PENNSYLVANIA — Senator Bob Casey has called for an end to gun violence and is pushing for Congress to do the same. On Tuesday, he joined fellow Democrats in holding the Senate floor to demand long-overdue gun reform in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Senator Casey has also proposed legislation that would keep guns out of the hands of those convicted of hate crimes.
Read how Senator Casey declared “enough” and became an advocate for ending gun violence:
Washington Post: How ‘pro-gun’ Bob Casey became an evangelist for gun control laws
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. is one of the most unlikely evangelists for sweeping gun-control laws.
A decade ago the Pennsylvania Democrat won his Senate seat as a “pro life, pro gun” candidate, largely in the mold of his late father, a popular governor who fought his party’s liberal social values. His early stances on guns skewed right, including a 2009 vote allowing guns on Amtrak trains, and when a TV reporter in Pittsburgh informed him of the early details of the December 2012 elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Casey gave what he now calls “the standard” answer.
“I don’t think new gun laws are going to change us,” Casey recalled Wednesday of his initial reaction to the massacre of 20 children and six educators.
By the time that weekend ended 3½ years ago, as Christmas approached and his wife and daughters accosted him over his views, Casey had a conversion. Casey has since embraced every major proposal to counter gun violence, including a renewed ban on assault weapons and enhanced background checks before gun purchases. On Monday, Casey was back in Pittsburgh to unveil legislation in the wake of the massacre of 49 people inside a nightclub popular with Orlando’s gay community that would forbid those convicted of a hate crime from purchasing weapons.
And Thursday night Casey will be among several dozen lawmakers honored by “Sandy Hook Promise,” a group pushing to end gun violence that was founded by some parents of the Connecticut children killed.
Casey faults himself for never really thinking about the gun issue until Newtown, coasting along with Pennsylvania’s traditional pro-gun views in a state where the National Rifle Association has held sway for decades.
When he returned to the Capitol after Newtown, Casey found it unacceptable that the NRA opposed any new laws.
“You’re saying that there’s nothing, nothing that the United States of America can do about that, absolutely nothing we can do, other than enforce the laws,” he said in an interview Wednesday, his voice breaking into a stutter at times fighting his emotion. “That’s when I said to myself: I can’t, I can’t, I can’t maintain this position anymore. It makes no sense.”
Casey’s switch has been a lonely reversal. Mass shooting after mass shooting, only a few senators have changed their views on gun laws.
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