Mediaboss Marketing

Sometimes the irony is so thick, you cant cut it with a laser.

House Republicans had long planned to hold a hearing on June 14 on a National Rifle Association bill that would make it far easier for gun owners to buy silencers. The so-called Hearing Protection Act (I kid you not) was all set for subcommittee scrutiny until news broke about the Field of Screams.

Having tallied the wounded this was the 195th mass shooting of the year Republicans speedily canceled the gun silencer hearing, deeming it inappropriate. Given the circumstances, and all that.

But then it occurred to me: If our latest angry white guy, newly dead James Hodginkson, had been free to fit a silencer on his easily obtained killing machine, wouldnt that have slowed the reaction time of the Republican ballplayers and the cops whod accompanied them? If hed sprayed his bullets with a silencer attached, wouldnt there have been an enhanced risk of far more casualties?

And if the next angry white guy, and the ones after that, are free to do the same, wont that ratchet up the death toll?

Its futile to even ask such questions, of course, because America is terminally locked and loaded.

Rest assured that after Republicans dry their tears about House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., and the other wounded souls, theyll get back to the NRAs business. The gun silencer hearing will be held.

Another NRA bill, which would allow people who live in states with lax gun laws to pack their concealed-carry heat in states with strict gun laws, is waiting in the wings.

And Republicans, with President Donald Trumps help, have already made it easier for some fugitives and mentally impaired people to buy guns.

Republicans did indeed shed tears Wednesday understandably so for their wounded allies and colleagues.

But in their grief, perhaps it would also have been appropriate to ask themselves: How come a guy with a history of violence had a gun license and an assault weapon?

Hodgkinson, by all accounts, was an unhinged lefty extremist who hated Republicans just a variation of the unhinged right-wing extremists who hate lefties and Democrats. What all these people have in common is a profound sense of alienation and a propensity for violence.

Their anger not ideology is their prime motivator. Hodginkson fit the profile perfectly.

In Hodgkinsons home state of Illinois (prior to his recent move to Alexandria, Va., where he spent weeks stalking the ballfield), he racked up a string of offenses damaging a motor vehicle, resisting police, criminally damaging property, driving under the influence, discharging a firearm (he was shooting at trees across a neighbors property while the neighbor was outside with his grandchildren), assaulting a neighboring girl (punching her with a closed fist), threatening a neighbor with a shotgun, and assaulting his foster daughter (which led to his arrest on a domestic violence charge).

In court, he screamed at the judge. But the judge dismissed the case after a witness mixed up the court date and failed to appear.

In virtually any other Western nation, Hodgkinson, with all his red flags, wouldve been denied a gun permit. But in America, he was good for it.

He also obtained an automatic weapon, the kind that civilians typically cant get in most western nations. But in America, he was good for it.

Because its considered important to protect the gun rights of people like him.

In America, the marketing of mass-destruction weaponry is simply good business.

Hodgkinsons weapon of choice was reportedly an M4, or similar to it. The manufacturers selling spiel for the M4 goes like this: The M4 can be comfortably carried, yet be instantly available to provide ... firepower, dependability and accuracy. Proven in military combat operations all over the world, it is in a class by itself as a first-rate combat weapon system.

But theres no way Republicans will connect these dots. Roughly 30 Americans die each day in gun homicides, but thats deemed acceptable collateral damage.

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., one of the congressmen who escaped the ballfield assault without injury, conceded that the Second Amendment has some adverse aspects, but said that gun rights are fundamental to our being the greatest nation in world history.

And as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., declared in a tweet last year, Why do we have a Second Amendment? Its not to shoot deer. Its to shoot at the government when it becomes tyrannical!

Well, thats precisely what Hodgkinson thought he was doing. Its just a shame that NRA politicians make it so easy for people like him.

And when Scalise recovers from his wounds, rest assured that hell continue to toe the line. After all, his NRA rating is A-Plus.

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia, a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and is syndicated by Cagle Cartoons. Email him at [emailprotected] and follow him on Twitter: @DickPolman1. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.

Excerpt from:
Dick Polman: Are Republicans Brave Enough to Play Ball on Gun Control? - Noozhawk