The steady stream of gun violence in the United States has not stopped. There have been recent mass shootings everywhere from a Texas Walmart to an outdoors festival in California and more. Despite growing overall public concern over these developments, this weekend, longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway went on Fox News Sunday and tore into those on the left trying to come up with solutions, suggesting they’re engaged in some kind of “socialist” conspiracy against the God-given or whatever rights of “law-abiding” Americans. She’s apparently unwilling to put this kind of rhetoric aside even for a moment, even when American lives are on the line.
She railed to Fox host Bill Hemmer:
‘We’re not going to allow bad actors who should not have firearms in the first place to be the excuse for a bunch of liberals and socialists to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens who have legally procured them. I’m not going to allow people who are constantly maligning and deriding our law enforcement to be in charge of public safety [and] public policy.’
This week on Fox News Sunday: Bill Hemmer asks Kellyanne Conway what type of gun action President Trump would be willing to support. #FNS #FoxNews pic.twitter.com/KqZd3UY75m
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) September 15, 2019
To begin with, there is no standing Democratic Party line of “constantly maligning and deriding our law enforcement” — there’s just one of standing against police brutality. If Conway thinks cops have to kill unarmed members of marginalized communities, she’s even more off in a racist fantasy than before.
If she and her colleagues are really so committed to stopping “bad actors” from procuring firearms, then why don’t they work with Democrats on something like universal background check legislation covering gun purchases? There are many options on the table besides the fringe idea of actually confiscating people’s guns that those on the right seem so consistently eager to lose their mind over.
Even Conway’s lip service to the safety of American people falls apart upon closer inspection. While he did say that background checks as they are now should be “strengthened,” the same morning that Conway went on Fox, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz went on ABC and insisted that there shouldn’t even be universal background checks for gun purchases because that’s supposedly getting too close to a “national gun registry” like could be used for confiscation. That’s the party line — that Americans should be free to secretly stockpile dangerous weaponry so… what, they can feel more “secure” when they’re buying bread at Walmart?
The grocery store chain recently announced a request for shoppers to not bring firearms into their stores no matter local open carry laws, and of course gun-loving maniacs had to test that. In one viral moment, a Kentucky man got confronted by at least several cops who had to spend minutes negotiating with him just to respect the wishes of the store and stop carrying his gun around. Before that, a Missouri man ended up charged with making a terrorist threat for a similar incident (which was before the official policy change).
As Conway noted, President Donald Trump has definitely been “engaged” with the issue of gun violence — but he’s already flip-flopped once, having at one time supported the idea of universal background checks before yanking that promptly.
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