And even having watched it several times, it still brings tears to my eyes.
This is the reality of gun ownership slamming into America's fantasy. It is an amazing experiment. It is more effective than anything the creeps at the NRA have come up with.
And so the NRA and other gun organizations have (no pun intended) gone ballistic. They are in full whine. And the irony of it all is quite a thing to see.
They are talking about deceptive advertising and breaking New York City gun laws. They bring up violations of city codes about displaying guns. They question whether the city used public funds.
It turns out, the group that conducted this research in gun marketing, States United to Prevent Gun Violence, dotted their i's and crossed all their t's when they planned this experiment. All legal. Which won't stop the NRA from trying to find a way to destroy the group. But as I am writing this blog, there have been 3,180,543 youtube views, and there are likely to be millions more.
On a day when I was feeling pretty discouraged by all the attacks coming from the right-wing in so many areas of individual rights, this was a great victory.
Here in South Carolina this week, on Tuesday, the House is going to be taking up S 3, the Senate's version of the Criminal Domestic Violence bill. In light of our shameful statistics on domestic violence and shooting deaths -- more than 61 percent of women killed by domestic violence were killed by guns -- Senators Katrina Shealy and Larry Martin included a prohibition on convicted abusers owning or having in their possession a gun. Although the bill was inevitably watered down to give judges discretion in ordering this prohibition on a case-by-case basis, the bill is still far stronger than the House version, H 3433, which has no language prohibiting guns.
So here we are, with S 3 already passed by the Senate and introduced into the House. But the House appears to be ignoring S 3 so that they can be credited with passing the inferior H 3433, which will go before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday. I surely don't understand the fighting over territory that sees so many bills duplicated, but I do believe it enables our legislators to muddy the water enough that they can do damage and take credit at the same time. Which appears to be the plan here.
That's why it is important to contact House representatives immediately and tell them that we expect them to pass a Criminal Domestic Violence bill that includes strong gun prohibitions. This is not a Second Amendment issue. This is about not allowing violent individuals to have easy access to weapons. This is about protecting families, women and children, and yes, men, from violent individuals the very best way possible.
The video produced by States United to Prevent Gun Violence should be enough to convince us that we can win this fight. But our legislators need to hear from us. Today, and as long as it takes.
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