The GOP won’t listen on gun control

Americans who want gun control are in the majority, but the GOP isn’t listening

Florida Senator and former presidential candidate Marco Rubio had the nerve to look the survivors of the Parkland shooting in the eyes and continue to back his long-held beliefs on gun laws: that assault rifles are OK to own, that he will continue to take money from the NRA, and that “the problem we are facing here cannot be solved by gun laws alone.”

“People buy into my agenda, and I do support the Second Amendment … The influence of these groups comes not from money, the influence comes from the millions of people who support the agenda.” — Marco Rubio, CNN Townhall

But here’s the thing Marco — they don’t buy into “the agenda.”

More than two-thirds of voters support gun control, and two-thirds are in favor of specifically banning assault weapons. Two-thirds also think it’s too easy to buy a gun. And almost all voters — 97 percent — are in favor of universal background checks.

Rubio is in favor of more guns and has voted in favor of every gun-rights bill that he’s been asked to vote on. He’s received $3.3 million in contributions and an A+ rating from the NRA.

He would not commit to the survivors of Parkland that he wouldn’t take any more money from the NRA.

Rubio isn’t the only politician who’s been bought by the gun lobby. The NRA spent more than $60 million in 2016 elections.

Republicans have received the majority of those campaign donations and continue to stick to the NRA talking points — in the face of overwhelming public support for Congress to do something on gun control.

Republicans have responded by blaming everything from video games to the media for the numerous mass shootings in America.

President Donald Trump responded by suggesting there should be more guns in schools, and that we should ask already cash-strapped school districts to pay “bonuses” to train teachers how to use firearms.

One Parkland father summed it up best when he called the response to mass shootings “pathetically weak.”

In the next 24 hours, roughly 96 Americans will be killed by a gun. That statistic, from Everytown, is based on the five-year average of data. And it doesn’t include the number of people who are injured, perhaps in a life-altering way.

And it doesn’t include the people who go uninjured, but who’s lives are changed — like the survivors of the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Marco Rubio and others in the Republican party continue to pretend there’s just nothing that can be done when it comes to the gun epidemic in our country. And they want to point the finger anywhere else but where we know the gun epidemic starts and ends — with guns.

The fact is, there’s plenty that could be done. It just takes the will to act, and it sure helps if there isn’t millions of dollars in the way, too.