Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
The Brady United organization has started an online ad campaign called “The Filibuster is Killing Us” to end the filibuster in the United States Senate on Monday.
The anti-gun organization has dropped $40,000 to buy digital ads that encourage its supporters to pressure their Senators to kill the filibuster. The Brady United believes that the filibuster is stopping anti-gun legislation from passing in Congress. The group doesn’t think gun control will successfully pass the Senate as long as the rule exists.
“In the past four Congresses, the filibuster has stopped life-saving and common-sense legislation such as expanded and strengthened background checks from passing the Senate, creating a chilling effect on such legislation even as these policies attract overwhelming support from the American public, including majorities of both parties,” The Brady United organization said in their press release.
The filibuster means that for a bill to pass the Senate, a supermajority (60 votes) must vote to end debate before the Senate can vote to pass it. The rule prevents the minority party from being marginalized. It protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority. There is a 50/50 split in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote. There are no such protections in the House of Representatives where more radical bills are passed.
In the past, Republicans have used the filibuster to kill extreme legislation. One of these pieces of legislation was Machin-Toomy. Without the filibuster, the bill would have established universal background checks. Some gun rights organizations worried that it would lead to a national registry. Gun Owners of America broke from other organizations to pressure Republican senators to filibuster the bill.
The anti-gun group claims that the filibuster is costing people their lives. It exploits tragic stories of violence and tries to tie those stories to the filibuster. The ads do not provide evidence of the filibuster being used to block any law that would have prevented any of the highlighted deaths. The ad tries to pull on the viewers’ heartstrings instead of encouraging watches to use logic and reason.
The Brady United organization also claims that the filibuster is racist. In its ads, the organization refers to it as a “Jim Crow” rule. The filibuster dates back to Ancient Rome and 1802 in the United States. If the anti-gun organization accusation were accurate, this would mean that it would predate any other Jim Crow laws by decades in the United States and by centuries worldwide.
The Brady United organization isn’t the first left-wing group to call on the Senate to remove the filibuster. Since Joe Biden has come into office and Democrats have taken over both chambers of Congress, many on the left has pushed for the filibuster to be killed. The removal of the Senate would make way for an extreme left-wing agenda to sail through Congress and be rubber-stamped by Biden.
The Brady United organization said that it would be teaming up with other progressive organizations to pressure the Senate to end the filibuster. Democrat Senator Joe Manchin has vowed not to kill the rule but has a massive amount of pressure on him to change his vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has backed efforts to change the rules allowing a simple majority to pass laws.
If Manchin changes his mind on the filibuster, the rule will probably fall. All gun owners in West Virginia must encourage Senator Manchin to keep his promise made to his constituents. The Brady United organization plans to spend more money to kill the filibuster and says this is just its first round of spending.