Tillis & Graham Working With Democrats to ‘Take Action’ on Gun Control Before Summer’s End

“Senator Graham is pushing a bipartisan bill that would institute red flag laws across the country. Through a court order, those laws can temporarily take away firearms from someone in crisis. Senator Tillis says he has been talking to Graham about the effort.

“I told him I’d do everything I can to help him, the president supports this, he’s working with Senator Blumenthal from the Democratic conference and I suspect we’ll be able to take action,” Senator Tillis explained.

Senator Tillis said he hopes to make headway on the issue of background checks this fall.

“I think what we need to do is make sure we can get things done. And we’re already working on that. We have our staff working together, members like me are working with other members so that we’re prepared to actually take a vote when we get back in September.” […]”

What is the usual result of the Swamp ‘getting things done’? While we’d be lucky if getting things done meant tackling entitlements, shrinking the government, and restoring our individual rights, in reality it almost exclusively means a growth of government and/or an erosion of our rights. It is the latter that Tillis and company just want to ‘get done’; a feather in moderate reelection caps that violates every person’s rights while doing nothing toward achieving the policy end.

Indeed, the ‘get something done’ attitude adopted by politicians during crises is always the surest path for the government to take something away from its people. Remember, Obamacare’s fateful pitch? ‘We have to pass the bill, to know what’s in the bill’

Now we have to pass laws, laws that are arguably major violations of constitutionally guaranteed individual rights, quickly before the emotional moment passes. With the GOP and the president leaning openly toward such unjust laws, the Democrats will only act as an accelerant to hasten and expand the scope of legislation, and perhaps all before Halloween.

If national Red Flag legislation does come to pass, it will be up to the States to push back in defense of their citizens’ individual rights. That means the Republican majority in the N.C. General Assembly will have to be more assertive against pushes by Governor Roy Cooper and Democrats in the state legislature to strike the gun control iron while it’s hot.

So far leadership at the General Assembly has been relatively quiet on the topic. The office of N.C. Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) merely downplayed the efficacy of Democrats’ proposals, and N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Cleveland) has not offered much commentary at all. Rank and file members seem to think there is little interest in taking up new bills so late in the session, the lingering budget impasse notwithstanding.

Letting the issue fade in fervor maybe smart on the end, considering Republican state lawmakers are stuck in between a rock and a hard place: Active support for Red Flag laws from the president and GOP, and principled opposition to attacks on the Second Amendment from the Republican base of the Old North State.

However, the gun control movement does not fade, it festers. Cooper and Democrats will keep pushing, and the Swamp will keep doing Swampy things. Republicans on Jones Street need to take a strong stand on the Second Amendment to make sure the rights North Carolinians’ are protected.