If Democrats really cared about gun violence, they would have done something about it when they were running Washington, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) charged Wednesday.
Boehner was responding to a question about whether or not Congress should reconsider barring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying gun violence as a health issue, especially since Republicans have repeatedly argued that addressing mental illness is the way to prevent mass shootings.
Boehner said the the topic has not come up in his talks.
"I don’t think there’s been any discussions at this point. It’s not been part of the discussions," he told reporters on Capitol Hill before expressing sympathy for the nine people killed and nine more wounded in last week's massacre in Roseburg, Oregon.
"We’ve seen far too many of these," Boehner said, before putting the onus on Democrats.
"In '09 and '10, we had Democrat majorities in the House and Senate. We had a Democrat president. And this clearly was not a priority for them. The president can rail all he wants," Boehner said, referring to President Barack Obama's angry denunciation last week of Congress' failure to address the issue.
Actually the Democrats HAVE repeatedly attempted to pass new gun legislation in the wake of these horrendous massacres and have been blocked time and time again.
As for Boehner's contention that the Democrats had a filibuster proof majority in '09 and '10 well that is not exactly accurate.
And finally addressing Boehner's comment on mental health, well if he wants to encourage the Republicans to start pouring billions of dollars into the poorly funded mental health programs, that is very welcome news.
However he and his fellow straw man manufacturers should know that it will not prevent a single death from gun violence in this country.
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