Democrats Vote Down Gun Control Laws

I’m usually very critical of the teachers unions, but it’s important to remember that we Democrats agree with the unions on most issues outside of ed reform. For example, I noticed this line in Joe Nocera’s column about the complete, total and utter disgrace of the Senate voting down even the most obvious, sensible, tepid gun control:

On Wednesday, 14 years later, I met Katie Lyles in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Now 30 and married, Katie is a grade-school art teacher in Littleton, Colo., the same town where she became, in the sad vernacular of our age, “a Columbine survivor.” She was in Washington as part of a lobbying effort by the National Education Association, the big teachers’ union, to back the handful of simple, common-sense gun bills, starting with universal background checks, that the Senate would be voting on later that day.

Until the shootings in Newtown, Conn., Katie had never spoken publicly about her experience. She is still affected by what happened that day. But after Newtown, Katie realized that the school where she now teaches was as vulnerable to gun violence as Columbine had been in 1999. And she couldn’t stay silent. “I realize that my life has led me to this moment,” she says.

We talked for maybe 20 minutes before Katie and the N.E.A. lobbyists went off to their next appointment. And, of course, a few hours later, the Senate voted down every single gun proposal that was on the table.

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