Posted on 03/22/2018 3:40:32 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Sen. Doug Jones (D.), Alabama's new addition to the halls of Congress, used his maiden speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate to call for unity in the gun control debate, even while he attacked the National Rifle Association's "extreme positions" and called for sweeping gun control measures.
Jones, who won a special election in December to fill the seat vacated when Jeff Sessions accepted his post as attorney general, began the speech on Wednesday by denouncing the partisan atmosphere of Washington, D.C. Jones, having denounced how partisanship and gridlock have replaced compromise and consensus, then segued into addressing a topic that has dominated Congress since the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Citing the dialogue being forged by the survivors of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the senator said he was compelled to devote his first address in the Senate Chamber to the topic of gun violence.
"In the wake of yet another mass shooting, and the rising voices of young people across the country, it is our responsibility, our duty to have a serious discussion about guns and gun safety," Jones said.
Jones expressed that any solution being proposed would need to balance the interests of both public safety and the constitutional rights accorded by the Second Amendment.
"We must acknowledge the deadly consequences that can follow when a gun is in the wrong hands but also recognize and respect the freedom to own and enjoy guns by law-abiding citizens as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution," Jones said. "Those two concepts … are not mutually exclusive."
The senator then proceeded to reverse course by implying that the discussion surrounding the Second Amendment only served to divide the country while "more lives" perished.
"We can spend days in this chamber debating the meaning of the Second Amendment," Jones said. "We can let our nation further divide itself while more lives are lost … or we can take another path."
Jones expressed his support for Trump administration initiatives to ban the sale of bump stocks. He also urged Congress to pass bipartisan legislation, introduced by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Texas), to incentive local and state government to streamline information sharing process in hopes of strengthening the background check process. The senator also called on Congress to pass legislation instituting universal background checks for gun sales.
"We have to require background checks on all gun sales," Jones said, "Whether it is at a gun show or over the internet or between individuals."
The senator warned his supporters and gun control advocates to refrain from demonizing Second Amendment groups, like the NRA, before proceeding to chastise those very groups for holding views he considered "extreme."
"You can't simply demonize the NRA and pro-gun groups," Jones said. "I know these groups sometimes take what many, including me, consider extreme positions."
Jones also implored Second Amendment groups to "stop using" what he saw as "scare tactics" that only served to convince law-abiding citizens the federal government intends to confiscate their guns.
"To those who would seek to maintain the status quo, like the NRA, or anyone else," Jones said. "Please stop using scare tactics to try and convince law-abiding gun owners that the federal government is hell-bent on taking their guns away."
Jones further proceeded to denounce the solutions being offered by the very "law-abiding gun owners" he wants to protect from the NRA.
"We also need to get past the idea that more guns in society will make us all safer," he said. "We don't need guns in the hands of school teachers. Simply having more good guys with guns is not the solution."
The senator even suggested that such solutions would only serve to push the nation backward.
"Americans just simply do not want to return to the days of the wild west," Jones said.
Jones, somewhat ironically, finished his speech by proclaiming there would always be forces seeking to sow the seeds of disunity between Americans.
"There will always be forces that seek to sow division and discord. Our challenge and our mission is to prevent them from succeeding," he said. "We can seize this moment by changing the conversation and our country."
I hope every weak-willed whiny-assed sycophant low-life POS that advocated for this son of a bitch, because...morality...doncha know... breaks out in an uncontrolled attack of lip herpes.
This asshole was a gun-grabber from the start...every damned sensible conservative warned against him, but nooooo...HE didn't date girls younger than himself...HE was a hunter, a sportsman and he KNOWS the value of the possession of a good gun...HE is an upright citizen of the community...HE prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan, HE...shit in his hand and threw it all over you whiny-ass closeted liberals and called it a reassurance of morality in politics...and you bought it...swallowed it...hook, line and sinker!
Gonna vote for the POS again?
I'd sooner vote for a damned garden slug!
"We can spend days in this chamber debating the meaning of the Second Amendment," Jones said.
Mr. Jones, you can spend the rest of your life kissing my ass, for all I care...but I know what the Second Amendment is all about.
But I really don't need it to get rid of you and the turd you laid all over the people of the State of Alabama and that you are now attempting to lay on the entire United States of America.
You will NOT be re-elected...I assure you of that.
Yes, yes, you geniuses in Alabama who were all whupped into submission by the MSM and George Soros.
Unprovable accusations that supposed to have occurred thirty-eight freaking years ago.
Congrats to Hannity and his virtue-signaling for riding it for all it is worth. For his all time stupid question: “Do women really lie about that?” or “You have twenty-four hours to call...”
You break it, you bought it Alabama.
Ignore the loon.
He’s gone after January....................
Very True...
Wonder how long it’s going to take, Lamb, up in Pennsylvania. Even if he’s half way honest, he’ll be called to an office, where he’ll be told how things are done. And if he wants to continue on his path, he will support the Party, before anything else, otherwise he’ll have a very short career. That is, if he was honest.
Better than average chance he wasn’t/isn’t and it’ll be any day, now, that he comes out swinging.
Sorry, you’re wrong. NYC has been a very safe city for many years now. Sorry to upset the cliche about it being a hellhole.
Actually, it’s become a somewhat boring city in recent years. Every other street is either a CVS, Duane Reade or a bank.
Thanks Alabama!
Sorry Dougy. In the “old west”, students didn’t go around shooting up their schools or blowing people up with package bombs. Open your eyes, Spanky.
A lot of very well known Alabamian Republicans are gearing up to take him on.
My prediction is Moe Brooks or Bradley Byrne beats him in his first ever reelection bid.
That is in 2020, which would have been Jeff Sessions’ reelection had he not signed up to be Trump’s recused Attorney General.
Communist snake in the grass.
I don't think I agree. I understand people die there EVERY DAY!
Hmm....
He’s been an ass for years as is the whiny little ex-judge yenta.
When his first book came out I went to the signing and his
little major domo forbade a little personalization - straight to eBay it went.
Two people who follow the liberal Murdoch punks marching orders the only thing worse are the dopes who take them seriously.
This travesty is the fault of RINOS like Ditch McConnell and the “I’ll sit this one out” voters in Alabama.
McConnell didn’t want Judge Roy Moore siting in Congress and he got his wish. He’ll also find he’s been bitten in the ass big time.
POS.
And part of the reason they became safe is that the law moved in quickly to displace vigilante justice. The gallows at Ft. Smith, Arkansas transformed a wild frontier town into a peaceful pleasant town of church goers in less than a single generation.
Exactly. They took him in knowing that he was a snake.
I don’t know..I can’t see Alabamians submitting to to much gun control.
But then again I would never have guessed they would elect a leftard like this guy?
I sure didn’t vote for the commie SOB
...and then he proceeded to start an unserious conversation about guns and 'gun safety' (AKA gun control.)
First, let's start with some honesty. You're a liberal Senator from a conservative state. As a liberal I know you are a stranger to honesty, so we have to factor in some fudge.
We would have to be honest about identifying the problem. It's not guns, it's a feral criminal underclass, created, nurtured and empowered by liberal entitlement policies and a liberal promoted hollowing out of culture.
Then we'd have to be honest about the limitations of government. Liberals tend to be big picture dreamers, coercive utopians. Like all big picture types, they tend to have a poor grasp of details. We in the real world know it's all in the details.
Any gun control law (or any law) is only as good as the enforcement. It will be enforced only against the law abiding...the feral underclass, not so much.
So you've proposed a policy and law that will as a result disarm law abiding citizens, leaving them to be victimized by said feral criminal class...and a unionized police force whose main objective is getting cops home safely at night.
Then, we're supposed to believe that after AR15s are outlawed, that's the end. We're supposed to believe that gun confiscation is not the ultimate goal.
Would you like to talk more, Senator?
BTW...his re-election will not be so much a referendum on his performance in office, as a referendum on the character of Alabama voters.
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