A Democratic state senator in Virginia unloaded on her Republican foes during an interview with CNN on Wednesday morning after a deadly shooting erupted late Tuesday evening at a Walmart in her state.
The shooting in Chesapeake, Virginia is thought to have resulted in the deaths of six employees before the suspected gunman took his own life. The suspect is thought to have been a night manager at the store.
As Virginians woke up on Wednesday morning to the news of yet another mass shooting in their state, state Senator Louise Lucas demanded that politicians cease offering their condolences for such heinous acts until a serious effort was made to pass gun violence prevention measures.
”I’ll tell you, for all the people who are saying that their hearts and prayers go out to these people, I don’t want to hear any more about that until they get serious about gun violence prevention,” said Ms Lucas.
“We can do something to stop this. I am sick and tired of legislators giving mouth service to it after we have these violent mass shootings and then do nothing about it when we have an opportunity to go back to the legislature and do something about it,” she continued.
Her reaction mirrors the frustration that Democrats and gun violence activists often express in the wake of mass shootings; it belays an understanding of America’s political reality on the issue of guns, particularly with a conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court.
Gun violence prevention measures have zero chance, at least as of this moment, of passing the 50-50 US Senate where Republicans represent a roadblock in the way of just about any attempt to pass legislation that the president and others have called for in the wake of recent (and less recent) shootings, including a ban on assault weapons and further restrictions on firearm ownership. And that doesn’t even take into account the incoming Republican House majority, set to take power in January.
State-level restrictions have proved easier to pass at least to some degree, but those often run up against legal challenges which thanks to the right-leaning Supreme Court could lead to such legislation being tossed out, as was the case with New York’s concealed carry law.
President Joe Biden has reiterated his own call for a renewal of America’s assault weapons ban following another recent shooting at a LGBT bar in Colorado this week, but that appears highly unlikely to be addressed in the next Congress.
