Centrist Senators Blew an Easy Opportunity to Pass a Simple Gun Safety Measure
Just hours before an Army reservist shot up a bowling alley and then a bar in rural Maine, the U.S. Senate voted to prohibit the Veterans Administration from automatically reporting to the FBI background checks system the names of veterans deemed mentally incompetent who had relinquished the management of their finances to others.
Three Democrats and two independents joined all Republicans in the vote to shield these veterans and protect their easy access to guns—a vote which some may wish to reconsider in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Maine carried out by a veteran recently hospitalized for mental health reasons.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) said the morning after the shooting, pointing to the ill-timed vote that would expand gun rights for people whose access to guns should be restricted.