I heard from a lot of politicians about San Bernadino yesterday, Dad.
“I’ve been hearing a lot about San Bernadino, Dad.” Jesus Christ/Shutterstock

Republicans agree: It’s time for some serious action on mass shootings, if by “action” you mean “tweeting, maybe, if I feel like it.”

And the National Rifle Association has assured that the political response to gun violence will remain as muted as possible, having purchased $810,462 worth of influence in 2014, and $165,200 so far for 2016. In most cases, it’s surprisingly cheap for the NRA to buy a politician’s inaction.

After yesterday’s unbearably horrible shooting in California, Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress started collecting all of the “thoughts and prayers” tweets of gun-happy members of Congress, pointing out that their action to prevent gun violence amounts to nothing but empty platitudes.

I wondered how California politicians, whose constituents are closest to yesterday’s violence, reacted — particularly the ones who essentially seem to be owned by the gun industry. I looked up the most recent NRA payouts on Opensecrets.org, and then cross-checked the California recipients with their own Twitter accounts. Here are my findings.

For a paltry $2,000 in the last cycle, here’s what the NRA got from Rep. Mimi Waters (R-Irvine):

Thoughts and prayers! So helpful. Thanks Mimi. A bit later, she tweeted that she was voting in favor of HR 8, a bill that protects polluters. (She also got $31,450 from the oil and gas industry, so obviously they take priority.)

Her colleague Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) was paid $1,000 by the NRA, and tweeted this:

Good, yes, thoughts and prayers again. I’m sure your thoughts were “I wonder why Mimi got twice as much as I did.”

Rep. Darryl Issa must’ve given some at the NRA an extra hand job, because he got $2,500 from them. He, too, offered “thoughts and prayers.”

Re. Paul Cook (R-Apple Valley, NRA-$1,000) offered “thoughts & prayers” as well.

Ken Calvert (R-Corona, NRA-$2,500) tweeted similarly:

Gee whiz, these NRA-backed politicians sure do have similar tweets. Maybe they were all written for them by the same person. Or by the same association.

“Urgent!” tweeted Rep. Paul Chabot (R-Rancho Cucamonga, NRA-$3,500). Oh, at last, someone taking action!

Well, no. What’s so “urgent” is “join me tonight for Prayer Event.” Well, who knows, maybe Chabot finally figured out the prayer that’ll stop God from sending us mass shooters almost every day.

Many of the NRA’s members of Congress had nothing to say whatsoever. Dana Rohrbacher (R-Huntington Beach, NRA-$1,000) remained silent, leaving a top tweet from a few days ago in which he endorsed Ted Cruz.

Tom McClintock, who got $2,000 from the NRA, has been a Chatty Cathy over the last two days, tweeting several times about the National Park. He had nothing to say about the shooting.

Brian Nestande (R-Palm Desert, NRA-$2,000) tweeted nothing. Dan Logue (NRA-$1,000) tweeted nothing.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy tweeted nothing about the shooting, but like Mimi, he too voted for pro-pollution HR 8. (The oil and gas industry chipped in $177,600 to install him in Congress. A sound investment!)

Doug LaMalfa (NRA-$2,000) tweeted a picture of a Christmas tree.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (NRA-$1,000) tweeted nothing, though a few months ago he did brag about his bill that would arm military recruiters.

Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Modesto, NRA-$3,000) had nothing to say about the shooting. But he did take some time to tweet — repeatedly — about his legislation to allow pets on trains, and also about how he dislikes rail travel in general.

Devin Nunes (NRA-$2,500) had nothing to say about the shooting.

Steve Knight (NRA-$1,000) had nothing to say about the shooting, but this morning he did tweet an invitation to his office open house on the 14th. So, if you happen to be in the neighborhood, pop on by. Say hello. Bring a check for $1,000 if you have any issues you want him to not tweet about.

Oh and by the way, the San Bernardino shooting was only one of two mass shootings yesterday. The other happened in Georgia. In the aftermath, Georgia Senator David Perdue (NRA-$20,086) tweeted that we need to repeal Obamacare.

3 replies on “How Politicians Who’ve Been Funded by the NRA Re$ponded to the Shooting in San Bernadino”

  2. Where’s the Joint Terrorism Task Force when you really need them? Out rousting homeless people for sleeping on dogshit in the park. Wait until the car bombing refugees show up and the JTTF starts going garage to garage, confiscating Americans’ cars.

  3. “Don’t move!” someone yelled.

    Suddenly, Mohamud was on the ground. He could hear Hussein screaming, “Allahu akbar!” — God is great — over and over again. After the third or fourth time, the 17 arresting officers started to laugh.

    The bomb Mohamud had tried to detonate was fake. The test explosion was staged. There was no secret council of militant leaders seeking a gifted Somali-American teenager, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old college student to wage jihad. Youssef and Hussein were undercover FBI agents.

    The Black Friday non-bombing of Portland was a federal government sting, the result of a yearlong operation involving dozens of people, a secret court order, and a massive surveillance apparatus.

    The FBI terrorized Portlanders for Thanksgiving.

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicolasmedinamora/did-the-fbi-transform-this-teenager-into-a-terrorist#.sbEY15Gxo

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