The Needed Reality Check

It finally happened today. The Assault Weapons Ban finally had its day (of hearings) in the Senate Judiciary Committee. And there was plenty of explosive testimony on this key aspect of gun safety reform.

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the Chair of the Judiciary Committee who has also introduced the new Assault Weapons Ban, oversaw testimony from various experts. One was a doctor who actually treated



Also on hand to testify was Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Police Chief Edward Flynn. Unfortunately for him, Senator Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina) tried to derail his testimony by badgering him over prosecutions of people who fail background checks. Nonetheless, Flynn was able to make his point by correcting Graham on what police officers are supposed to do.



Neil Heslin also testified today. He lost his son in Newtown. And he asked a simple question, the same one that we keep asking here.



Basically, today's hearing refuted what Joe Heck asserted during his town hall in Henderson last week. Assault weapons are truly dangerous weapons meant to kill masses of people in a very short amount of time. The kind of "recreation" they were created for is illegal in civilian society (hint: murder).

Heck should know better. And so should Harry Reid & Dean Heller. They need to look beyond the twisted politics of Capitol Hill and notice what's happening here in the real world.

Remember this: The NRA is NOT the victim. Look at the real victims. This is what our Members of Congress must do.

Victims, Guilt, & Guns

A manhunt is now underway for Ammar Harris, the lead suspect for the Las Vegas Strip shooting last week. Another person of interest is also being sought. The search for Harris is now nationwide.



Police believe an altercation at Aria led to the shooting. Yet despite this, there's been media speculation about victim Kenneth Cherry and his personal life. "Oh, he was a pimp! It was all just a pimp war." (Never mind that Cherry was never arrested for any crime, and that he's one of the slain victims in this crime.)

It's not as if this hasn't happened before. Still, it's disturbing to see certain victims of gun violence villainized in some corners of the media and treated like perpetrators. Why go there?

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin near Orlando, Florida. Even though he was the slain victim, some in the media were ready to villainize Trayvon. Why? He was wearing a hoodie!



The NRA pushed hard for Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, the statute that George Zimmerman now uses to justify the murder of Trayvon. The NRA & ALEC then pushed more states to pass similar "Stand Your Ground" law. Even Nevada now has a modified version of it.

For decades, the NRA has (mis)used its juice in Carson City and Washington to weaken gun safety standards. They've essentially bribed lawmakers in the not-so-distant past with campaign contributions and prestigious "A" ratings. Meanwhile, victims of gun violence were all too often marginalized, forgotten... And in some cases, even treated like criminals.

Last night in Illinois, we saw a groundbreaking development. As mentioned above, the NRA has enjoyed immense political clout. But now, that's being called into question as former Illinois state legislator Robin Kelly won the Democratic Primary for the 2nd Congressional District spreading from Chicago's South Side to exurban Kankakee County.

Kelly ran against Debbie Halvorson, herself a former Member of Congress who lost her old seat in 2010. Because she had some name recognition from that and challenging Jesse Jackson, Jr., in this seat before he resigned, she was considered the early frontrunner. But in the wake of Newtown and increased gun violence right in Chicago, this special election to replace Jackson became a referendum on the NRA. And the gun lobby hasn't been used to taking criticism on the campaign trail.

To be sure, this is a heavily Democratic district, and messages that resonated in Illinois' 2nd district may not be equally as effective elsewhere. But that doesn't negate the fact that this was the first race in recent memory in which a major party's candidates felt the need to distance themselves from the NRA. The far-right lobbying group's "A" ratings for some of the candidates practically became "a scarlet letter," forcing some Democrats who'd previously bragged about NRA support to scramble in the other direction.

Even in reliably "blue" districts, that just hasn't happened in recent years. Democrats, at nearly every level, had been led to believe that supporting gun control was a recipe for electoral failure, so they reflexively avoided the issue. This race set out to challenge those assumptions, and the results were unambiguous.

Indeed, Kelly was only too pleased to tout her "F" rating from the organization, which in turn led to support from Bloomberg and progressive groups like the CREDO super PAC. It helped separate her from the pack and positioned her to become a member of Congress in April.

And because of this, Capitol Hill must rethink its relationship with the gun lobby. And in fact, it will have a chance to do so today as the Senate Judiciary Committee finally gives the Assault Weapons Ban a hearing. The gun lobby has attempted to blithely dismiss calls for gun safety reform as "The Connecticut Effect", but that strategy may not be so effective any more.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We've just seen too many untimely, unnecessary, and uncivilized deaths across the country. From Tucson to Sanford, and from Newtown to Las Vegas, the shootings have piled up. And the gun lobby's excuses are wearing thin.


Driving down Las Vegas Boulevard is not a crime. Wearing a hoodie outside is not a crime. And for goodness sake, going to school is not a crime. But you know what? Murder is. And while protecting criminals' right to murder, it can be just as dangerous and dastardly.

They're Not "Props", Joe Heck. They're Reality.

In the past week, we've been wondering where Joe Heck would fall in the gun safety debate in Congress. He released some "moderate" sounding yet very empty language just before several of his constituents tried to meet with him last week. But now, it looks like we finally have an answer.

.@RepJoeHeck on KDWN: "Anti-gun" forces trying to use "the cloud of emotion surrounding Newtown...to limit Second Amendment rights."

But wait, there's more.

Radio talker Alan Stock: "Nauseating....shameful act" to put up Gabby Giffords as a "prop" in the gun debate. @RepJoeHeck: "I agree."

Really? Did Joe Heck really just go there? I wonder if he's willing to call Gabby Giffords a mere "prop" to her face. I wonder if he's also willing to do that to the families of those who died in Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Chicago, and/or Southern California.

Does Heck also think of Janay Mcfarlane as a mere "prop"?

18-year-old Janay Mcfarlane, a mother of a 3-month-old boy, was shot in the head and killed in a Chicago suburb just hours after her sister sat behind President Obama as he advocated for tighter gun regulations on Friday.

January was one of the deadliest in Chicago in more than a decade, with more than 40 people killed in homicides. “Last year, there were 443 murders with a firearm in this city,and 65 of them were 18 and under,” Obama said in his speech. “That’s the equivalent of a Newtown every four months. That’s precisely why the overwhelming majority of Americans are asking for some common sense proposals to make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun.” Obama also remembered Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old who was killed in a South Side park days after performing at his inauguration.

As we discussed on Sunday, Chicago has suffered immensely from gun violence despite its strict local regulations. That's because Illinois state law is more lax, and because it's incredibly easy for Chicago street gangs and other criminals to obtain firearms from "gun easy" states like Indiana and Mississippi.

Either Joe Heck doesn't understand this... Or he does, yet he still refuses to act on gun safety reform. Either way, it's reprehensible. And Joe Heck needs to open his eyes and notice the reality checks all around him on the vicious reality of gun violence.

It's not as if Nevada is immune from this epic gun violence. Something must change. And Joe Heck needs to see the reality check(s) right in front of him.

A Sober Reality Check on Gun Violence

So it happened again. We saw yet another shooting yesterday. This time, it hit very close to home.

For years Jim McCarty hid whatever troubles that may have weighed on him behind the rhythms of normalcy.

He lived in a single-story home with his wife and her two children at 2225 La Sombra Street, an aging residential neighborhood. Neighbors say he never missed a day of work as a tractor-trailer driver, leaving each morning at 7 a.m. and coming home at 5 p.m. like clockwork. When he wasn’t at work, they saw him obsessing over his lawn making sure it stayed lush and green despite the dry desert heat. He loved that lawn.

Work and the yard, the “everyman” routine. They were his constants — until Tuesday.

That day, Catrina Garrett, who lives across the street from the family, noticed he missed work. Then, around 3:45 p.m., next-door neighbor Andrew Newkirk heard gunshots. [...]

The Clark County Coroner’s Office identified the first two victims as Jim McCarty’s stepchildren, Bonnie Scherrer, 38, and Robert Scherrer, 41. The third victim, neighbors say, is his wife, Linda McCarty.

It is impossible to know what may have caused McCarty to snap and allegedly shoot his family and then himself, but neighbors who know the family well say underneath his routine was a bleak life.

Believe it or not, gun deaths often occur by way of victims' own guns. Accidents happens. And then in this case, Jim McCarty turned his gun on his own family, then on himself.

This wasn't a topic discussed at yesterday's US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun safety, but plenty of other issues were brought to the table. What was perhaps most chilling about yesterday's hearing was how the typical decorum of a Senate hearing was interrupted by reminders of all the recent bloodshed from epic gun violence. Salon
's Joan Walsh has more.

I’m sure he never dreamed that barely a month later the carnage would claim a 15-year-old majorette who’d just marched in his inaugural parade. Hadiya Pendleton is only one of 42 people to die of gun violence in Chicago this month, the deadliest January in 10 years. And there’s still another day to go.

Nor did he likely envision that a popular school bus driver in rural Alabama would be killed by a man the Southern Poverty Law Center listed as an anti-government “survivalist,” after he tried to stop him from taking two boys off his bus as hostage (he wound up getting one, a six year old who’s still his prisoner.) The rampage after an office dispute in Phoenixis a little more common: Too many “office disputes” are settled by gunfire.

Hadiya Pendleton’s godfather had a searing if unintended rejoinder to LaPierre’s post-Newtown nonsense that “the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” Duane Stewart, a police officer, told the Chicago Sun-Times about his happy honor-student god-daughter: “As usual, the bad guy aims, but he never hits the other bad guy . . . He hits the one that hurts the most to lose. I changed her diapers, I played with her growing up. My heart is broken.” [...]

But the same forces that block sensible gun laws also block action on other social problems. We have too many guns in this country; we also have too much poverty and inequality and mental illness, and they’re all tied together. It’s galling to watch LaPierre and others on the right pretend they care about mental health treatment, for instance. The same political stalemate that’s blocked action on guns has also made it harder to deal with other social problems that fracture us. While Hadiya Pendleton went to a good school and was shot in an upper middle class neighborhood not far from the president’s Chicago home, her assailants are reportedly gang members, and the plague of gang violence —which springs from generations of chronic, festering and unanswered urban poverty and violence –has been ignored for too long because it rarely touches the people deemed to matter in our country.

Durbin mentioned Pendleton during the hearing, noting that her inaugural parade appearance was “the highlight of her young life.” Then she returned to a city “awash in guns,” he said. “The confiscation of guns per capita in Chicago is six times the number in New York City,” said Durbin. “We have guns everywhere and some believe the solution to this is more guns. I disagree.”

Gabby Giffords didn’t mention Pendleton in her moving testimony, but she did talk about children. “Too many children are dying. Too many children,” Giffords said haltingly. “We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you.”

Last night, Rep. Steven Horsford (D-North Las Vegas) was on "Ralston Reports" last night to discuss a variety of issues. One of them was gun safety. And while noting the unique challenge of tailoring gun laws to Nevada, he nonetheless made clear why President Obama and various Members of Congress are pursuing gun safety reform.



No one is talking about doing what's described in the gun lobby's crazed conspiracy theories. Rather, Congress is debating common-sense gun safety measures meant to protect communities. It's about preventing unnecessary deaths. It's about taking basic steps to stop the slaughter of innocent children.

The New Republic's Walter Kirn is a gun owner himself. He recently wrote about his own experience with guns, and he explained why he and many more gun owners really don't see eye to eye with NRA lobbyists. Are military style assault weapons actually necessary for "recreational shooting" and deer hunting? Are background checks really "unreasonable"? Is gun trafficking truly a "civil right"?

That's all we're talking about. And that's what Members of Congress should keep in mind... That, and the continuing count of people who've lost their lives to gun violence.