Democratic Disruption
I don't know whether to be proud or aghast. There are many things I want to say about the Democratic Congresspersons "occupying" their own meeting chamber. This being an opinion essay, I'm going to reverse the "inverted pyramid" and start with the least important--which is, oddly enough, the issue that would be my acid test for a politician were I to be a single-issue voter: gun control. House Democrats staged this sit-in, disrupting the chamber's business and leading House Speaker Paul Ryan to take draconian, and futile, steps to stifle media coverage of the protest, in an effort to force a vote on the weakest gun control legislation yet to crash against the insurmountable reef of gun lobby influence: barring persons on the terrorist watch list from purchasing guns. Had this measure been in place, it would have done nothing to prevent any of the mass shootings that have proliferated since the Assault Weapons Ban expired. Should it ever see th...