Republicans offer thoughts and prayers instead of voting to keep guns away from suspected terrorists

We're hearing an awful lot about thoughts and prayers from Republicans Wednesday afternoon in reaction to yet another mass shooting of American citizens by people who should not be able to get their hands on guns. Enough of that. Enough of empty rhetoric.

There are a lot of people who should not be able to have guns, that Republicans could be doing something about. For example, there's suspected terrorists. Like people on the Transportation Safety Administration's no-fly list and the consolidated FBI terrorist watchlist. And right now, there's nothing in the law that keeps them from getting guns. That's how the Republicans want it.

Hard-headed House Republicans blocked a debate Tuesday on a bill that would close a loophole allowing suspected terrorists to legally buy guns.

The Republicans' flag waving for the NRA comes only 18 days after heavily armed ISIS-linked attackers savagely slaughtered 130 people in Paris and only four days after a gunman left three people dead and nine wounded at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado. […]

More than 2,000 suspects on the FBI’s Terrorist Watchlist bought weapons in the U.S. over the past 11 years, according to the federal Government Accountability Office.

So thoughts and prayers from Republicans ring pretty goddamned hollow today, the day after Republicans proved that they have more fealty to the NRA than they have to innocent people who keep getting gunned down in the middle of just trying to live their goddamned normal lives.