Cheyenne, WY–Gutless Republicans don’t know how to stand up to the anti-gun crowd. But they DO know how to stand up to their constituents. They know that as long as they talk a good game, good Republicans will overlook their anti-gun votes and bills and keep on voting for them anyway. A mailer with a picture of them in a blaze orange hunting vest with a shotgun in hand costs a few pennies per house. But standing up for the gun rights of the citizens….that could cost them some of their beloved POWER!
Nothing illustrates this misplaced fear better than what’s going on in Wyoming this week. Senate File 80 was introduced by Senator Rothfuss and House Representatives Connolly and Furphy. Now Rothfuss and Connolly are Democrats, so gun control is the name of their game.
But Dan Furphy is a Republican! He’s been in office since 2016, so he’s not just the dumb new kid on the block who ‘accidentally’ co-sponsored a bill. He’s apparently the dumb kid on the block who just happens to have been there a while.
This bill, Senate Bill 80 would make a three-day waiting period mandatory for any handgun purchase. But just this week, headlines from New Jersey tell of a woman who filed a restraining order against her violently abusive ex-boyfriend. But New Jersey’s mandatory waiting period left her unarmed and helpless when her ex showed up with a knife. He stabbed her to death and left her dead on her driveway. The waiting period cost her life.
Additionally, waiting periods have been laughably ineffective at reducing crime. After all, people buying a gun must pass a background check before purchasing the gun either way. And the odds are pretty good if you pass a background check on Monday, you’ll still pass it on Thursday. Unless your weeks are a lot worse than ours.
We also want to point out that this bill isn’t just a token placeholder of a bill that isn’t actually meant to go anywhere. This bill now has sponsors in both the Wyoming House and the Senate. That typically means that it’s intended to go somewhere–likely all the way to a vote.
But this crappy bill isn’t the point. The point is that in a Republican dominated state with NO GOOD REASON to sell out, Republican Furphy is doing just that.
He’s not facing intense pressure from a Democrat majority. He’s not facing deep-pockets Bloomberg funneling money to his opponent in a campaign race.
Nope, he’s selling out because he can. Because he doesn’t have a spine. Because he thinks he’ll get away with it.
You know what this all means? This means that Republican legislators are SCARED. They’re more scared of what the Democrats might do to them than what Republicans will do to them. And that’s the problem.
Now they ought to be afraid–anybody with principles should have enemies and people who want to see them fail.
But they ought to be afraid of losing their seat and being drummed out of office in shame for their cowardice by Republicans! Not afraid that some Democrat somewhere doesn’t like them and might run against them for their seat!
This guy joins a long list of sellout Republicans who need to get the message loud and clear from gun owners: We’re done with cowardly, useless Republicans.
Grow a pair or lose your chair.