Sen. John Cornyn says the Quite Part Out Loud on Gun Bill

By Timothy Holmberg

The current weeks long effort at a gun reform bill was just exposed for the stage prop it actually is. At the recent Texas “nut fest” aka Texas GOP convention, Senator John Cornyn was greeted with jeers and boos for the heretical act of supporting even performative gun legislation.

Over the din of extremists taunts the Senator gasped for air between coughs and said the quiet part out loud, confirming he has zero intention of landing a bill that budges the status quo:

"So, you might ask, 'What is on the table?' More mental health resources, more support for our schools, and making sure that violent criminals and the mentally ill cannot buy a firearm," Cornyn said, as boos continued. "That primarily means enforcing current law. That's what I've heard from many of you here today and this week, and that's what we're working on -- nothing more, and nothing less." - CNN

It takes almost no parsing to hear what he is saying. Notwithstanding all the crowing of centrist Democrats over how they “get things done”, what we actually have is little more than special effects masquerading as a bold “start”. And even the appearance of addressing our nation’s addiction to the combat weapons saturating our society is nearly enough to have the ultra pro gun senator run off stage. 

Cornyn is right in his description though. The nascent gun bill being negotiated does almost nothing to change exist laws. It simply adds funding (mostly to Republican talking points of school security and mental health). Almost all of its provisions are purely voluntary. And Cornyn was probably aware by the end of his speech, that most of the sneering nutters in his audience would be denied weapons under so called “red flag laws” if Texas ever *chose* to adopt them (it won’t).

You’d think that might encourage his vote in favor of such laws. But for Republicans, the only fate worse than death, is losing office. And anything short of militant opposition to gun laws of any kind, will see the offending legislator primaried out of office. 

Cornyn’s condor also gives the lie to one other notion being promoted by gun bill supporters. The contention that the bill under consideration may “not be everything we wanted” (pretty much nothing we wanted), but it will lay the path for other laws in the near future.

Obviously, legislators like Cornyn, are not looking for a path to future legislation. They are simply looking to take dissipate the current steam of public outrage and remove a campaign issue from the upcoming midterms that could jeopardize establishing majorities in either house of Congress. 

The Texas GOP convention was notable for at least one other reason. It confirmed that one political party of our two is well down the path of becoming a terrorist anti-democratic movement. They passed a resolution that they do not recognize the 2020 election of Joe Biden.

Maybe it’s time to recognize that negotiating with a domestic terrorist movement is not the answer to our broken politics. Rather, our focus needs to be on presenting a compelling enough vision that Democrats can wield functional majorities instead of bare ones that hand the ruling party all the responsibility, but virtually no authority to achieve anything substantive. 

This of course begs the question of whether we should support the potential bill in spite of its clear intentions and major flaws. A tough call given what Sen. Cornyn let slip. It’s a bit like wondering if we should make frosting even though we know there’s no cake on the horizon just yet. Maybe knowing we can make frosting will encourage us to turn on the oven and start making some batter. Or maybe we will just be happy to rot out teeth on frosting and go into a diabetic coma.

Given what Cornyn faced this weekend, it’s quite possible we wind up with no bill at all rendering all this moot.