With less than two hours to go before the U.S. Senate starts voting on amendments to  the anti-gun violence bill now pending, the unimaginable seems likely. There are still not enough votes to gain passage of the legislation with near-universal background checks in place. Multiple sources are reporting that the votes are not there and this will go down in defeat, despite a level of support in every state in the country, including among Republican voters, and gun owners that rivals apple pie and motherhood. As of this moment there are 52 Senators in favor, 40 Republicans opposed, and 8 undecided. In other words, the bill’s supporters would have to win every single one of the undecided votes.

It appears that we have a whole lot of United States Senators who provide living, breathing, walking proof that you can indeed live without a spine. There they are, cowering in their proverbial closets because of what the 7% or so of Americans who do not favor universal background checks might do to them politically. Really!! And the 90%+  who do support this bill?? Despite having a pretty good facility with two languages, both of which have rich and extensive vocabularies, I quite honestly cannot think of the right words to express what I am feeling right now.

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