One hundred thirty-two Missourians lost their lives, and 164 have been injured during the first 3 months of 2017 due to gun violence. Nine of the deaths were children, five of them from St. Louis.

Why do I know this? As a member of the Common-Sense Gun Solutions Committee for Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice, I monitor the on-line Gun Violence Archive to report on the number of people who have died as the result of gun violence. I learn their names. I find their photos. I gather information on their lives.   Where did they go to school? Where did they work? What impact did they have on their friends, family and co-workers?

Women’s Voices is more widely known in the community as an organization that attends community health fairs to distribute gun safety information and gun locks to families with unsecured firearms in their homes. And that is a good thing; more than 1,500 locks are now with St. Louis area families. But we do more. We advocate for gun violence prevention.

When our elected officials and the public read a crime report that a 25-year-old woman was shot to death in Columbia, or that a 12-year-old in Otterville was killed by a bullet to his head, they may skim the article and move on. But if they see a photo of the proud, smiling young woman in her Hardee’s uniform and learn she had worked her way into a management position and leaves behind two young children; or if they learn the boy from Otterville played summer baseball, loved the outdoors and dinosaurs, they may take a few more moments and ask themselves: why did this happen, and how could it have been prevented?

When we read one day that a six-year-old killed herself with a gun left loaded and unlocked, but we never learn where she went to school or see a photo, how can we have any empathy for her grieving family? When a 15-year-old is shot down in a blaze of bullets and an eight-year-old is critically wounded, and the following day the story is dropped, what are we to understand?

Has gun violence become so common that just reporting when and where it happens and giving the number of dead and injured is enough?

We believe readers need and deserve more. We believe in vigils where people remember the victims. We believe in marches with posters of those lost. We believe the lives of the victims matter and their stories should matter to all of us.

If the print news media would give us a glimpse into their lives, tell us their stories, perhaps more of us will work to end the violence.

The post Seeing the faces and knowing the lives of gun violence victims appeared first on Occasional Planet.

For most of us, safety is something we take for granted. We assume that, after a day at work or leisure, the people we love will return home in the evening unharmed as they always have.

In the America we live in today, that assumption is false.

Our culture is awash in violence. There’s violence, both real and imagined, twenty-four-seven on television and on the Web. Our children play games (yes, they’re called games!) with cruelty and violence at their core. The fact is that we live surrounded by a constant loop of violent images. We stare at the images, at once fascinated and then repulsed, and then pretend that the reality of violent chaos will never stain our own doorsteps.

We’re certainly a clever lot, are we not?

Nature and nurture have provided us with a deep storehouse of psychological tricks to guard our perception of safety, even as we’re confronted daily with the shootings, the suicides, and the mayhem. We tell ourselves the story that the cruel disruptions of violence are something that happens only to other people—never to us. To keep the reality at bay, we fool ourselves into believing that violence visits only those unlucky enough to have been born or descended into the most dire of life’s circumstances: poverty that crushes the spirit, the foulness of racism and ethnic hatred, the traps of sectarian violence, the tangles of historic discontent.

One of the greatest tragedies of our time is that we find ourselves in a cycle of violence that has become institutionalized in the halls of Congress and upon the benches of the Supreme Court. We and our politicians cower before a powerful and well-funded gun lobby that claims that the right of some citizens to amass arsenals of military-style weapons is more fundamental than the right of the rest of us to be safe in our homes and our public places.

And then we’re forced to confront the face of Richard Martinez.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nho1ghfS9k4

There he is on the evening news pleading with us to wake up. There he is. Someone just like us. There he is, yet another grieving father who finds himself dragged into the sad and never-ending parade of parents whose children have been taken from them.

Richard Martinez’s cry of pain should be ours as well. And yet it isn’t. Mr. Martinez will go off to live in his own hell of grieving for the cruel and unnecessary death of his twenty-year-old son Christopher. The gun lobby and the NRA will continue to pour money into the coffers of politicians. And we—the public, the paralyzed public—will go on, believing that the descent into violence is irreversible. That nothing can be done.

And make no mistake about it. It is that presumption of powerlessness that is the greatest and most foul abdication of all.

I am sick to the bone watching politicians and religious leaders meeting with the bereaved families, offering up their rehearsed condolences and then returning to Congress or the pulpit and doing nothing. I am sick to the bone seeing yet another tearful candlelight memorial, yet another stack of wilting flowers and scribbled notes outside the school, the parking lot, the courthouse, the movie theater.

What has happened to our belief in the fundamental right to safety? Have we forgotten—or been made to forget—that one of the most revered of our documents—our Declaration of Independence—enshrines our right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Can we not all agree that without safety there is no life? That without safety there is no liberty? That without safety there is no place to pursue our happiness whatever that may be?

It seems we have completely forgotten the power we have to organize, to speak out, to protest, to insist that our politicians listen to us. I cannot help but wonder who we are —the “we” that is the 97-percent majority—that we continue to accept in near silence the obscene parade of carnage.

It is time to remind ourselves that the words enshrined in the Declaration of Independence became the road map and rallying cry for the great, progressive social movements in American history. The suffragists, the abolitionists, the foot soldiers of the civil-rights movement—all believed in the fundamental truth of those words and fought for their right to claim them as their own.

The question is: Will we summon the courage to follow in their footsteps?

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What in the world are we doing to ourselves? Another school shooting – this time in New Mexico. Where will the next one be?  Webster Groves?  Glendale?  Kirkwood?  Another theater shooting. This time the villain was a retired law enforcement officer who lost his temper and killed the father of a three year old girl. That little girl will have to grow up without her father because a man who was a “law abiding citizen” and had a gun became a murderer in a moment’s rage.

A man in Florida killed a teenager in the car next to his because he thought the kids were playing their music too loud. A gunman kills two people in a supermarket in Indiana. What are we doing to our society when this type of behavior starts to become accepted as normal?

It used to be that men who lost their temper punched each other, rolled on the ground and basically made fools of themselves.  Now they shoot each other. A black eye or broken jaw can heal. A broken family will never be the same.

Small towns are having to change their zoning laws to allow gun stores because they “can’t afford a lawsuit.” When the elected officials are afraid to protect their citizens, something is really, really wrong. When we make it even more dangerous for our police officers to do their job, something is really, really wrong. Grocery stores are allowing magazines with photos of assault weapons displayed along with the other magazines. Stores won’t feature hard core porn, but hard core violence is okay. What’s wrong with this picture?

Now that Illinois has a concealed carry law, businesses are having to decide whether to permit customers to roam the aisles carrying loaded weapons. This is crazy. Who wants to stand in line at the check-out with someone who might lose his temper and shoot the cashier? Some business owners say they are afraid to ban guns in their stores.  There’s that word again – afraid.  If foreign agents were terrorizing us like this, we’d send the Navy Seals, the CIA and the whole U.S. Army to ferret them out and bring them to justice. We are becoming no better than those disastrously uncivilized countries where members of armed militias ride around in open trucks shooting anyone who looks like an enemy.

But, to quote Shakespeare’s  Cassius: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”  Who is the tyrant now, and why do we allow ourselves to be underlings?

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How many more senseless killings will it take before we make sure our voices are  heard?  The “we,” if you haven’t already guessed, are the 92% of Americans (both gun owners and non–gun owners) who support commonsense background checks for individuals purchasing firearms.

Ask yourself: What will it take to convince me to make the phone call, write the letter, stand up at a town-hall meeting or, if all else fails, work to defeat at the voting booth those who shirk their responsibility to protect us and our loved ones?

No More Names: The National Drive to Reduce Gun Violence is rolling into 25 states in the next 100 days to remind us that we 92% are the majority on this issue and that we’re not helpless. On September 19 the campaign gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand action to stop the tragedies and recorded the video below.

Listen to the words of those who have already been touched by the violence and then do something. Demand Action!

The post We are the 92%: Do something about gun violence now! appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I watched the comments by one of the grieving parents from Newtown and the President this afternoon in response to the shameful miscarriage of democracy in the U.S. Senate. Four Democratic senators voted to allow the Manchin-Toomey bill on background checks to be held hostage to a filibuster. Those four Democratic senators deserve our special attention as we respond to this black day in our history. They are Senators Bagich (AK), Baucus (MT), Heitkamp (ND), and Pryor (AR.)  If there had been an up or down vote, the bill would have passed with the minimum 51 in the yes column. Republicans Toomey, Kirk, Collins and McCain voted for the bill. They should be congratulated.

Those of you in Missouri can send Sen. Blunt a message at this link:
http://www.blunt.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/mobile/contact-roy?p=contact-roy

Moms Demand Action, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and other gun safety groups have done a good job of teaching us about the horrors of gun violence and have urged us to contact our senators politely to express our views. Don’t you think it’s time to get angry? It should be obvious to all of us that you cannot play nice with bullies.

Those of you in other states, go to www.govspot.gov and find your senator. You can also contact the four Democratic cowards who went along with the filibuster.

Patricia Maisch who witnessed the Tucson shooting said on the Rachel Maddow Show tonight that those senators who voted against the bill “have no soul.” They are more concerned with their NRA rating than with the health and safety of their constituents. I agree.

The NRA spread outright lies about what the bill would do and spooked a vocal minority of gun owners who intimidated the senators. Shameful. That’s what the White House message is tonight. I agree.

The President said today there were no “coherent arguments” offered against the bill. Sen. Grassley and others just repeated the NRA talking points such as “Background checks would not have prevented Newtown.”   No one has claimed that it would have, but that stupid comment is the best they can do.

I heard the same message yesterday at the Capitol in Jefferson City at the Medicaid expansion rally. There are NO coherent arguments for not expanding the Medicaid program in accordance with the Affordable Care Act.  But Republicans say no anyway. They thumbed their noses at us by vacating the Capitol building under the guise of a pre-planned caucus meeting. Cowards. Just like the Republicans and four Democrats in D.C. They hate President Obama and the Affordable Care Act more than they care about Missouri families. Shameful.

Those in charge of the Republican Party in our country and in Missouri are so extreme in their views and so disdainful of our democratic processes that we can only conclude it’s time to man the barricades and take to the streets.

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords has an editorial in Thursday’s NY Times where she calls for us to do everything we can to get the message across to the cowards in the Senate that we will remember come election day. I hope the groups with the power and money to defeat those shameful traitors send them packing when they run for re-election. Meanwhile Giffords asks us to show them “our fury.” I certainly will let Sen. Blunt know how despicable he is for his vote today.

Three people were killed at the Boston marathon by a homemade explosive device. Sen. Claire McCaskill asked a good question today during a hearing. Is there really any difference between Sandy Hook and Boston other than the method used by the killer?  The answer is no. Dozens of Americans will die tomorrow by gunfire. And the next day. And the next. This is a public health and safety crisis worse than any bird flu epidemic or drowning accident. But we can’t discuss it because we are forbidden by the NRA. Is this really any way to run a civilized society?

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A month after Newtown, here comes a new shooting app—“NRA: Practice Range.” That’s right, it’s from those same tone-deaf folks who blamed video games for all of society’s gun-related ills. Originally targeted for ages 4 and up, it has now been rebranded for ages 12 and up.

Currently listed as iTunes’ #3 rated app download, “NRA: Practice Range” stands just behind Ruzzle (a word game) and Fun Run (a game described as a competition between cute furry creatures) and ahead of Google Maps.

The app sets up a shooting range and offers users the chance to fire away indoors, outdoors or at a skeet shoot. After you choose your venue and skill level, the opening screen shows one of ten brief safety tips, such as. “Never use alcohol or drugs before or while shooting,” or one of four NRA factoids like. “The NRA Eddie Eagle Gunsafe® Program has reached more than 256 million children—in all 50 states—since 1998.”

Then you are invited to “Start Shooting.” You can accept the default weapon or for just $0.99 you can upgrade to something like an AK47 or a Dragunov SVD (a Russian semiautomatic sniper’s rifle.) From there you enter a poorly designed shooting range scenario that is neither educational nor entertaining.

As one reviewer on iTunes put it, “Whatever you think about the NRA, this app is horrible. I was a competitive target shooter, both pistol and rifle, for many years and from a technical standpoint, this app is horrible. There is no sight alignment and trigger control associated with this shooting. It is just about blasting out bullets. No control required. Nothing learned.”

The main page of the app provides a menu of connections to the NRA/ILA’s website. In case you’re not aware, the ILA portion of the title stands for the Institute for Legislative Action. It is the lobbying arm of the National Rifle Association of America. On the site, you’ll see banners proclaiming, “FIGHT FOR FREEDOM. Our second amendment rights are under siege like never before,” “Gun owners enter the fight of our lives,” and “The semi-auto ban: is it back already?”

Given the game’s incredibly poor technical design, the real purpose of this app seems clear: blast the NRA’s propaganda into the hands of young gamers.

Paul Tassi, a contributor to Forbes, writes news and opinion about video games, technology and the internet. In a recent post, he looks at the NRA app this way:

The most outspoken critic of the video game industry in the weeks after the Sandy Hook shooting has been the NRA, content to shift the blame for the tragedy, and all others like it, away from guns. They’ve specifically called out games like Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse as being contributors to mass murder, while calling for more real world guns as a solution to the problem.

Tassi is a fan of video games in general and has no problem with shooting games. However, he has a clear view of what’s going on. In a second post he expands his take on the NRA, its hypocrisy and the American fixation on firearms.

If the NRA approves of guns being used for target practice, hunting, self-defense, war or a justified revolution, why would they condemn games that merely use any of those concepts as their subject matter? If the NRA supports a game about virtual target shooting, why would they be opposed to one about virtual war or a game where a gun is used to protect others from evil?

Is it because of the blood? Because it’s not exactly rainbows and unicorns when someone gets shot in real life, and games reflect that.

Is it because it’s “sensational?” Because ads like this aren’t sensationalizing guns at all.

Is it because the media is a corruptible influence? Here’s a hint. It’s because we love real life guns so much as a society that violent shooter games are so popular. A society that is inherently fascinated with violence creates violent media, it’s not the other way around.

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As our national debate on gun control continues, we can learn a great deal from FDR and his Fourth Freedom.  This was part of his declaration of American principles as World War II loomed.  He wrote:

 The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into international terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation anywhere will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor.

Obviously, FDR’s focus was on the international aggression of the time, and how the Allies would respond.  His goal of a world without fear also applies to his view of the presence of guns in the United States.

As Adam Winkler writes in the New Republic:

Like health care, social security, and so many other issues central to the Democratic agenda, the party’s support for gun control stems from Franklin D. Roosevelt.  For most of American history, regulation of guns was a matter of state law. State-level regulation, however, came under tremendous pressure during the 1920s and 30s, when Prohibition-era gangsters like Al Capone overwhelmed local police resources and traveling desperadoes like Bonnie and Clyde easily escaped capture by racing across state lines. FDR promoted a “New Deal for Crime,” which, like his other New Deal policies, involved expanding the role of the federal government in serving the people.

Roosevelt’s original proposal for what would become the National Firearms Act of 1934, the first federal gun control law, sought to tax all firearms and establish a national registry of guns. When gun owners objected, Congress scaled down FDR’s proposal to allow only for a restrictive tax on machine guns and sawed-off shotguns, which were thought to be gangster weapons with no usefulness for self-defense.

Clearly, FDR’s initial proposal is one that would be the dream of every current progressive Democrat and anathema to the NRA and its compatriots in the Tea Party.  It’s hard to compare the “paring down” the Congress did with regard to machine guns and sawed-off shotguns to current calls for restrictions on semi-automatic, or at least automatic, weapons.

The outgrowth was:

Congress watered down FDR’s bill because of concerns about maintaining the right of people in rural communities, where there was little police presence, to have handguns for protection—not because of the Second Amendment.

As we previously reported, the wording of the Second Amendment is confusing at best.  It has only been in recent years that the libertarian view of gun ownership has adopted the Second Amendment as its primary principle.  In FDR’s era, even those who wanted few restrictions on gun ownership used more reasonable arguments such as the need for people in rural communities to protect themselves, particularly in areas where few law enforcement officials were available.

FDR’s work was carried on by Lyndon Johnson, in the wake of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. But by Johnson’s time, the NRA had become a powerful political force, and Congress refused to pass his modest proposals.

Many people feel that because of the recent spate of mindless massacres, the timing is auspicious for meaningful reform.  However, the time was even more auspicious following the assassinations of the 1960s,  yet Congress did not act.  If we are able to achieve meaningful reform, we should be thankful to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who preached and practiced consistent international and domestic policies that worked to minimize the presence of any and all kinds of lethal weapons.

The post FDR’s Fourth Freedom and gun control appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I started this essay a few days before the massacre of school children in Connecticut.  Looking it over again this morning, I’m glad I didn’t finish it because the ground is shifting under our feet and maybe, just maybe, the shaking has brought us to our senses.  Well, maybe not ALL of us, but enough to break out of the mental and emotional prison that has built up over the past thirty years.

What got me thinking about all of this was an interview last week on MSNBC of the father of a black teenager killed in Florida by a man who didn’t like the loud music the kids were playing in their car.  The man told the kids to turn it down, they didn’t, so he shot them.  The father of the dead boy was asked how African-American parents prepare their children to live in a racist society where they are in danger wherever they go.  The father’s reply got me thinking about how impotent our elected representatives in the national Congress are today compared with decades past.

The father of the slain teenager said he thought America was better than that now.  He recalled growing up in NYC during the 70’s when civil rights was the topic of the day and everyone made an effort to do the right thing.  His son had friends of all colors and nationalities, so he hadn’t had “that conversation that every African American parent dreads” with him. When asked about Florida’s “stand your ground” law and millions of residents with concealed carry permits, the grieving father said that the federal government used to step in when states “got too far out of line.”

That reminded me of how President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock in 1957 to guard the first few black students at the high school.  Each student was assigned a soldier to accompany him/her throughout the day to classes.  Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 actually meant something, and the federal government intended to enforce the law of the land.

As devastating as it would be for his own political party, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  He knew his party would “lose the South for a generation.”  The following decade, even under Republican presidents Nixon and Ford,  we saw an explosion of progressive laws, especially those protecting the environment.  Acid rain from factories in the midwest was killing trees and making people sick in New England, so we had to control that for the benefit of the common good.  We could do things like that back then.  We thought of ourselves as one nation, and we would no more harm our neighbors in other states than we would our neighbors next door.

When I taught American history in the 1980’s, I used Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s Cycles of American History  because it was so obvious.  I’d draw a long wavy line across the blackboard with the progressive eras on top and conservative backlash eras on the bottom.  Every 30 years like clockwork, the mood of the country would shift.  I’d walk five steps forward and two steps back to explain why the conservative cycles were necessary.  People need time to adapt to change, try the new rules on for size and adapt them as necessary.

After the explosive changes of the 60’s and 70’s, it was time for two or three steps back.  During the Reagan era, people stepped back to take a breath and digest all that had happened to our society.  It was during this needed pause that the conservatives regrouped and solidified their agenda.  Presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley said the other night on TV that the Roosevelt Era actually lasted until 1980 when the Reagan Revolution stopped it dead in its tracks.

One of the new “free market” groups that grew out of the frustration of conservatives during the 60’s and 70’s was the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC.)  With strong financial support from corporations, ALEC is able to host conferences where they bring state legislators together with lobbyists and officers of private companies to write model bills which then go back to the states for debate and votes.  If you can picture the “alumni” of these ALEC get-togethers as tadpoles turned into huge, angry frogs obsessed with having their own way, you might better understand why the U.S. House of Representatives last night had to leave town without voting on a tax bill.  The ALEC graduates in the House truly believe the government has no business helping individual citizens and should dismantle all the public programs that make up our social safety net.  Cut out food stamps and child care tax credits, but don’t annoy the billionaires who might want a new yacht for Christmas.

Now shift that focus to the state level.  Although Missouri has not received the national attention that Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin and Virginia recently have, we face many of the same issues – especially high levels of corporate political spending that can, if left unchecked, tip the balance of power away from our citizenry.   ALEC’s destructive power is most obvious when it comes to public education in Missouri.  In fact, Missouri gets the top grade in ALEC’s “Scorecard” for moving away from support for public education.  Whether it’s workers’ rights, pension funds, environmental regulations, photo ID laws, or “repealing Obamacare,” the end goal is the same – moving power and wealth from the many to the few.

Look at this link to one of ALEC’s web pages.

Then compare ALEC’s list of legislative priorities with those of the new Speaker of the Missouri House, Rep. Tim Jones.  The list might be reworded or shuffled around, but the goals are the same. Rep. Tim Jones is the co-chair of the Missouri delegation to ALEC meetings.  He held a “get acquainted” event in the Capitol building last spring and encouraged members to attend.  His plan now is to remodel the historic Capitol building to put offices for Republican legislators in the areas currently set aside for the public and the press.  There seems to be no end to this man’s drive for power.  He could very well end up an ALEC “alum” in the U.S. Congress if we don’t stop him at this level.

So what is giving me this glimmer of hope that we might actually be able to unite for the common good again?  Reactions to the Connecticut massacre by individuals all over the country, even owners of stores that sell assault rifles and private equity firms who are selling their shares of gun manufacturing companies, make me believe there might be a chance to revive what we’ve lost in recent decades – a sense of community and caring for our fellow citizens.

President Obama said it better than any of us can.

 “These neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.”

Enjoy some holiday cheer. Then get ready to storm the barricades.

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Of all the arguments opposing gun control, the one that annoys me the most is that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

A recent letter to the editor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggests that “the only rational conclusion you would reach is that if guns kill people then pens are the reason for misspelled words and forks and spoons are the reason Gov. Chris Christie and Rosie O’Donnell are overweight.”   The writer says what we need is self control.    What a vacuous, nonsensical argument.

If Chris Christie and Rose O’Donnell are unable to stick to a diet, we might read about their weight problems in the tabloids but no harm would be done to us.

And misspelled words?   The only harm done is to the student’s grade point average or our image of the speller.

Being overweight and misspelling are self-inflicted wounds.  A person not controlling a gun?  We have seen the consequences and the wounds have been fatal.   We must stop the bleeding.

P.S. If there are any misspelled words above, please blame spell-check.

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Yes, Virginia, there can be a conversation about gun control. Think Progress has identified five regulations that NRA members have said they support. According to Think Progress, new research released in July by Republican pollster Frank Luntz for Mayors against Illegal Guns, finds that gun advocates overwhelmingly support common-sense measures typically described as “gun control.”  Here’s a summary:

1. Requiring criminal background checks on gun owners and gun shop employees. 87 percent of non-NRA gun-owners and 74 percent of NRA gun owners support the former, and 80 percent and 79 percent, respectively, endorse the latter.

2. Prohibiting terrorist watch list members from acquiring guns. Support ranges from 80 percent among non-NRA gun-owners to 71 percent among NRA members.

3. Mandating that gun-owners tell the police when their gun is stolen. 71 percent non-NRA gun-owners support this measure, as do 64 percent of NRA members.

4. Concealed carry permits should only be restricted to individuals who have completed a safety training course and are 21 and older. 84 percent of non-NRA and 74 percent of NRA member gun-owners support the safety training restriction, and the numbers are 74 percent and 63 percent for the age restriction.

5. Concealed carry permits shouldn’t be given to perpetrators of violent misdemeanors or individuals arrested for domestic violence. The NRA/non-NRA gun-owner split on these issues is 81 percent and 75 percent in favor of the violent misdemeanors provision and 78 percent/68 percent in favor of the domestic violence restriction.

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get a federal law with these policies through Congress immediately. Even the hardest-line, NRA-funded Congresspeople would have a tough time opposing it, given the overwhelming public support for these provisions–particularly among NRA members. It would be an excellent  way to break apart Congressional gridlock, demonstrate a good faith effort to do something positive, and start a shamefully overdue conversation about gun violence in America. Enough hand-wringing, praying, hiding behind the gun lobby’s interpretation of the Second Amendment,  and symbolic lowering of flags to half-mast. Let’s get to work. If Congress can’t pass this one, after what happened in Newtown, Connecticut, they might as well turn off the lights and go home.

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