that we have a major political party that is not willing to do the common sense things that would make us safer.”

Co-host Joe Scarborough said, “We showed a poll that is very consistent with every poll I’ve seen over the past decade regarding universal background checks for every gun purchased. Post-Sandy Hook, that number shot up to 9 out of 10 Americans. The latest Quinnipiac Poll shows 89% of Americans support background checks for all gun buyers. Only 8% oppose and only 11% of Republicans oppose it. So my question is, how in the world can 8% of Americans hold all of Congress and Washington D.C. hostage politically?”

Booker said, “It’s this belief that right-wing advocacy groups like the NRA and the money that they have somehow is a formidable political block that makes folks unable to do what is right for the safety of their country. One of the number one reasons, if you turn to the founders, that this nation was formed was for the common defense. Now we have more people in America in my short lifetime died to gun violence than in every single one of our wars, from the Civil War and the Revolutionary War to the wars in the Middle East combined. This is a dereliction of duty. This is a surrender to violence. This is not doing your constitutional duty. This is not protecting the nation from threats foreign and domestic.”

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