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Tuesday, March 26, 2013
News / Opinion Tell Hagan to support gun control
Posted By John Grooms on Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 1:27 PM
The numbers surrounding gun-related deaths in America are always grotesque to the point of surreal. In the hundred days since the Newton, Conn., massacre, 2,444 people have been killed by guns in America. That's 2,444 dead in three months.
Ten of those deaths were in Charlotte.
If you're horrified by those numbers and think Congress has to take some action, do yourself, the city and the country a favor and call U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan today.
Hagan is a middle-of-the-road Democrat up for re-election in 2016, and she's getting enormous pressure from gun-control foes who demand that she vote against any and all attempts to get America's addiction to firearms under even minimal control. Hagan could very well wilt under that pressure, which is why you should call her. Whereas before, Hagan talked a good game about the need to look at access to guns, mental health care and violent video games, she's now a good bit wobblier on the issue, saying that North Carolinians only want "common-sense measures" - a statement that translates to, "I wouldn't dare support an assault-weapons ban, but I might get behind universal background checks, seeing as how even 85 percent of gun owners support them."
Universal background checks would close the loophole that allows anyone and everyone to buy firearms at private sales and gun shows without a background check - or, as some of us call it, the "Recipe for National Suicide." The problem here is that the gun-rights fundamentalists of the NRA and groups like Grassroots North Carolina will raise unholy hell - and give money to Hagan's GOP opponent in 2016 - even for voting for universal background checks. Gun-rights fundies nearly always conflate even the slightest speedbump on the way to accumulating a personal arsenal as "the first step to banning all guns! It's like Hitler!" What's worse is that such illogic and paranoia actually make sense to them.
The NRA and supportive groups like Grassroots NC are well-organized and busy whipping up their members' militia-grade fears of their own government. If moderates in Congress, such as Hagan, only hear from the shoot-'em-up crowd, she could easily cave on even something as commonsensical and desperately needed as stringent background checks. Let Hagan know your views on keeping weapons out of the hands of criminals and the insane. Reach her by phone at 202-224-6342; by snail mail at 521 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; by fax at 202-228-2563. Or, contact her via her Charlotte office at 1520 South Blvd., Suite 205; phone 704-334-2448; or fax 704-334-2405. Hagan is also on Facebook and Twitter.
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