The following is from an editorial in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
When President Barack Obama on Thursday in Boston referred to "small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build," he was talking about terrorists. He was talking about the people who planted the two bombs that destroyed the pure joy of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three, injuring dozens, jarring the national consciousness.
But the president could just as easily have been talking about the cowards in the U.S. Senate who the day before killed what was at most a minimalist attempt to bring some level of sanity to the nation's gun debate.
Had the traditional rules of parliamentary procedure been in place, the Senate actually would have passed a bill to expand gun background checks to include online sales and gun shows. The proposal, among the weakest of possible gun control proposals, was supported by a clear majority, 54-46. Because Senate leaders had to agree to a 60-vote threshold just to get Republicans to allow the measure to come to the floor, it failed.
Here's the most important element of that vote: It didn't fail after a long debate. It didn't fail on its merits. It failed because Republicans — most of them anyway — were more interested in lying about the bill than passing public policy.
Here's Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, for instance, talking about his no vote on Fox News: "It potentially could lead to a gun registry."
That, to borrow one of Mr. Obama's words from his angry Wednesday speech, is just a lie.
The Greek philosopher Plato told us that, "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
In other words, we deserve the Congress we're stuck with.