I would not blame you for finding it strange that S. 2155, the so-called Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, still hasn't gotten a vote in the full Senate, despite having no less than 12 Democrat co-sponsors, which Roots Action has dubbed the "Bailout Caucus." (The Bailout Caucus includes no less a distinguished personage than the Democrats' most recent nominee for Vice President, Tim Kaine.) S. 2155 would loosen regulations that protect us from banksters, and though we know banksters are of course very popular, the bill clearly has the votes not merely to pass but frustrate a theoretical Democratic filibuster. So why haven't they voted on the damn thing? Because they know it's a pile of hot, steaming dung and they're waiting until they think no one's paying attention. So let Roots Action help you tell your Senators to reject S. 2155, and thus remind our Senators that we always watch what they do.
Thom Hartmann's "Two Simple Laws Could Solve America's Epidemic of Violence" article from last week set out two principles -- treating semi-automatic weapons under the law the same way we treat automatic weapons, and regulating guns the way we regulate cars -- that form an ideal basis for gun control regulation, and you can use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or the bottom of this page, if you're on a cellphone) to call your Reps and Senators and tell them you would like future gun control legislation to follow these two principles. Note well, even in the face of endless squealing from the right, that these principles do not ban guns, nor do they heap additional "red tape" upon owners of handguns and hunting rifles. I've been wrong to reflexively oppose gun control proposals over the years, and the activism of our high school students has both inspired and shamed me. But, hey, that's their job as civilized people.
Finally, CREDO helps you tell American corporations to stop funding the National Rifle Association. As of this writing, nearly two dozen corporations have already cut ties with the NRA, but we can wield the Big Stick of Bad PR to get more corporations to abandon the NRA, too. The NRA runs mainly on dues from its members, but also depends heavily on discounts coming from corporate partners, so if we can choke off that money-stream, we can make the NRA less powerful, and maybe get some common sense gun control legislation passed in our great land. The growing insanity of the National Rifle Association is a genuinely sad tale: a half-century ago, they extolled the virtues of licensing and regulation and fought the spread of automatic weapons, but in the last several decades, the NRA has become an organization of far-right extremists, serving only mammon and hatred. And remember, when right-wingers squeal TEH ECONOMIKZ OPPRESSIONZ!!!!, that discounts aren't a Constitutional right.
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