Does the president know the hardships he just inflicted on his own party and administration? He’s going after guns, but what the rest of his term? He wants to tackle immigration, but as The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin wrote today – he may have sacrificed that initiative with his plans to renew the assault weapons ban.
Rubin, WaPo’s right-of-center blogger, listed eight possible developments over the coming months because “unless and until committees of jurisdiction take up some or all of them we really have no idea what is in the realm of possibility.” Hence, why conservatives are angry and fearful over this anti-gun tango occurring along the Potomac.
1. President Obama was able to put on paper very specific proposals on guns. Where are his written proposals for health-care cost reductions? For an alternative to the sequester?
2. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) promised to vote on something having to do with guns “early this year.” Why won’t he promise to pass a budget?
3. The president included nothing that would ease mandatory mental evaluations of those who appear to be dangers to themselves or others. The single common thread in these mass shootings is a mentally unbalanced perpetrator who is untreated and/or not sufficiently supervised.
4. The president adopted the National Rifle Association’s suggestion for armed guards in schools.5. There is nothing in his proposals that will cause the makers of violent video games or movies a moment of concern. Their political donations have finally paid off.
6. Democratic senators in competitive states up for reelection in 2014 ( e.g., Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Udall of Colorado, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia) plus 43 Republicans could vote down an assault weapons ban or other stringent anti-gun measures on an up-and-down; the pro-gun senators would have more than enough for a filibuster. With that political reality the chances of significant anti-gun measures coming to the floor of the Senate are small.
7. If Democrats are serious about a full legislative fight on guns, immigration reform will slide, a result the president may or may not want.
8. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and most smart Republicans will point the press to Reid’s door. In a written statement Reid said, “Sen. McConnell will continue to defend the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding Kentuckians. While the administration acknowledged that there is much more to be done to enforce existing law, Sen. McConnell’s first test of any new legislation the majority leader decides to bring before the Senate will be on whether or not it infringes on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.”
Rubin’s sixth point I think is the most salient, and gives a good gauge as to how a new assault weapons ban will fair in the Senate. The prognosis is dead on arrival, but that’s betting that these Democratic senators in pro-gun states (mostly) will vote to ensure their re-election. Who am I kidding? Of course, they’ll do that!
Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska has already gone on record saying that he’s “not interested” in the renewal of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. However, some Democrats not up to reelection in 2014 have voiced their opposition to the president’s anti-gun plans as well. Freshman North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, called the crusade to institute stricter gun laws ”wrong headed.” Furthermore, as Katie Pavlich at Townhall wrote today, Sen. Heitkamp said, “there isn’t any amount of gun regulation or gun executive orders that will solve the problem of identifying people who could potentially do this [mass shootings].”
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) prevaricated more, and said ”I can’t tell you whether I’m for this ban or for that ban.”
What’s telling is that NBC Political Director Chuck Todd noted how the president used hyper-emotionalism, rather than substance to get his points across when he unveiled his Second Amendment assault plans to the public today. Emotion can go so far, and as I’ve said before, it creates an atmosphere for bad policymaking.
Yes, I could be speaking too soon about 2014, but if this fails, which I think it will – blood will be in the water. It’s all on the Democrats. Let them self-implode, which will allow us to go in for the political kill.
I agree that there doesn’t seem to be much hope of a ban passing. For one thing they’d need several Republican Senators to break a filibuster and they’d need a lot of Republican defectors in the house to vote with a Democratic monolith. Gun control is an issue where there really aren’t any anti-gun Republicans and there are at least a few pro-gun Democrats. It has also been an issue capable of causing tremendous damage to the party in elections. He’s not stupid politically, so what’s his game? Is he planning something else spectacularly illegal when congress refuses to pass his ban? Did he drink the media’s kool-aid and really believe that Newton changed things so much that the electorate will punish the Republicans for blocking gun control? Is he just a knee jerk reactionary who can’t help himself and acts on his desires despite the strong political calculus against it? Is he hoping the issue will just go to congress, where it will likely die, and he can get the credit for trying to do something without the punishment for actually doing it? I don’t know, but the fact that he’s pushing so hard when all the classical political equations would point against it worries me. What’s he got up his sleeve? I really hope that it’s just an epic political miscalculation that will come back to haunt them for years but I don’t know anymore.
Sounds hopeful. However, I remember ‘pundits’ claiming last NOV 4 that Romney would get 300+ electoral votes. Prognostition is no substitute for calling your reps early and often.
5 Facts against “Gun Control”
Nick Gillespie & Amanda Winkler | January 10, 2013 (reason.com)
1. Violent crime – including violent crime using guns – has dropped massively over the past 20 years.
The violent crime rate – which includes murder, rape, and beatings – is half of what it was in the early 1990s. And the violent crime rate involving the use of weapons has also declined at a similar pace.
2. Mass shootings have not increased in recent years.
Despite terrifying events like Sandy Hook or last summer’s theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, mass shootings are not becoming more frequent. “There is no pattern, there is no increase,” says criminologist James Allen Fox of Northeastern University, who studies the issue. Other data shows that mass killings peaked in 1929.
3. Schools are getting safer.
Across the board, schools are less dangerous than they used be.Over the past 20 years, the rate of theft per 1,000 students dropped from 101 to 18. For violent crime, the victimization rate per 1,000 students dropped from 53 to 14.
4. There Are More Guns in Circulation Than Ever Before.
Over the past 20 years, virtually every state in the country has liberalized gunownership rules and many states have expanded concealed carry laws that allow more people to carry weapons in more places. There around 300 million guns in the United States and at least one gun in about 45 percent of all households. Yet the rate of gun-related crime continues to drop.
5. “Assault Weapons Bans” Are Generally Ineffective.
While many people are calling for reinstating the federal ban on assault weapons – an arbitrary category of guns that has no clear definition – research shows it would have no effect on crime and violence. “Should it be renewed,” concludes a definitive study, “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is as horrifing a crime as can be imagined. It rips at the country’s heart and the call to action is strong and righteous. But as Joe Biden and his panel of experts consider changes to gun laws and school-safety policies, they need to lead with their heads and not just their hearts.
Over the past dozen years, too many policies – the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, the TARP bailouts – have been ruled by emotion and ideology.
Passing sweeping new restrictions on Second Amendment rights won’t heal the pain and loss we all feel but just may create many more problems in our future.
Commentary: 2nd amendment is the “linch-pin” Progressive New Left Activists see as the dismantling of USA’s Constitution. Coupled with this re-newed effort is LGBT’s incessant drive to “unlink” Our Creator from everything Judeo-Christian in Americas and Americans heritage. Their New Oxford Bible professes these precepts. Pray. Amen. Vigilance.