Here's your compassionate conservatism on full display, folks. I guess this shouldn't be surprising after the behavior we saw from the crowds at the Republican presidential primary debates. John McCain's recent string of town hall meetings just continues to show the very ugly side of today's Republican party.

Crowd Cheers After McCain Tells Aurora Victim’s Mother She Needs ‘Straight Talk’ (VIDEO):

Constituents at a town hall hosted by Sen. John McCain Wednesday in Phoenix cheered after the Arizona Republican told the mother of an Aurora, Colo. shooting victim that an assault weapons ban could not get through Congress.

Here's more from KTVK:

Border security was not the focus of the majority of questions asked by audience members at the standing-room-only event Wednesday. Instead, gun control became the primary issue.

At one point, the mother of Aurora movie shooting victim Alex Teves took the microphone.

“My 24-year-old son Alex was murdered in a movie theater in Colorado,” Caren Teves said. “These assault rifles allow the shooter to fire many rounds without having to re-load. These weapons do not belong on our streets.”

McCain responded by sympathizing with Teves, then addressing her call for a ban on assault rifles.

“I can tell you right now you need some straight talk. That assault weapons ban will not pass the Congress of the United States,” said Sen. McCain.

McCain said his plan to deal with mass shootings would protect Second Amendment rights.

“We are working together to try to come up with a package that would prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals while at the same time preserving our Second Amendment rights,” he said.

Audience members also asked questions about impeaching President Obama, Benghazi, and immigration reform.

DOWNLOADS: (160)

PLAYS: (658)

Embed

During his interview with Piers Morgan on CNN this Thursday evening, Mitt Romney doubled down on his assertion that changing the gun laws would not have made any difference in the Aurora massacre. While we can't stop every crazy person out there who wants to harm their fellow citizens, as Think Progress noted this week, there are things the Congress can do which would limit the amount of gun violence.

Five Things Congress Could Do In Response To The Aurora Theater Shootings:

Here are five ideas for legislation Congress could enact to help limit gun violence:

1. Regulate ammunition sales. “Everything that the [Colorado theater shooting] suspect did was legal,” says Andy Pelosi of States United to Prevent Gun Violence, “Which is scary, that you can acquire that type of firepower. I think we need to take a hard look at ammunition sales.” Currently, criminals can legally get their hands on high-capacity gun magazines and armor-piercing bullets over the Internet. Such ammunition is not needed for hunting, and unnecessary for nearly any exercise in self defense. In fact, as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed out, those bullets are most dangerous for police officers. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) has committed to reintroducing legislation that would regulate such ammunition clips.

2. Increase mental illness reporting. After the horrible shooting at Virginia Tech, the state changed the structure of reporting mentally ill patients to the gun registry, including those who seek outpatient mental health services instead of just those who have been committed. Just four years out from when the law was passed, the number of mentally ill people who are blocked from obtaining a firearm in Virginia doubled. Other states haven’t been so vigilant. In fact, many states are incredibly slow to report even those mentally ill people who check in for inpatient services.

3. Background checks, every time. Gun law advocates know that the shooting in Colorado isn’t an isolated incident. Pelosi told ThinkProgress that “30 people are killed a day from guns, and many of those are purchased illegally.” Mayor Bloomberg has called on legislators to close loopholes regarding background checks, especially at gun shows. The gun show loophole and private sale loophole allow people to circumvent the regular requirements to check on the mental health and criminal record of gun purchasers. Only 17 states have such laws in effect (Colorado is one — they closed the loophole by ballot initiative in 2000), but Congress has taken no federal action to follow suit.

4. Restrict mail-order sales, step-up reporting. From 1968 until 1986, ammunition was regulated, and the mail order sale of bullets was illegal. Then, the NRA lobbied to have the law changed. When the Mcclure Volkmer Act passed, mail order sales were legalized, record-keeping requirements were repealed, and ammunition was deregulated. That was before the Internet age anonymous online ordering. Now, someone can purchase 6,000 rounds of ammunition in just a “few keystrokes.” The alleged gunman in Colorado never came face-to-face with a salesman when he bought his bullets and ballistic gear. However, a gun range owner described a “bizarre” encounter over the phone with the suspect that prompted the man to bar him from using the gun range. In the age of Internet anonymity, there are less opportunities for someone to monitor erratic behavior or sense ulterior motives.

5. Ban assault weapons. The alleged gunman in the Aurora theater used a gun that, until 2004, was illegal. That’s when Congress allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, opening the market up for military-style assault firearms. Such military-style guns (the Aurora gunman’s is the civilian equivalent to the military’s M-16) are designed to be concealed. They also have a much higher ammunition capacity. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has called on her colleagues to reinstall this ban.

Left to their own devices, people with severe mental troubles who want to hurt others will usually find a way to do so. The government will never be able to prevent every incident, every place in the country from happening every time. But there are certainly ways that the government is able to limit the loss of life, help the troubled perpetrators, and ensure that psychopaths cannot have absolute free reign — all without taking away the right of an average, sane citizen to own a firearm.

Transcript of Romney repeating the NRA's talking points on CNN below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (163)

PLAYS: (566)

Embed

Lawrence O'Donnell took NRA lobbyist Wayne LaPierre apart last year after the shooting of Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords. On this Monday evening's show, he did it again in the wake of the Aurora massacre.

O`DONNELL: In the Rewrite tonight, another huge win for the Grover Norquist of gun control, Wayne LaPierre. Wayne is the blood-drenched lobbyist who makes sure anyone in America, anyone can get 6,000 bullets, even people who want to use those bullets to shoot babies in movie theaters.

Wayne LaPierre is not a credit hog like Grover Norquist. Grover loves flexing his anti-tax lobbying muscles publicly. He loves calling senators idiots. He loves taking credit for preventing any consideration of sensible tax policy in this country.

Wayne is old school. Wayne LaPierre follows the old lobbyist playbook of never publicly taking credit for anything. Every time an American mass murderer uses the right that Wayne has preserved for any one in this country, including al Qaeda and homicidal maniacs, to buy insane amounts of ammunition, and then that mass murderer gets huge headlines, wall-to-wall cable news coverage, and comments from the president, Wayne LaPierre never takes credit for any of that. Never.

Wayne always does a kind of, aw shucks modesty thing and says, if I hadn`t made sure that that mass murderer could get thousands of bullets, he would have used something else to kill all those people. Talk about modesty, huh. Maybe some of our mass murderers would have found another way to kill a lot of people, but we`ll never know, will we? Because Wayne has just made it so easy, so very easy to kill babies with bullets, to kill fathers and mothers with bullets, to kill sons and daughters with bullets, to kill sisters and brothers with bullets.

Bullets are the American mass murderer`s first choice. And what we`ll never know is how many of them would be successful mass murderers today if Wayne LaPierre didn`t make sure they could easily get bullets, unlimited supplies of bullets. How many of our mass murderers would switch to making bombs if they couldn`t get bullets?

And how many of them would blow themselves up by mistake while making bombs and never hurt anyone else? Surely a few of them. Just how determined are American mass murderers? We`ll never know, because Wayne LaPierre makes it so, so easy for mass murderers.

Wayne has not said a word about our most recent mass murder. On Friday, he had his press secretary put out this statement: "our thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and the community. NRA will not have any further comment until all the facts are known."

See how modest Wayne is? He`s the head of the National Rifle Association, and he wouldn`t even put his name on yet another high-profile NRA press release about a mass murder. Wayne presumably spent the weekend enjoying the summer with family and friends, none of whom were shot by a mass murderer this weekend.

Wayne`s unlimited ammo-for-all policy has never negatively affected Wayne`s life in any way. I invited Wayne to come on this program tonight, but you know Wayne. Even when he deserves 24-hour media attention, Wayne LaPierre is the perfect picture of modesty, blood-drenched modesty.

DOWNLOADS: (455)

PLAYS: (6631)

Embed

Jon Stewart took the talking heads in the media to task for the claim that it's too early after the shooting in the movie theater in Colorado to talk about gun control.

STEWART: So you’re telling me it is too soon to even have a conversation about it? You’re telling me that to discuss the epidemic of gun violence in this country, for that, there is a waiting period. Yeah, I guess you’d hate to go into a conversation about guns all hot-headed and say something impulsively you’ll never be able to take back.

But, as he pointed out, it is acceptable to ask whether we should be allowed to ban masks in movie theaters, because we all know that's the real cause of the problem here, right?