"...a harbinger of more N.R.A. defeats..." - how sweet does that not sound?
"...a bargaining chip to a road funding bill... - is this really worthy politics to let death and destruction hinge on road funding? Good grief, Americans!
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Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan rebuffed heavy lobbying by the National Rifle Association and vetoed a patently dangerous gun measure Thursday that would have compounded the risks for women caught in domestic abuse cases. The measure, quietly passed by the Republican Legislature at the behest of the gun lobby, would have allowed gun permits for abusers in domestic violence and stalking cases — even those under a court-issued restraining order — if judges neglected to issue an explicit ban.
Under current law, denial of a gun license is automatic for abusers in domestic violence and stalking cases. Mr. Snyder, a Republican, firmly upheld that law with his veto, forthrightly declaring, “We simply can’t and won’t take the chance of exposing domestic abuse victims to additional violence or intimidation.”
With his veto, which gun safety proponents must hope is a harbinger of more N.R.A. defeats, the governor stood as the rare Republican leader willing to buck the powerful gun lobby’s statehouse clout and political threats. Mr. Snyder had been heavily petitioned by both the gun lobby and leaders of gun safety groups, who have been increasingly focused on statehouses as potentially more responsive than Congress to act against gun violence, which claims tens of thousands of lives each year.
Mr. Snyder focused on explosive family situations in explaining his veto. “It’s crucial that we leave in place protections for people who already have endured challenges and abuse,” Mr. Snyder said.
Women living with a gun in the home are more than twice as likely to be murdered than those with no gun on the premises, according to a study in the journal Annals of Emergency Medicine. Women in the United States are 11 times more likely to be murdered by guns than women in other high-income countries, according to Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group that worked against the measure in Lansing.
The gun proposal was attached as a bargaining chip to a road funding bill last month in the closing midnight hours of the legislative session. “You can make a mountain out of a molehill,” Senator Mike Green, the measure’s Republican sponsor, callously commented when asked by The Detroit Free Press if domestic abuse victims should be alarmed. They certainly should be in a state where the number of concealed-weapon permits has leapt from 100,000 in 2001 to nearly 600,000 last year.
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