The #2 Republican in the House, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), told reporters that gun control doesn’t work, Republicans won’t be taking up gun legislation.
CNN’s Manu Raju tweeted:
Steve Scalise, No. 2 in House, signals no new action on guns despite mass shootings
“Congress passed more gun control. I opposed it because I knew it wouldn’t solve the problem. It just makes it harder for law-abiding citizens to get guns to defend themselves,” he told @MZanona— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 8, 2023
Steve Scalise was shot in 2017 at a practice for the congressional baseball game, but not even being a victim of gun violence has deterred him from spreading the lies and misinformation of the NRA.
According to Scientific American, the science on the impact of gun laws reveals that Rep. Scalise is wrong, “Science points to laws that would work to reduce shootings, to lower death. Among the simplest would be better permitting laws with fewer loopholes. When Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent. Another would be to ban people who are convicted of violent crime from buying a gun. In California, before the state passed such a law, people convicted of crimes were almost 30 percent more likely to be arrested again for a gun or violent crime than those who, after the law, couldn’t buy a gun.”
Science shows that laws that are intended to reduce shootings work. There is a clear difference between laws to keep guns out of the hands of potential mass shooters, and ‘banning guns.’
Republicans and the NRA always take the argument to the extreme and frame any attempt to do something about gun violence as ‘banning guns,’ but there is an entire policy landscape available between the two extremes of let’s let everyone has as many guns as they want all of the time, and let’s take away all of the guns.
The vast majority of Americans are in the middle, and they want the killings to stop.
The message being sent by Steve Scalise is that Republicans are going to continue to enable mass shooters and not lift a finger to make the bloodshed stop.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association