Days After A Massacre Of Fourth Graders, Arizona Senate Republicans Kill Democratic Attempt For A Background Checks Bill

So the Arizona Republic did one of those useless speculation pieces, The Gaggle: How will state lawmakers react after tragic school shooting in Texas? Ooh! Ooh! I know!

The AP reports, Arizona Senate Democrats force vote on gun background checks:

Minority Democrats in the Arizona Senate used a procedural move Tuesday to force a vote on legislation that would require background checks for any firearm purchase.

The move came a week after a man armed with two AR-15-type rifles killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The effort led to more than an hour of pleas from Democrats and pushback from Republicans, who for years have blocked all gun restrictions.

🚨 HAPPENING NOW: Democrats stand with @azmfol & call on Republicans to stand up to the gun lobby and enact common sense gun reform. Lives are on the line – it’s time to #EndGunViolenceNow. pic.twitter.com/8XkFJMDN9D

— Arizona Senate Democrats (@AZSenateDems) June 1, 2022

More @reginaldbolding: “I’m asking the Speaker person-to-person, parent-to-parent, American-to-American, to just meet us in the middle. Hear what people are saying and help us do something.” #GunSense #EndGunViolence @azmfol @AMarch4OurLives pic.twitter.com/bSUpGfz6Mp

— Arizona House Democrats (@AZHouseDems) June 1, 2022

All 16 Senate Republicans voted against the measure, while the 13 Democrats supported it. The bill, which never got a hearing, would have closed the so-called gun show loophole that allows someone to buy a gun without the federal background check that federally licensed firearms dealers are required to perform before a sale is completed.

Republicans won’t even assign Democratic gun bills to a committee, meaning they never get hearings or a chance to get a formal floor vote. Democratic Sen. Martin Quezada bypassed that process to bring it right to the floor.

“This isn’t a radical idea – this isn’t something that other state aren’t considering or even enacting,” Quezada said.

He called requiring background checks for private gun purchases, anything except a transfer to a family member, a commonsense measure supported by overwhelmingly majorities of Americans that won’t prevent anyone legally allowed to have a gun from purchasing one.

“We have that loophole built into our public policy,” he said. “And closing it, fixing this policy would save lives.”

Republicans listened as Democrat after Democrat pleaded for their support, including a tearful Sen. Raquel Teran, who said she can’t stop watching the stories of the slain children while thinking of her young son.

“The ask here is to vote on commonsense legislation,” Teran said. “If this is not it, what is it? Let’s come to the table, let’s work together, I know we can.”

Republicans said there was no way they’d back the background check bill.

Republican Sen. Sonny Borrelli said it would impact private property rights, and said it would keep him from selling a gun to a trusted friend. He noted that the 18-year-old gunman legally bought the two rifles. He then read part of the Second Amendment.

GOP Sen. Rick Gray pointed to gun violence in Chicago, in a state with tough gun laws and a seeming unending string of shootings each weekend.

“Night after night, week after week, year after year, children are dying of gun violence in Chicago,” Gray said. “But when it comes to Texas, let’s stir this up, and let’s make a political statement here to pass gun laws.”

And Sen. Warren Petersen said he too wouldn’t back the Democrats’ measure.

“The reason why this bill should not be supported is because it will stop law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves,” Petersen said. “Criminals will not abide by this law. Only law-abiding citizens will abide by this law.

“I vote no so good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns,” he added.

Oh my God! What a fucking idiot. There were 19 armed police officers in the hallway of that grade school in Uvalde, and they stood around waiting for a janitor with a key to the door as 911 operators received calls from children inside that classroom begging the operator to “please send the police now!” Those children were executed by the gunman. But none of the officers were injured, so we’re good! The response in Uvalde was gross negligence for failure to follow standardized mass shooter protocols.

Democrats noted that good guys with guns were not able to save the children from the gunman.

“This ‘good guy with a gun’ nonsense — if you read the papers there were multiple police officers, armed police offers, standing outside in the parking lot when the guy was in the classroom killing children,” Democratic Sen. Rebecca Rios said.

The officers standing around outside in the parking lot were throwing parents begging them to “do something!” to the ground and arresting one of them for interfering with their operation. One parent begged police for a vest and a gun, “If you are not going to go in there I’ll do it myself!”  This was one of the greatest police failures of all time. There is going to be a huge lawsuit ending wiith a check with a lot of zeroes at the end.

Howard Fischer adds, AZ Senate Republicans block attempted vote on gun background checks:

Senate Republicans quashed a bid Tuesday to force a vote on legislation to forbid people from buying firearms unless they first have a background check.

The party-line vote came on a bid by Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Glendale, to get a roll-call vote on his SB 1546. It was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee but Sen. Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, [the aforementioned fucking idiot] who chairs that panel, never agreed to even give it a hearing.

So Quezada used a procedural motion to waive the requirement for a committee hearing and demand the measure be brought immediately to the full Senate for a vote.

Only thing is, first it had to survive a vote to waive the rules. And none of the Republicans who control the Senate agreed to support that move, shutting down any chance of debate.

Federal law requires licensed firearms dealers to run a background check on would-be buyers before completing a purchase. But none of that covers person-to-person sales.

More to the point, that exception applies to sales made at gun shows, where individuals can bring their collection of guns to sell to those in attendance. Quezada called that an unacceptable [gunshow] “loophole’’ given the number of mass shootings.

By the way, I have seen the billboards advertising the Tucson Expo Gun Show this weekend at the Tucson Expo Center at 3750 E. Irvington Road, Tucson, AZ 85714. Just in case you want to protest the Gunshow Loophole in conjunction with the fact that this Friday is also National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Weekend: “During National Gun Violence Awareness Day and Wear Orange Weekend, we join together to demand a future free from gun violence once and for all.” Do you think maybe theyscheduled this gun show on Wear Orange Weekend on purpose to “own the libs” in their sick and twisted little minds?

A series of surveys have shown strong support for universal background checks. Most recently that included a poll from Morning Consult and Politico, conducted one day after the killing of 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, which found 81% said they want to make private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks – but zero Republicans in the Arizona Senate, demonstrating just how fringe they are.

“Bring something that will work,’’ said Sen. Vince Leach, R-Tucson, in opposition to what Quezada wanted. He cited the number of shootings in Chicago which have some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

Note: The guns in Chicago come from private sale “strawman purchases” in the “Dixie Pipeline,” Red States with lax gun laws that provide the guns for the slaughter in Chicago. The Dixie pipeline: Mississippi major source of ‘crime guns’ on the streets of Chicago: “A majority of the recovered Chicago guns, about 95%, come from straw purchasers, according to the Chicago report, where a gun is bought by someone besides the actual owner.” “About 60% of all recovered guns come from outside Illinois, according to a Gun Trace Report conducted by the city of Chicago, its police department and the University of Chicago Crime Lab. A large number of them come from Mississippi.” Neighboring Inidiana and Wisconsin are the other top suppliers of guns.

But Quezada said Republicans appear ready to blame anything — and everything — other than access to guns, calling them “regurgitated gun lobby talking points.’’

“I was especially troubled by one specific diversion tactic that we saw members cling to for dear life last week,’’ he said. “That was this latest mass shooting, and mass shootings in general, are happening because God has been taken out of our schools or because we don’t pray enough in schools, and because our nation has drifted too far from its Christian founding.’’

That refers to comments by Senate Majority Leader Rick Gray, R-Sun City, who said mass shootings occur because children can’t pray in school.

This is the GQP’s white Christian Nationalism culture war campaign. They believe a theocracy under permanent white Republican authoritarian rule, a tyranny of the minorty, is preferable to our American democracy with a pluralistic and secualr society. It is anti-democracy and anti-American. They are the enemies of democracy.

Sen. Rios said foes of additional gun regulations always seem to have a litany of reasons why there are mass shootings, like video games and mental illness.

“Fact of the matter is, every other country in the world suffers with people that have mental illness,’’ Rios said.

“Every other country in the world has video games. Every other country in the world has religion or lack thereof,’’ she continued. “Those are all red herrings.’’

But Sen. Sonny Borrelli, R-Lake Havasu City, said what is lost in all this is that the Texas shooter purchased his firearms from licensed gun dealers. He called the argument that requiring universal background checks “a myth and a smokescreen.’’

While GOP lawmakers have refused to consider new gun restrictions, they have voted for measures to protect gun rights, like allowing people to drive onto school campuses without having to first unload a firearm.

And this from lasy year. Arizona governor signs bill to preempt federal gun laws: Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed legislation that aims to prohibit police and sheriffs from enforcing federal gun laws that violate the Second Amendment.

The Preemption clause in the U.S. Constitution says that federal law preempts conflicting state laws, so this is an unconstitutional hissy fit from the gun fetishists and gun worshippers in the Arizona Republican Party.

It’s this kind of insane shit that will led to more of this. Arizona has had 19 school shootings since the ‘70s, data show: Data compiled by researchers show that Arizona has had 19 school shootings since the 1970s and four non-school mass shootings since the start of 2022.

How many more children have to die on the altar of the gun fetishits and gun worshippers?