There is something deeply wrong with a culture where these acts of violence are increasingly common. We urge all members of Congress to reflect on the compassion all of you undoubtedly feel in light of these tragic events and be moved to action because of it. I pray for the children and adults killed, and for their families.” 1 As we continue to grieve these losses, we are reminded of the times the Gospels tell us Jesus was “moved by pity.” Moved by pity, Jesus fed the hungry (Matthew 15:32), healed the blind (Matthew 20:34), and comforted the widow whose only son had died (Luke 7:13).
In our own sadness and prayerfulness, we echo Pope Francis’ words that, “My heart is broken over the massacre at the primary school in Texas. These tragedies can only bring us to one conclusion: we must unite in our humanity to stop the massacres of innocent lives. This incomprehensible tragedy at Uvalde, Texas, comes as we are still grieving the loss of innocent lives in Buffalo, Dallas, Laguna Woods, and now Tulsa. Fourth graders looking forward to their final week of classes, some of whom celebrated their place on the honor roll mere hours before, were brutally and senselessly massacred.
That's different than background checks.Last week, an eighteen-year-old carrying an AR-15 entered an elementary school and murdered nineteen children and two teachers. It's school safety and it is mental health.Īnd that is much different than something like red flag laws. Whether that translates into actual legislation that is going to pass, we will see.īut, over the past couple of days in Kentucky, Leader McConnell has kind of defined what the realms of this is. He has a lot of inside information, he will do nothing that harms his members who are trying to beat Democrats.Īnd so he is deciding what - he is making this decision what he is saying based on what the polling is saying at this moment. And so he reads the polls better than anyone else. The midterm elections are just five months away. The other thing that you have to think about with Leader McConnell, as you well know, is that everything is calculated in what is going to win him back his majority. Some people think that he has put John Cornyn into these negotiations to make sure that there's not a really impactful legislation that - or agreement that comes to the floor, something that's very minor that doesn't really do that much. Well, a lot of Democrats especially are skeptical about what Leader McConnell is saying. Saying mental health is the problem is one thing. What it's trying to do is just to put some safeguards around the opportunity to purchase guns with these red flag laws, perhaps just incentivizing states to strengthen their red flag laws.Īs far as the mental health component is concerned, something that Republicans are really focused on, it's not really clear what they're going to do about that. They're not going to address raising the age of assault weapons. These things that they're talking about are very - they're kind of around the edges.
I don't think that they would announce an agreement unless they did, but we will see. Lindsey Graham is involved in these negotiations - then, presumably, they would have the 10 votes. So, theoretically, if they come to an agreement with someone like Senator Cornyn, who's very close with leadership, Senator Toomey perhaps. Well, there's a number of Republicans who are involved in these negotiations.