Ever since the back-to-back gun massacres of Uvalde and Buffalo, the gun reform debate has been intense enough that even some Republicans like John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell have been unable to fully ignore it. That is why rather than trying to stop the momentum, some Republicans have agreed to some minor reforms. Maybe.
But even that is too far for some, like Utah GOP Senator Mike Lee on “Fox News Sunday.”
Host Shannon Bream began by outlining the tentative Senate gun deal, and read the text of the agreement saying the new restrictions would be “consistent with state and federal due process and constitutional protections.” Bream asked Lee if he could support that.
Lee is apparently running NRA talking point software that hasn’t been updated in a few years:
LEE: Most of those things sound unobjectionable […] We gotta to be careful whenever something like this happens, that we not legislate under the heat of the moment. Under great emotion without looking at the text and figuring out what we’re doing. We have to be careful we not punish law-abiding Americans for the wrongs carried out by the criminally minded and the insane.
Mike Lee would like a cooling off period, we guess. Because people make rash decisions “in the heat of the moment/emotion” without figuring out if what they are doing is the right thing. A “waiting period,” if you will.
Shannon Bream then showed this Fox News poll, which reveals just how amazingly popular gun reforms are:
After reading that poll (again from Fox News) to Lee, Bream asked a logical question:
BREAM: There is a lot of momentum, at least among the public sphere, for doing this. Are you out of step with your constituents?
LEE: OK, so first of all what’s important is we look out for the rights of constituents. Constituents are asked poll questions, they’re not asked questions about specific language within legislative text. It’s the job of the lawmaker to look out for the interest and the rights of the law-abiding citizens they represent. And so with each of those provisions, I understand how they could get high popularity ratings when they don’t define them.
People need a definition for “background check”? How little do Republicans think of their constituents’ intelligence?
Lee basically confesses that when Americans are asked directly if they agree with gun reforms, they say they do, overwhelmingly. Which is why, as Lee suggests, it’s Republicans’ job to “define” gun reform provisions for their voters in hopes they’ll continue voting against their own interests and for the good of the gun lobby.
Lee continued:
LEE: For example, you talk about banning assault weapons. There is no universal definition of what an “assault rifle” is. […] The text does matter here. Because it’s that text that will determine whether we are intruding unduly on the rights of the American law-abiding citizens. And doing so in a way that would actually deter violent criminal behavior.
How will we ever define what an “assault weapon/rifle” is? It’s not like we already did this in, say, a 1994 Assault Weapons Ban that passed in a bipartisan 95-4 Senate vote, as President Joe Biden mentioned recently.
Bream also asked Lee about his own involvement in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, and it went poorly.
BREAM: Your own text messages have come up in regards to Mark Meadows. They’ve been highlighted. Here is what the Salt Lake Tribune said about that. Their headline: “New Court Filings Raise Questions About Senator Mike Lee’s Involvement In Attempts To Overturn The 2020 Election.” Your response?
LEE: Well, first of all, look, I knew how bad Joe Biden would be as President. What a disaster he would be in the Oval Office. […] As we approached the end of December, there were rumors that continued to circulate suggesting that some states were going to be re-allocating … withdrawing and re-allocating their electoral votes. […]. So, I communicated with Mark Meadows to try to find out if the rumors were true. I couldn’t get answers , so I reached out to state lawmakers in various states. Not trying to influence anyone, simply trying to find out whether the rumors were true. The rumors weren’t true, no state had any intention of withdrawing their slate of electoral votes. That made it an easy decision on my part to vote to certify the results of the election.
Right. We’ve all read the texts.
Mike Lee: Half Nostradumbass, Half Peter Navarro confessing crimes on national TV.
You know, allegedly.
Have A Week.
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