NBC starts off its story on the gun control bill with a fib:
The bipartisan effort to expand background checks will not have the votes to advance in the Senate today, according to one of the architects of the deal.
It’s not a very bipartisan bill. Most Republicans have opposed it from the beginning, as have some Democrats, albeit quietly. It lacks a majority. The majority of the American people don’t believe it would have stopped any of the past mass attacks or prevent future ones. It has Sen. Toomey, a Republican, on board largely he was under assault from Michael Bloomberg’s big money lobby. Had he not been attacked from the left, it’s reasonable to believe that Toomey would never have signed onto it. If it was a bipartisan bill, it was only so under duress.
Moving on:
“We will not get the votes today,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., told NBC News.
Potential supporters, Republican Sens. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, and Florida’s Marco Rubio, could not risk a stand on background checks in the face of opposition from their conservative base because they are already leading on immigration, Manchin said.
Sources also told NBC News that the effort’s proponents are 4 to 5 votes short, a gulf that could widen if Democrats in conservative states decide not to support the measure.
Support for new gun control laws has dipped to below majority, as Americans have seen a wave of legislatures under Democrat control hastily pass laws that criminalized police and infringed on the Second Amendment. A majority, 52 percent, now even disapprove of how President Obama is handling gun laws.
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