New Jersey’s own junior Senator, Robert Menendez (D), joined the club of shameless exploiters of tragedy yesterday. On the floor of the Senate, as if on cue, he called for the same thing all liberals call for when evil men strike: gun control.

What Robert Menendez said

Senator Menendez took the floor of the Senate yesterday and spoke for five minutes:

Let us finally pass common sense gun laws. No more politics. No more excuses. We cannot allow this sort of senseless violence to continue. We need a national debate about the roles of firearms in society, we need to address mental health issues and we need to act immediately.

Act how?

This shooter had hundreds of rounds of ammunition—reportedly enough to kill everyone in the school—and had it not been for the brave first responders, there could have been even more tragic killings on Friday. These high capacity clips must be outlawed. I don’t believe that there is any reason why a law-abiding citizen would need the capability to shoot multiple rounds like a “street sweeper.”

But his next-to-last paragraph was the hardest to believe from a United States Senator:

This doesn’t need to be a political debate. This is about keeping little children safe in their first grade classroom. I’m for reasonable use of guns but first and foremost, I’m for protecting our children, our teachers and their families.

In other words,

Sit down and shut up!

What Robert Menendez did not say

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Robert Menendez did not say that, had the headmistress, her senior officials, and the teachers had guns of their own, they could with one bullet from any of them have stopped Adam Lanza before he fired his first round after he first shot his way into the building. A concealed-carry permit holder might have done just that at the Clackamas Mall in Oregon. (In fact, Nick Meli, the witness, says all he had to do was show his gun. The shooter saw him, then killed himself.)

Of course Menendez did not mention that Sandy Hook Elementary School, like all schools, is a gun-free zone. (Even some law-enforcement professionals now think that’s not such a smart idea. They know that gun-free zones attract evil men the way bright lights attract flies and mosquitoes at night.)

Menendez lies about his record

Menendez lied to the Senate and the American people when he said,

I’m for reasonable use of guns.

No, he is not. On every gun-control vote in the Senate since Jon Corzine sent him there, Robert Menendez has voted on the gun-control side. After the Aurora Incident, Menendez lamented that no federal law limits the numbers of guns or rounds of ammunition any person may buy.

More to the point, one can only imagine what Robert Menendez would say back to Benjamin Franklin. Franklin took part in the Constitutional Convention as well as the Second Continental Congress. He said:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

This is what Robert Menendez, like his jefe estupendo Barack Obama, now demands.

To exploit tragedy for political gain is bad enough. But yesterday Robert Menendez used it to demand that people surrender essential liberty for safety that is not only temporary but illusory. That is a travesty of the function of a United States Senator.

Postscript

If any person, after reading this, thinks CNAV is over-reacting, let that person remember three words: Fast and Furious. In case Robert Menendez has forgotten, the Spanish-language network Univisión did not. They were outraged. In this light, Robert Menendez’ outrage over the Newtown Incident seems peculiarly selective.

Related:

• Gun control v. evil control
• Fast and Furious (latest article)
• See also on examiner.com

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