![\"AP](\"http:\/\/blogs.detroitnews.com\/politics\/files\/Obama_RoseGarden.jpg\")
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Senate Republicans should have bucked the NRA and passed the Toomey-Manchin background check bill. And Democrats should have bucked their\u00a0anti-gun base\u00a0and embraced licensed, concealed-carry laws. It\u2019s common sense.<\/p>\n
But a\u00a0sensible solution to gun violence<\/a>\u00a0was another victim of Washington gridlock this week because there is a leadership vacuum in the White House.<\/p>\n Once again, America\u2019s chief executive proved that he is less interested in solving problems than in scoring political points. Follow Obama\u2019s daily schedule and there was zero attempt (when has there ever been?) to build a bipartisan coalition to solve the problem of gun violence. None. Obama bloodlessly exploited the Sandy Hook tragedy with a meaningless gun control bill that even the left-wing New Yorker conceded would have done nothing to prevent the Newtown massacre \u2013 much less the violence in Detroit. As in the Gabby Gifford\u2019s shooting, Democrats shamefully exploited a shooting for political gain (and there was Giffords as a political prop at Obama\u2019s Rose Garden ceremony condemning the Senate vote).<\/p>\n Obama has one goal in mind: Embarrassing Republicans with swing voters in order to swing the House to Democrats in 2014. Power is all that matters to him (MSM coverage was advocacy \u2013 the best reporting is by the WSJournal\u2019s Kim Strassel\u00a0here<\/a>).<\/p>\n He has won a second term. Why not expend his political capital on legalizing drugs, which drives the gang warfare that consumes his Chicago and our Detroit? Why not use his political capital to reform welfare, which corrupts work and two-parent families and is the root of young male violence?<\/p>\n Why not? Then American could truly make progress on its most vexing issue: Violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senate Republicans should have bucked the NRA and passed the Toomey-Manchin background check bill. And Democrats should have bucked their\u00a0anti-gun base\u00a0and embraced licensed, concealed-carry laws. It\u2019s common sense. But a\u00a0sensible solution to gun violence\u00a0was another victim of Washington gridlock this week because there is a leadership vacuum in the White House. Once again, America\u2019s chief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12840,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12838\/revisions\/12840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}