We’ve often criticized the GOP for Failure Theater. That is when the House and/or Senate GOP puts on a show vote they know the base wants, like repealing ObamaCare, knowing it will fail. They do it so they can fundraise off their dogged fight and go back home and talk smack  about how if they only and 200 more Representatives, a hundred more Senators, and the presidency they could really get things done.

Democrats are not immune to the impulse.

For two years, Barack Obama was president, [mc_name name=’Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’P000197′ ] was Speaker of the House, and Harry Reid was Senate Majority Leader. According to those red hot Reddit statistics, about 700 “mass shootings” took place. Yet Obama and the Democrats did nothing. This, right there, shows you that none of them really think gun control laws have dick to do with anything. And they are right.

But now the Democrats were presented with a perfect series of opportunities. First, the Syrian refugee crisis and their plan to resettle some tens of thousands of culturally incompatible if not politically hostile refugees or outright terrorists in the United States melted down with the Paris shooting. Reid started pushing the idea that there was something very, very wrong because people who were on the no-fly list could still buy firearms. The idea being that if we were all so scared of military age men from countries wracked with Islamic terrorism streaming into the US after a rigorous vetting by the United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees then we should be incensed that terrorists were walking into Wally World and buying machineguns and high explosives.

This is nonsense on so many levels that one doesn’t even know where to begin. If the people Reid has in mind are that much of a hazard they should be under arrest. From what we’ve seen of the no-fly list it is an ineffectual, useless night-light-and-comfort-blanket for bureaucrats worried they will be called to answer for failure and this list will save them. It certainly isn’t a tool I’d want to allow the Obama administration, a group of third world thugs who relentlessly use the coercive power of the state to punish their enemies, to use.

Then we have the Colorado Springs shooting, about which we know damned little, and the San Bernardino, which as of this writing the FBI says is terrorism. Harry Reid, still a little dazed from his bout of rough-sex-cum-beat-down with a gay hooker his “exercise band” “breaking” decided to pounce:

We’re going to force the Senate to vote today on amendments that do something to stop gun violence.

— [mc_name name=’Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000146′ ] (@SenatorReid) December 3, 2015

So vote they did and Failure Theater was underway. The two things they voted on had zero relevance to anything. The primary shooters in both Colorado and California had clean backgrounds. Changing background check procedures would not have had any impact. As an aside, you have to wonder if these Senate Democrat Twitter accounts are run by The Onion or by Russian hackers because it should be impossible that someone dumb enough to send this is able to eat solid food:

Current law allows guns & assault weapons, to be sold over the internet & at gun shows w/out any background checks. #StopGunViolence — McCaskill Office (@McCaskillOffice) December 3, 2015

None of the shooters were on a terror watch list… which goes to show just how useful the terror watch list is. Both votes failed and the New York Times has had a sad:

While the nation suffered through the shock of another bloody massacre, on Thursday every Senate Republican except [mc_name name=’Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’K000360′ ] of Illinois voted against legislation to prevent people on the F.B.I.’s consolidated terrorist watchlist from purchasing guns or explosives.

The measure has been introduced repeatedly since 2007. The Government Accountability Office has documented that over years of congressional blockage, hundreds of suspected terrorists on the watchlist bought guns.

Another bill that would have expanded background checks to gun show and online firearms sales to screen out convicted felons and the mentally ill also failed on Thursday. The four Republican senators running for president — [mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ], [mc_name name=’Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000595′ ], [mc_name name=’Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’P000603′ ] and [mc_name name=’Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’G000359′ ] — all turned up to vote against these common-sense measures.

This was a shameful act by Harry Reid. It won’t work with voters because everyone with a brain understands exactly what he did. It will work with the rather stupid progressives who were demanding this exercise in futility. They will look up from their Vox.com flip cards and send more money to the DNC.