(TheRedAlertNews.com) – Marking the fourth anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass legislation on gun control.
It seems Democratic lawmakers aren’t willing to answer his calls.
As the November 9 midterms are fast approaching, Democrats have little appetite to tackle the controversial issue. This lack of action taken by Congress to address gun reform has frustrated activists given Democrats control of the House and Senate after ten years of Republican or split control.
After negotiations stalled between Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) last summer, little has been done in the Senate Democratic caucus to address the two gun control bills passed by the House in March of last year.
Expressing disappointment, co-founder of Guns Down America, Igor Volsky, highlighted a promise Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made to anti-gun violence groups in the spring of 2020 that the Senate would vote on a law requiring background checks for gun buyers.
Volsky said the groups had been “promised by Senate Majority Leader Schumer as far back as March, April that there would be a vote during the summer, then it got pushed back even further.” He then added that Schumer was using a familiar tactic among politicians by “making all kinds of promises during the campaign and then fail[ing] to deliver anything when they’re in power.”
According to reports by The Hill, the conversation around gun control was never even brought up in the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Discussing the matter with the Hill before Thanksgiving last year, Senator John Tester (D-MT) said, “It hasn’t come up in conversation in the last year,” when addressing gun control legislation.
Recently, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) confirmed that there weren’t any discussions about gun control legislation in the Senate, citing lack of Republican support as the reason.
Biden appears to be trying to address this radio silence in his statement, saying, “Congress must do much more — beginning with requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers.”
These remarks, however, were made as part of a much broader statement commemorating the deaths of 14 students and three staff members in Parkland, Florida.
