An Early Sighting Of Haley's Comment

GOP South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley knows that whatever bloody massacre happened in the state where she is in charge, the fact Dylann Roof bought a gun when the law said he shouldn't have been able to is anyone but her fault.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) said on Sunday that she did not support increasing waiting periods to allow federal officials ample time to conduct background checks even though flaws in the current law allowed Charleston shooter Dylann Roof to purchase a gun.

Not her problem, not her fault, not her job to fix it.  Leadership!

“Do you think the background check should be expanded, instead of a three day period, maybe longer?” NBC host Chuck Todd asked Haley during an interview on Sunday.

Haley insisted that she was “literally sick” to her stomach when she received the news that Roof was able to purchase a firearm because of a failed background check.

“When the feds say they are going to do something, we take them at their word that it’s going to get done,” the South Carolina Republican opined. “And the fact that it didn’t get done is terrible. And it’s one more thing that these families are going to have to go through that they don’t deserve to have to go through.”

“I think we need to look at the fact that it’s not about time,” she continued. “It’s about technology. You know, this is something, when someone has a charge filed against them, it should go into a database and it should be shown immediately to anyone that’s looking at it.”

“So, I would be more interested in what went wrong. What sort of — why are they dealing with paperwork and not dealing with technology that they wouldn’t have had this.”

Oh, so perhaps Congress should allot more money to improve the nation's background check system and pass legislation requiring states and the federal government to work together on these checks.

Except that's exactly the opposite of what the Republicans who control Congress actually did: since they took power in January they've made background checks more difficult, federal databases harder to access, and cut budget money to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.  Republicans also filibustered a national background check bill in the Senate in 2013.

Perhaps Governor Haley should be speaking with Speaker Boehner and majority leader McConnell instead of wasting time with Chuck Todd whining how nothing that happens in South Carolina is actually her fault.

Senate Democrats on the other hand want to make background checks work. They will be blocked again by Republicans for sure.  And Nikki Haley will continue to blame everyone but herself.