Tim Scott on Gun Control and Why the GOP is in Trouble

     While some worry that the President gave up too much in his last fiscal cliff offer with the chained CPI proposal, unhappiness with that should be balanced with the fact that there are no plans to raise the Medicare age on the table, Boehner not only agreed to income tax hikes on the rich-though with the too high floor of $1,000,000-he also allows the capital gains and dividends taxes to revert to the Clinton era rates.

     And really importantly the debt ceiling will be taken off the table for 2 years-if we get that it's a real achievement for the President. GOPers are not at all happy with that as this was supposed to be their leverage. Boehner had previously called it that himself so why is he apparently willing to give it up? I think he realizes that if the GOP plans to force a game of debt ceiling chicken every 3 months or so that will be a real problem politically. The GOP took a major hit to their brand after the 2011 game of chicken and this time would be much worse as the country as made clear they want to get things done and don't want the GOP strategy of obstruction and scorched earth opposition.

     This is the same trouble with the filibuster. Most Americans support Harry Reid's plan to scale it back. Ironically if Mitch McConnell is smart maybe he should willingly pull back on the filibusters. This is what may be driving Boehner to take the debt ceiling off the table. The more the GOP engages in scorched earth opposition on anything no matter how trivial the more they will be showing  Americans that the only hope to have a functional country that can get anything done may be to not allow Republicans to be in charge of any important levers of government.

     While Rick Snyder may have won a satisfying battle in pushing through Right to Work this victory may come at a high cost as his poll numbers have plunged in a way that is very reminiscent of what happened after Akin and Mourdock's respective bizarre comments about abortion and rape. Snyder may have dug his own grave. He had previously packaged himself as a pragmatist who just wanted to get things done. His excuse for this is that the unions put a referendum on the November ballot that he didn't like.

    Again, Republicans need to be careful or Americans may conclude that the GOP is not to be trusted at any level of government. Having said this, enter Tim Scott. Tim Scott was just picked by GOP South Carolina Governor to succeed Jim DeMint. What can we say about Tim Scott? Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. In this case it's meet the GOP ideologue, same as the old GOP ideologue.

   Scott is already weighing in on Newtown. He's got some solutions. The answer is to not "necessarily" do anything:

    "Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC), who was selected to succeed outgoing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) earlier this week, said Wednesday that the best response to last week's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. may not necessarily come in the form of "new legislation" on gun control, but instead a hard look at mental illness and the country's "culture of moral decay and of violence."

    “I think the solutions are not necessarily in new legislation. Perhaps the solution starts with us examining the mental condition of the person and the persons in the past that have had the desire to create the atrocities that we’ve seen recently," Scott told CNN's Soledad O'Brien. "So mental illness should be a major part of the conversation going forward. We should also look at an opportunity for us to engage this entire culture of moral decay and of violence. So when we start looking for solutions as a response to the crisis, I think we’re starting in the right place. If we draw conclusions quickly, we may draw flawed conclusions."

     http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/rep-tim-scott-on-newtown-solutions-are-not?ref=fpb

     We've not "necessarily" having new legislation for 20 years. There's no question that "evil" in some sense is real. I don't deny that with or without guns there will always be some who perversely want to do society harm. Having said that, guns are major facilitators. Yes someone who wants to kill could choose a different weapon. Still, if a sociopath's weapon of choice is strangling people to death with his bare hands he will find it much harder to commit mass killings in public places.

     If the killer in Newtown was a strangler he likely would have gotten nowhere near 20 child victims and 5 adult victims. In some European country-I want to say Denmark- after a killer mowed down over 20 children with his gun, guns were simply banned. No one is asking for that in our country-certainly not me.

    However, clearly something must be done. Tim Scott's advocating nothing is hardly encouraging. At least he didn't suggest arming the principal. However, if the GOP is going to obstruct gun control Americans will have another reason to suspect that the only thing that can move this country forward is to elect Democratic supermajorities at all levels of government.