And if you're one of those well intentioned folks who actually did experience that emotion, you need, in my humble o, to regroup, rethink and reconsider.
Because of all the things that this issue is, it is neither complicated nor unpredictable.
President Obama’s ambitious effort to overhaul the nation’s gun laws in response to December’s school massacre in Connecticut suffered a resounding defeat Wednesday, when every major proposal he championed fell apart on the Senate floor.
It was a stunning collapse for gun-control advocates just four months after the deaths of 20 children and six adults in Newtown led the president and many others to believe that the political climate on guns had been altered in their favor.
The national drive for laws that might prevent another mass shooting unraveled under intense pressure from the gun rights lobby, which used regional and cultural differences among senators to prevent new firearms restrictions.
But the biggest setback for the White House was the defeat of a measure to expand background checks to most gun sales. The Senate defied polls showing that nine in 10 Americans support the idea, which was designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.
“All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington,” a visibly angry Obama said as he delivered his response to the nation.
The public reaction to Congress' unwillingness and/or inability to put a tourniquet on the blood flowing in our schools, theatres, shopping center parking lots is almost always some form of outrage at that very Congress that seems unwilling or unable to act in the public interest.
Turns out that while that arrow of outrage is well intended, it misses the real target way wide and way left.
America is not a democracy. It is a republic. And in a republic, the mass of citizens don't make policy, enact laws or create rules. Instead, we choose a representative to do all of those things for us.
And that body of representatives is known, collectively, as the United States Congress.
Now, if you're one of those folks bitterly dissapointed, let alone surprised, at the outcome of the latest vote on any and all measures that consitute gun control, please take a breath and ask yourself this question.
Do you sincerely believe that the Senators and Congressmen/women that voted this latest effort into the ash pile are stupid?
Because common sense would dictate that only a truly, truly stupid person would intentionally do something that would almost surely cost them their pretty plush professional position, complete with perks, pleasures and guranteed health care.
And if your retort is taking the shape of the "politicians are in the back pocket of special interests" argument, think again.
Unless the NRA is prepared to offer up lifetime salaries, health care, et al to the aforementioned politicians, it really seems unlikely that the fault for the failure of reasonable gun control legislation lies with, for example, the NRA but lies, in fact, with another, larger, more insidious group equipped to a tee with their own version of special interests.
The voters who put those Senators and Congressmen/women in office in the first place.
And who will, almost surely, return those Senators and Congressmen/women to office the next time the need to pop into the booth and flip a lever comes around.
Regardless of whatever hysteria, paranoia and/or dark visions of back room deals with the devil might be aimed at or blamed on those who walk and work in the hallowed halls of the District, the simple, pragmatic truth, almost all of the time is the truth that seems to be eluding all of us as we whine, whimper and wring our hands about gun control in America.
Our elected officials do what we tell them to do.
And, clearly, while admittedly sadly, it's obvious that more constituents are telling their representatives they want less, not more, rules and regs.
On almost everything.
Even checking the background of someone who might be thinking of picking up an AR 15 and killing little kids in school classrooms.
Put insensitively...the bubbas still outnumber the brainiacs.
So, okay, what about those polls that say ..."nine in 10 Americans support the idea, which was designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill..."?
At best, wishful thinking.
Most likely, simply bullshit.
No one, except those who make up the wack job demographic, wants to be perceived as uncaring or unfeeling.
So, of course they tell the pollster they support the idea.
Here's a thing, though.
The pollsters with the clipboards in the malls who take your name and ask your opinion about things like this ain't got nothin, data gathering wise, on the politicians who require precise, empirical data to make the decisions that will prevent the home fires from burning down their chances at another term.
Blaming Congress for failing to act is, actually, an incorrect notion.
Because, in fact, Congress , as it has and as it likely will for a while yet to come,
did act.
They said we don't need any more rules right now.
Actually, we said that.
And they did what we told them to do about it.
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