It's hilarious to me how many people seem to think that principles go out the window when something bad happens.

Granted, I get that a lot of people who get into Congress don't have much in the way of principles. Well, at least some don't. Others have some, but most politicians tend to be a little more pragmatic, or at least so most of us believe.

As a result, the media is filled with stories about how the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump should prompt gun control. So far, no one in the Republican Party is saying any such thing, though. That's not overly surprising since, as I feel obligated to point out far too often now, they didn't fold on guns after the shooting in Alexandria, Virginia.

But it seems the folks over at Vox are upset that Republicans aren't changing everything right now in how they view guns.

The shooter who attempted to kill former president Donald Trump at a rally in western Pennsylvania on Saturday was found with an AR-15-style rifle near his body.

Anyone familiar with the recent history of American gun violence should not be surprised. The AR-15 — an exceptionally deadly weapon capable of firing several rounds at high rates of speed — and AR-15 style weapons have been used in recent years to kill scores of people and injure hundreds more in mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Parkland, Florida, and Orlando, Florida.

Republicans could take action to make it harder for people to obtain these weapons, if they wanted to. There’s even a precedent for it: In 1994, Democratic President Bill Clinton, with the help of Congressional Democrats and a small but essential block of Republican lawmakers, enacted the Federal Assault Weapons ban, barring certain kinds of semi-automatic weapons (including the Colt AR-15) along with high-capacity magazines. To get the regulation to pass, lawmakers agreed that it would expire in 10 years unless renewed by Congress.

...

But even after an assassination attempt on the former president this weekend, it’s highly unlikely that modern-day Republicans will do anything to try to prevent people from obtaining these guns.

Indeed, hardly anyone expects them to bring up guns in the coming days. To the extent that Republicans are assigning blame, it’s mostly to Democrats. Despite the fact that officials still haven’t released any information on the shooter’s possible motive, GOP Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio), now Trump’s running mate, wrote on X that Democratic rhetoric “led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said that Democrats’ “inflammatory rhetoric put lives at risk.” Utah Sen. Mike Lee called for “government control, not gun control,” arguing that too much centralized power inevitably led to political violence (or something).

Yeah, there's a reason why they're assigning blame to Democrats.

And let's be real here, if the roles were reversed, Vox would be blaming Republicans and never miss a beat. 

You can't keep calling someone a new Hitler or an "existential threat" to the nation over and over again, talk about putting a bullseye on him, have columnists suggest taking him out, and then be shocked that someone took a shot at him. You just don't get to play innocent here.

Now, I maintain that the responsibility for the shooting rests completely on the shooter himself, just as in past shootings when Democrats tried to claim Republicans were to blame for saying not nice things about someone, but there's been plenty of irresponsible rhetoric that would eventually going to convince someone that such an attempt was a good idea.

I'm actually more surprised that it didn't happen previously.

But as for the issue of gun control, there's literally no reason why Republicans would flip the script here and now.

We're still safer by respecting gun rights than by undermining those rights with gun control. Bad people will still find a way to do bad things--this turdnugget had explosives in his car, for crying out loud, and those are far more restricted than guns are. Nothing has changed in that regard, so why would Republicans change on such an issue?

Vox is mad, but I hate to break it to them, no one in the Republican Party, the gun rights movement, or pretty much anywhere than the extreme left of the political spectrum gives a damn what Vox thinks about anything.