According to press reports, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in an act of craven political cowardice, has decided to throw his support to a package of gun control measures that seem designed to do more harm than good when they do anything at all.

BREAKING: Mitch McConnell says he’s “comfortable” with the bipartisan gun control framework that includes funding for states to impose red flag laws.
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— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 14, 2022

For more details on what is in the bill, please read my post Today’s Senate ‘Bipartisan Gun Safety’ Proposal Is Just as Bad as You Feared It Would Be. Though the proposal does not descend into David Hogg-style nutbaggery, there is nothing in the bill, beyond enhancing school security, that has anything to commend it. On the contrary, there is a great deal that is profoundly dangerous. The idiot “Red Flag” laws encouraged by this “bipartisan framework” are an invitation to abuse. Tying mental health clinics to schools and gun control tell you the focus of these clinics will be creating the “evidence” necessary for a “Red Flag” order or to become part of the “enhanced background check” for a citizen under 21 seeking to buy a weapon.

In one of those magical years when all the GOP has to do is shut up and do nothing to win–the Democrats had one of those in 2006 where they ran on the “we’re not Bush” platform–McConnell is leading the GOP into a civil war with its voters. The only reason I can think that he’s doing this is that he’s convinced “doing something” is required to win the votes of white, suburban, college-educated women and that his own voters have nowhere else to go.

There are no lessons to be learned in this episode from the Vichy Files. McConnell has been screwing over conservative voters for decades. In fact, if abortion is any guide, we’ll soon see fundraising emails from McConnell and the clowns who support this “bipartisan framework” begging for our hard-earned money to help them save gun rights.