Bob McDonnell believes that “pro-life” only applies to the unborn. Once you’re born, he’s more than happy to enable your killers.
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has made a name for himself as an extreme conservative, and today we can add the words “insensitive” and “heartless” to his resume — along with “hypocritical wholesale enabler of gun runners.” On Monday morning this week, in a horrific tragedy, five teenagers were shot in their Ohio high school cafeteria, with one dying on the scene. The following day, Tuesday, another teenager died, and one was pronounced brain dead. Hours later, that teen died as well, raising the death toll to three.
Also on Tuesday, Bob McDonnell, Governor of Virginia, home to the Virginia Tech Massacre, the deadliest shooting incident by a single gunman in U.S. history, sat down and signed a bill into law removing Virginia’s one gun per month limit on hand gun purchases.
Last week, Governor McDonnell held a conference call — not even an in-person meeting, but a conference call — with the families of the victims of the Virginia Tech Massacre, after they urged him to meet with them. One person who was on the call, Paul Read, who lost his daughter in the Virginia Tech Massacre, said the call lasted only 30 minutes and Governor McDonnell’s opening statement included expressing his “duty to protect the Second Amendment.â€
One wonders why Governor McDonnell felt so strongly about protecting the Second Amendment, and not any of the others. As Eric Segall at Slate recently wrote, “the Supreme Court, made up of all men, ruled that the use of contraception is a fundamental right protected by at least five provisions of the United States Constitution.”
Before the 19-year old gun law that Governor McDonnell Tuesday signed out of existence, Virginia was known as the “firearms supermarket.” The Virginia Tech Massacre left 33 people dead — many almost the same age as the three Ohio teens who were shot to death with guns — and another 25 wounded, and took place less than five years ago. How soon some forget.
Before you begin your “if those student were armed less would have died diatribe, read this. In part, it states:
In one year on average, almost 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun.
A 2009 study found that people in possession of a gun are 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault.
U.S. homicide rates are 6.9 times higher than rates in 22 other populous high-income countries combined, despite similar non-lethal crime and violence rates. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is 19.5 times higher.
Bob McDonnell began his tenure as Virginia’s chief executive just two years ago, immediately inaugurating his new job by signing an executive order removing gay men and lesbians from his state’s anti-discrimination policy, an addition instituted by his predecessor.
All of a sudden, if you were, say, a college professor and gay, one day, you could go to work knowing you could not be fired for being gay. The next day, you no longer could. Governor McDonnell literally made it possible for you to be fired for a mere accident of birth.
Speaking of birth, last year, Governor McDonnell attempted to make it illegal for gays and lesbians to adopt. He didn’t get his wish last year, but shortly he will sign a bill into law making it legal for adoption agencies to turn away gays and lesbians who want to adopt, merely because they are gay or lesbian.
McDonnell last week also said gay parents threaten the ability of their children to achieve the American dream, and only straight parents can give children the right start in life.
And, of course, we ll now know what the term “transvaginal” means, right Governor McDonnell?
Pro-life, Governor McDonnell, is not a phrase that has an expiration date. You don’t get to choose which lives, what age, sexual orientation, race, or any other categories of the zygote you claim to want to protect at conception, are. Pro-life means pro-life, from conception — since that’s your standard — to death. And not a death hastened by someone who buys guns by the barrel. Or by someone who enables them.