The mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, once again reminded Americans that as long as guns of war are readily available to everyday Americans, we are not living in a safe country. That did not stop new Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson from saying this to Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday night: “At the end of the day, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns. It’s not the weapons.”
The White House has responded twice. Spokesman Andrew Bates released a statement responding to Johnson’s pseudo-intellectual pap, calling his scapegoating of “the human heart” an “offensive accusation.” Bates also questioned Johnson’s history of weak-sauce moralizing on the issue, saying gun violence in our country is “not the result of an imagined deficiency in the hearts of the American people; nor is it because women have the right to make their own health care decisions, as the Speaker once claimed,” referring to statements Johnson made in 2016 about school shootings. Bates added, “Gun crime is uniquely high in the United States because congressional Republicans have spent decades choosing the gun industry’s lobbyists over the lives of innocent Americans.”
In a video you can watch below the fold, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Johnson to practice what he preached.
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[Johnson] said he's ready to get to work, and to find common ground. Now is the time. Now is the time to find common ground. Let's work together to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Let's work together to enact universal background checks, require safe storage of guns, and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous individuals who have no business being armed with a weapon of war.The president will continue to do everything in his power to protect the American people, to protect our communities, to protect our children. And we urge congressional Republicans to come to the table, to come to the table if there truly is common ground at this time.
Those are policies. Those are ideas for legislation that have a chance of helping to mitigate the gun violence plaguing our country. Over the past seven months, the Republican Party has offered up policy prescriptions for gun violence that include “We’re not gonna fix it,” and “the problem is the human heart.” The Republican Party’s complete impotence has reached its nadir.
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