The AR-15, Marked Down from AK-47

Yesterday, there was yet another mass shooting in Orlando where five people were shot and three killed, including a nine-year-old child and the reporter covering the story when the shooter returned.
 
I won’t repeat my piece from a few days ago about how we’ve long-since crossed the line with debating guns – even by my standards it’s too early to repost that.  But this relates to a couple other issues swirling around the Republican Party.
 
The first is Rep. Andy Clyde (R-GA) who several weeks ago began to pass around to his fellow-members of Congress lapel pins made to look like an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon.  Seemingly, he thought this was a really cool idea and a fun way to promote mass death while “owning the libs.”  Many Republicans thought it was as cool as he said, and they have been wearing this delightful pieces ever since.
 
Even though that specific weapon wasn’t used, what I would love is for reporters to ask every Republican in Congress wearing an AR-15 lapel pin if they are doing so in sort of kindred support of the shooting in Orlando?  And if every Republican who had been wearing the AR-15 pin but took it off yesterday, if they did so out of respect for the dead or just didn’t want to be questioned about it being in horribly bad taste?  And a follow-up, if they have taken it off, do they plan to wear it again, and when?
 
The other matter is that starting a few days ago, Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL) began a push to promote a bill that would name the AR-15 as the National Gun of America.  And he’s already gotten some support by other Republicans, among them Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and the inimitable “George Santos” (R-NY), who Mr. Moore was happy enough to join him as a co-sponsor of the bill.
 
Now, clearly, this sick bill has no chance of becoming law.  The Democratic controlled Senate would never pass it, and President Biden would never sign it.  But I have mixed feeling about the bill making to the House floor.  And I’m at the point where I think that I almost hope it does.
 
If this bill to name the AR-15 the National Gun of America ever came up for a vote, that would mean every Republican would have to go on permanent record to register their position.  Either they would vote “Yes,” what a great idea and let that black mark be attached to them for eternity, including whenever they run for re-election and during every mass shooting (which is now averaging 1-1/2 of them a week), or they would vote “No” and risk the wrath of the base of the extreme right.  Honestly, I don’t know what they’d do, this being today’s GOP.  I think that some would actually vote against it, recognizing such a thing as a leap much too far – but I truly don’t know.  And besides “some” is such a paltry number for such a reprehensible concept. 
 
In the end, I can’t imagine it coming to a vote.  But then, with Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, I wouldn’t have imagined him giving 44,000 hours of police security footage to Tucker Carlson exclusively and without checking with Capitol police first.  So, imagination gets to run wild these days…
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