When Congress resumes session next month, Democratic members want to tackle gun legislation and the rise in White Nationalism/White Supremacy. They want to strengthen the nation’s hate crime laws and focus on “race based incidents of Domestic Terrorism”
“Some of us have had this concern for quite a while, that [domestic terrorism] was always second fiddle to Islamist terrorism to the homeland. And we had a difficult time getting the documentation,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday by phone.
“Ultimately we finally got an admission from the FBI that domestic terrorism was on the rise, but more importantly, it was tied more to radical right-wing extremists than it was any other group.”
Even before Congress returns, “the House Judiciary Committee will mark up legislation barring gun sales to those convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes.”
In a phone interview, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who has a similar bill to Thompson’s said, “Everything is multi-determined, [but] there’s clearly a Trump effect in that so many people who were underground, kept things quiet through fear of great public disapproval have felt legitimized, empowered, by so much of Trump’s language,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said Tuesday in a phone call. “This has been the most comfortable time to be a blatant white supremacist in America in a long time.”
From Muslims to Jews to people of color, the number of hate crimes is on the rise,” he said. “Having this No-Hate Crime [bill] in place, we’d have much better reporting.
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
If passed in the House, more than likely it will die in the Senate, although Mitch McConnell promised a ‘discussion’ on tighter gun legislation following the recent mass shootings.
