
As we know, Virginia Republicans are deep in the pockets of the gun lobby, and also terrified of their far-right base, which of course means that they will contort themselves into all sorts of unnatural positions in order to avoid talking about guns as part of the gun violence question. Instead, as you can hear in the following Trumpster radio interviews with Virginia State Sen. Bill DeSteph (R-SD8) and Sen. Amanda Chase (R-SD11), they are talking about everything else BUT guns. As Sen. Scott Surovell (D-SD36) tweeted this morning:

“So far, I’ve heard Republican elected officials blame USA’s mass shooting scourge on video games, gay marriage, recreational marijuana, role of fathers, school discipline, and the ultimate boogeyman – @ BarackObama! Pretty clear to me what the problems is…. # EndGunViolence“

Sen. Surovell is exactly right, of course. And Senators DeSteph and Chase are exactly wrong. In the case of DeSteph, it’s particularly moronic “reasoning,” as he flails around about how somehow “this isn’t a gun control issue, this is a mental health issue,” completely ignoring the fact that people in every other country also have mental health problems (and video games, for that matter), yet the gun violence rates in those countries are wayyyyyy lower than they are in the United States. Gee, what could the difference between those countries and this country possibly be? The answer is glaringly obvious.

Yet for the Bill DeStephs of the world, it’s sooooo hard to understand. Thus, in the following interview, you can hear DeSteph talk about how it’s “mental health,” lack of sufficient “discipline in schools,” not enough “fathers in the families,” too many video games, blah blah blah. My favorite aspect of this interview, though, is how DeSteph keeps pleading ignorance, how he’s not “the subject-matter expert on this” topic and how “smart people” need to “study…the underlying issue,” yet despite admitting that he doesn’t know shit about gun violence prevention, DeSteph is absolutely confident about one thing: that it supposedly is NOT related to guns. Completely moronic and also internally illogical. Yet this guy’s somehow in the Virginia State Senate?!? That *must* change this November, when SD8 voters will hopefully elect Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal (who served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy) to replace the ignorant, bigoted buffoon Bill “Rub Me Lamp” DeSteph.

As for State Sen. Amanda Chase (R-SD110, what more is there even to say about her? This is, after all, the same person who said “It’s those who are naive and unprepared that end up raped”; the one who also said “I Call My Revolver My Little Equal Rights Amendment”; the one who called Capitol police partisan liars; the one who praised “Make Bang Bang” Gun Guy’s “great group who believe in our constitution and rights as Americans.”and the one who claimed that “The ERA Amendment is nothing more than a ploy by the left to eliminate gender altogether.” Most recently, she responded to the El Paso mass shooting by stating:

“It’s time to put an end to these gun-free zones that are creating safe havens for criminals who don’t follow the law. We need to encourage law-abiding citizens to be able to exercise their Second Amendment to protect themselves, and gun-free zones strip them of that right.”

And this morning, on Trumpster radio, Chase doubled down about how “we need to end the gun-free zones,” how it’s about mental illness and lack of faith, how cars can be used as weapons, and other nonsensical NRA talking points.

By the way, you know it’s bad when even the Trumpster radio host has had enough of these talking points. As you can hear in the audio with Sen. Amanda Chase, host John Fredericks said that it’s time to do more – increasing background checks, raising the age for “high-potential rifles,” “scouring social media,” “hav[ing] to give your medication record.” As Fredericks declared to Chase, at the end of the interview: “YOU have got to do something.” Exactly…except that of course she won’t, which means we have to vote her out of office on November 5, replacing her with the GOOD Amanda – Democrat Amanda Pohl!