Let me finish tonight with this gun issue.
Joe Biden is an ordinary fellow in many ways. He’s a good liberal, but he’s also someone you’d likely meet on a golf course or, possibly, at a bowling alley.
In other words, he wouldn’t be out of place in group of Pennsylvania deer hunters. If you don’t believe me, go see the movie Deer Hunter. It’s a classic.
So I’m confident that his set of proposals—on universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole, gun safety and doing something about his high-capacity clips and whatever else he puts forth—is going to be something reasonable hunters and 2nd amendment people will find sensible.
I’m not big on interest groups. I want to democratize the way we make laws. The more people who have a say in writing the law, the better the law. The fewer the people, the worse the law. Big corporations shouldn’t write corporate tax law. And gun owners shouldn’t be the only people involved in gun laws. Anybody who can get shot by a gun, killed by a gun, ought to have a say.
And that, ladies and gentleman, as Joe Biden would say, includes all of us. All of us should make gun laws, not the gun people.
So let’s go at it—and don’t, please don’t, lose interest. This is a test of strength. Keep your grip on this gun safety issue because the other side is still into keeping theirs with their cold dead hands.
Chris Matthews