WASHINGTON – Illinois' junior Senator Tammy Duckworth used the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre to condemn the power and influence of the National Rifle Association and gun enthusiasts in a Washington Post op-ed published this week.
In the piece, the senator questions why AR-15's are available to teenagers at the corner store – and says "you" can just walk into a gun show and leave with a weapon without undergoing a background check.
I come from a long line of combat veterans who have taken up arms to defend this nation since before George Washington crossed the Delaware, and I spent decades in the military myself. So I understand why these kinds of weapons exist.
But what I don’t get is why semiautomatics that U.S. service members carry around Fallujah are being sold to teenagers at the corner gun store.
What I don’t understand is how some politicians can consider the National Rifle Association’s dollars more important than our kids’ lives.
Or how our streets have become deadlier than war zones, with more Americans killed by gun violence over the past 50 years than in every war in American history combined.
And what I can’t even begin to comprehend is how after Newtown and Charleston, Orlando and Las Vegas, Parkland and Pittsburgh, nothing has changed. You can still just walk into a gun show then leave a few minutes later with a weapon in hand — without undergoing a background check.
The senator, which boasts her "F" grade from the NRA, proceeds to demand more gun control laws go into effect.
We're not sure where these storefronts are that Tammy Duckworth mentions, but in Illinois, any legal purchase in Illinois now requires a background check before a Firearm Owners Identification card is issued. No legal firearm purchase can be made by an Illinois resident without a FOID card.
However, Illinois' junior senator knows what she's talking about – or so she portrays that to be true. We're just not sure where what she says is true. It's certainly not in the state she represents.
Read her full op-ed at Washington Post
