Scaring the Nation With Their Guns And Ammunition

Gabrielle Giffords wrote a sharp and thoughtful essay on the Senate's failure to enact Manchin-Toomey. It is well worth a read. 

This is painful black humor that I must share:

No one in the Republican Party has the slightest fear that these [Manchin-Toomey votes] were risky votes going into 2014 or 2016... We may outnumber the opponents of expanded background checks 9-1, but they vastly outnumber us in the category of "People who'd crawl naked through ground glass to cast a one-issue vote based on gun policy."

Finally, the inimitable Charles Pierce has a great piece on the surreal relationship that Americans have with violence, and how that relationship manifested this week. Go read the whole thing.