tha kate

"Now, understand, nobody is talking about creating an entirely new system. We are simply talking about plugging holes, sealing a porous system that isn’t working as well as it should. If you want to buy a gun, whether it’s from a licensed dealer or a private seller, you should at least have to pass a background check to show you’re not a criminal or someone legally prohibited from buying on. And that’s just common sense… If these reforms can keep one person from murdering dozens of innocent children, or worshipers, or moviegoers, in the span of minutes – isn’t that something worth fighting for?"

"What happened to the Republican Party of the 1960s? You know, all those GOP senators who voted for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. What happened to them? What happened to that Republican Party?"

"One of the greatest impediments to actually solving the riddle of guns in our society is the pious concern that many people have about the intent of the Second Amendment. It should hardly need to be said that despite its brilliance and utility, the Constitution of the United States was written by men who could not possibly have foreseen every change that would occur in American society in the ensuing centuries. Even if the Second Amendment guaranteed everyone the right to possess whatever weapon he or she desired (it doesn’t), we have since invented weapons that no civilian should be allowed to own. In fact, it can be easily argued that original intent of the Second Amendment had nothing to do with the right of self-defense—which remains the ethical case to be made for owning a firearm. The amendment seems to have been written to allow the states to check the power of the federal government by maintaining their militias. Given the changes that have occurred in our military, and even in our politics, the idea that a few pistols and an AR 15 in every home constitutes a necessary bulwark against totalitarianism is fairly ridiculous. If you believe that the armed forces of the United States might one day come for you—and you think your cache of small arms will suffice to defend you if they do—I’ve got a black helicopter to sell you."

"What if we start calling them semi-automatic assault vaginas with extended gay marriages?? Then they’ll be certain to regulate the crap out of them."

"That political calculation makes so much sense to me, if there were not 68,000 American lives on the line. And that’s what infuriates me, because this is a real war. This is not changing your mind on light rail. This is changing your mind and denying your previous positions that are on the record about the fate, the lives and deaths, of 68,000 Americans, and asserting that not only is it okay for you to change your mind, I believe in people changing their mind, but that you can get away with running from the things that you have previously claimed were your heartfelt beliefs, and now denying that you ever believed they were true. It’s a character issue, and I find it disqualifying."

"The growing influence of women is the one reassuring thing in our political life."