Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Kelly Get Your Gun


They were packing a different kind of heat in New Hampshire yesterday. Outrage.
Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) had her hands full at a town hall meeting in the small town of Warren, NH, population 900.  And it’s clear she found it difficult to defend the failure of common sense gun control legislation when faced with the indignation of young and old constituents, as well as the fiery dignity of a grieving, 27-year old daughter of a Sandy Hook heroine.

The only good news to come out of the gun control debacle on the Hill in recent weeks is the growing resolve of gun control advocates to go the distance, to show up, and hold politicians accountable in the face of the millions in NRA PAC money they receive. It’s about time someone took a page out of the Tea Party playbook and put it to work in support of an issue that the vast majority of Americans care about deeply.
As a card-carrying American, I understand the Second Amendment right to bear arms even as I freely admit that I could never own one, fire one, or, god help me, defend myself with one. But I have to tell you, Sandy Hook really shook me up at every level.   

Mid-term elections will be here before we know it, and while I have many, many beefs against this Congress and its leadership, the failure of common sense gun control legislation is right at the top of my list.  I hope New Hampshire voters – and voters in Arizona, Alaska, Nevada and elsewhere – won’t forget Sandy Hook.

As for Senator Ayotte, perhaps she will be brave enough to reflect on her failure of political will and its cost to our country, our children, and the citizens she was elected to represent.
This issue will not die, even as more innocent people are senselessly murdered because the wrong person with a semi-automatic weapon found the right setting for his rage.  Voters in New Hampshire and in states across the nation, however, will be taking names as they count the numbers.

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