The Parade of Presidential Hopefuls

I've been meaning to write this all week, but was a little busy.  I did take my computer over to Bridget's where I was on Sloane and Ace patrol for a couple days.  What was I thinking?  I used to write after my kids went to bed, but that was back in the day when I was a Mom, not a Grandma who crawled into bed with the baby as soon as Sloane was tucked in for the night.

 Onward.
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Last Saturday, Jeanie (I'm going to stop referencing her as my friend Jeanie because by now you should know she's my friend) and I attended the Presidential Gun Sense Forum, sponsored by Everytown for Gun Safety; Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Students Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

I was overwhelmed at the event, not so much by the messaging (all the candidates are in favor of stricter gun laws) but by seeing one after another after another of the candidates in person, maybe 50 feet away.  Gillebrand.  Buttegieg.  Klobuchar.  Hickenlooper (who has since dropped out of the race).  Castro.  Warren.  Biden.  Sanders.  For a political junkie such as myself, it was quite remarkable.

Following are a couple new to me pieces of information I learned there:
  • There is something called the boyfriend loophole in current gun law.  If someone has a child with a woman or was previously married to her, and there is a restraining order against him, the police can take away any weapons he might have and he cannot acquire any.  But if he is 'just' her boyfriend, he can acquire and keep any and all weapons, restraining order be damned.
  • Mike Bloomberg, former mayor of NYC, started and funds Everytown.  He also spoke at the Forum, a very well organized event considering it was pulled together in 5 days.  Bloomberg said the worst thing he had to do as mayor was tell someone their loved one would not be coming home because of gun violence.  He decided he would throw his substantial financial weight at getting gun laws changed in this country.
  • As a whole, the candidates believe that the NRA has undue influence with President Trump, as demonstrated by the President saying that we need stronger background checks after Parkland.  The day after he said that, NRA President Wayne LaPierre paid the Pres a visit.  Mr. Trump stopped saying that we need stronger background checks.  
I tend to sit in my backyard and rail against all the corruption in Washington.  It was chilling, to me, to hear candidate after candidate call that out.


If you are interested in putting pressure to strengthen gun laws on Congress when it comes back into session next month, you can go to the Sandy Hook Promise website and sign their petition.


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