What is really at stake in Congress this week is the democratic process. The will of the overwhelming majority of citizens for universal background checks on the sale of weapons is threatened by a small minority who has worked to refashion a public safety issue into an individual rights issue.

American citizens deserve an up-or-down vote in both houses on the background checks issue to force out those congressmen and senators who place personal political survival above public safety and the will of the people.

Tragically the limiting of the sale of assault weapons and large capacity magazines has already fallen to political expediency.  Are we now to see the democratic process completely sold out in the defeat or emasculation of the effort to impose universal background checks?

Of course what has been completely lost is the fact that the limiting of weapons is a moral issue, but during the past two and a half centuries morality in our laws has fallen victim to individual rights through legislation and adjudication.

Will public safety now suffer the same fate?