Response from Senator Ron Johnson on the failed gun control bill

[Lifelong Protester]

I want legislation that will best prevent crimes like the tragedy in Newtown. But I didn't come to Washington to vote for bills that create more problems than they solve and, in the process, further degrade our freedoms.



That's why I supported the common sense ??? proposal from Sen. Chuck Grassley. Forty-two other Republicans and nine Democrats supported it because it would have strengthened the enforcement of our current laws. In 2010, 73,000 individuals failed the current background checks — 48,000 of them were felons or fugitives. Only 62 cases were sent to prosecutors. Only 44 were actually prosecuted. The legislation I supported would have helped put these gun-seeking criminals in jail.



In contrast, the president's attempt to pressure Americans into supporting ill-considered gun control is a classic example of Washington's misguided intrusion into our lives. If the president and his supporters were truly serious about moving in a positive direction, once their proposal failed, they would have voted for the bipartisan alternative I supported.



When I ran for the Senate, I said we have enough gun laws and that we should enforce the laws we already have. That is how I have voted since I was elected. This vote was consistent with that record.


Does anyone else here get stuff like this from him? Am I the only one here dopey enough to keep writing to him? (BTW, the ??? after 'common sense' was added by me...)

[Archae]

1. Senator Dumbass has spoken.

Notice not a word about the million $$$ PLUS he's got from the NRA...

[Scuba]

2. +1,000 on the NRA's million bucks!

[Lifelong Protester]

6. I believe his reply is to my letter questioning him

about it (the 1.17 million from the NRA). I asked if his constituents had to sent their notes to him on $100 bills to get noticed....

[elfin]

3. Got the same one

Looks like the one Ayotte is peddling. He makes my skin crawl.

[Lifelong Protester]

7. Yeah, the "I got to Washington all by myself"

and furthermore "I don't have to listen to any of you little people".

[mojowork_n]

4. This is from a red state (but not lunatic or bought) conservative, on Chuck Grassley

Found here, at CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/19/opinion/waldman-gun-vote

Pertinent 4 paragraphs:

Take Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who many years ago was known as a straightforward, even moderate fellow, but who at some point decided that if he didn't like a bill, the best thing to do is to simply lie about what it contained, stoke fears or both.

He did it when he spread the "death panel" lie during the debate over health reform, and he did it again this time, telling people falsely that the Manchin-Toomey amendment would mean a national registry of every American who owns a gun. He then warned darkly, "when registration fails, the next move will be gun confiscation."

For the record, the Manchin-Toomey amendment specifically forbade the government from creating a gun registry, which is why Obama and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- a guy from a state Obama lost by 27 points in 2012, who got elected to the Senate with an ad showing him firing a rifle shot through a piece of legislation while the announcer trumpeted his NRA endorsement -- accused the NRA and its supporters of lying about it.

But Grassley and others spread the lie, knowing it would energize the paranoid and influence the more cowardly of their colleagues. As one gun lobbyist gloated after the bill was defeated, "The gun registry defined the battle over universal background checks."

In other words, the bill Senator Dumbass wrote to you about had little to do with improving gun safety. Or its supporters wouldn't have had to lie about the Manchin-Toomey bill. But it was all about re-framing the argument so that place-holders and posturing sell-outs in Congress could do something to make themselves look good, for their inattentive or ignorant constituents who might not know any better.

[Lifelong Protester]

5. I appreciate your response and article link

He spews whatever he wishes, and doesn't give a damn about what his constituents think. I have felt that about Grassley for a while-that he's really gone to the 'dark side'. This confirms it.

[mojowork_n]

8. OK. One correction, Paul Waldman's not a 'red state' conservative....

I skimmed the bio summary a little too quickly and mis-read American Prospect
as something else. It's not exactly Z magazine or Alternet, but it's not The
American Conservative either.

...Grassley doesn't want to get T-Bagged in a primary, by some Ron Johnson clone or cardboard cut-out running to the right of him.

....Which begs the question, if a person is driving in the carpool-only lane of the freeway, and there's only that one person in the vehicle, would the police still have a right to stop them and issue a ticket if the driver has a Ron Johnson cardboard cut-out in the passenger seat?

The corporations that Ron Johnson is a stand-in for in Congress are people too. Why couldn't he serve the same function in your passenger seat?

[Lifelong Protester]

9. He is such a worthless tool

And your last paragraphs made me