Standing alongside tearful families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre, a seething-mad President Obama lashed out against lawmakers who opposed a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun buyers, saying today marked a "shameful day for Washington."
"There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this. It came down to politics," the president said in a Rose Garden statement shortly after the Senate defeated the bipartisan Manchin-Toomey amendment.
The president said lawmakers who opposed the measure "caved" to pressure from the gun lobby and its allies who "willfully lied about the bill."
"A minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn't worth it," he said. "They worried that that vocal minority of gun-owners would come after them in future elections. They worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment. And obviously a lot of Republicans had that fear, but Democrats had that fear, too. And so they caved to the pressure, and they started looking for an excuse, any excuse, to vote no."
I think it will turn around and bite them on the ass, the pusillanimous Senators who feared voter retribution. Since most people in the country agree with the need for better gun control, some of these guys will pay in the next election.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
Watching control freaks whine and moan is always pleasing. What your side doesn't realize is that the politicians who voted in favor of gun control will pay for that come November 2014. Your side has a handful of states; we have most of the country.
ReplyDeleteMike, you're starting to sound like E.N. when he screams "We will Bury You!"
ReplyDeleteYou keep saying that the majority of the country wants gun control. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Just take a step back for a second and look at a couple things:
You and the Prez keep referring to the poll that said 90% supported background checks, yet at least my Senators said they were getting calls opposed to the law far exceeding those in favor--hence even Bob Corker voting against it. Either almost the entirety of that 10% was working the phones and writing letters (and almost none of the 90%) or that poll's results were as reliable as the polls that had Romney beating Obama.
Another thing that indicates that the poll may have been skewed is that it reported that 85% of NRA members favored Universal Checks, and that 65% of GOA members supported them. (I'm tossing those numbers from memory of a TV debate--could be off a bit.)
Yet the internal polls conducted by those organizations show miniscule support--especially, as one would suspect, internal polls from GOA. I would consider these internal polls to be more accurate since the sample groups can be drawn directly from the membership rolls rather than merely asking questions of members of a random sample of the general population who self identify as members of these organizations.
Additionally, when you look at the level of panic buying that happened over the past 5 months (6 really), it's hard to believe that it was all being done by tiny minority of the population. Especially when people I never knew had guns, and people I knew had guns but who never worried about getting ammo or about gun control before were suddenly worried and buying. Maybe it's just a red state thing, but at least around here, very few people wanted to see any of this garbage pass. For that reason, I'd say our Senators are safe, but would have been in peril had they voted for this law.
And now, Pardon me while I go do a happy dance and re-watch that video of angry Obama and pouting Joe Biden--Ding dong the bill is dead!!!
I guess we'll find out at the next election in less than two years.
DeleteAh, yes--bleat for me. You know how much I love that. Maybe a "Think of the children!" for good measure ;-).
ReplyDeleteDid you see the so-called "assault weapon" ban go down 40-60? Not only could Feinstein not get the supermajority she needed, or even a simple majority, a supermajority voted against her. If there had already been a ban, the forces of decency could have overturned it, even in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
That's just sweet.
Here's something I find interesting. Immediately after the past election cycle, there were many people (including, as I recall, several on this site) who spoke of the "gun lobby", specifically the NRA, as having become irrelevant. It's instructive to see how quickly and smoothly they now shift the narrative to reflect the power of an organization that just a few months ago was declared irrelevant. Now, I really need to do what I've been threatening and join...
ReplyDeleteGood point, RT. Let's see how influentual they are in the next election.
DeleteThe NRA's influence, or lack thereof, wasn't really the point. The shifting of the narrative was the point. As in "We've always been at war with Eastasia..."
DeleteBut I thought Wayne LaGoldstein was hiding in our perpetual enemy, Eurasia.
DeleteIt's almost like we had a constitutional republic form of government, again; and, the rights of the minority were protected against the forces of a socialist democracy.
ReplyDeleteorlin sellers
I guess you mean the will of the people (what you call socialist democracy) should not prevail. That's not what Thomas Jefferson said, in fact he said just the opposite. I'll go with his definition.
Delete“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” - Thomas Jefferson
DeleteHence Mr. Jefferson supporting a Constitutional Republic, where the rights of the minority are protected from the whim of the majority.
If the old guys would have wanted a democracy that's what they would have instituted, instead, they gave us a constitutional republic. Will of the people? Not hardly. The liberty of each individual was the goal.
Deleteorlin sellers
What we have is minority rule, which will end in rebellion sooner or later. Possibly armed, which is why the minority seek unfettered gun laws. Like to much money in to few hands, we have to many guns owned by a minority of Americans. So the facts say.
ReplyDeleteAt least one third and possibly much closer to half of all Americans own guns. That's a large minority. But perhaps you don't understand that our Constitution exists to protect the rights of minorities against the will of majorities in fundamental areas.
DeleteAnonymous, due to the tone of this comment and the one replying to Orlin, I'm assuming that you are the same commenter.
DeleteYou are correct that our government is generally supposed to follow the will of the people as reflected in the majority vote. However, Jefferson and the other founders did fear that the majority could easily repress the minority in a straight up democracy. That is why they set us up as a constitutional republic, as orlin stated. They intended the Constitution's limits to protect minorities from majority oppression like happened under the Jim Crow laws (which took too long to get rid of, but which were finally overturned).
Their other choices in structuring the government were intended to serve the same purpose--to dampen the speed with which a pure democracy would move and prevent emotional decisions of the majority from adversely affecting the minority.
You say that we have minority rule, but we really don't. The majority is still able to work its will in most areas. The fact that the minority is able to stonewall some specific policies is a not a bug, it's a feature, and it's one that we would all do well to remember when we get frustrated that one of our policies is being held up by a minority faction, because the tables may turn and we find ourselves in the minority some day.
As for your grim estimation of the future, there are many of us who fear that such an outcome may be coming. Note, I said fear, not look forward too. Sure, there are a few sickos like Kerodin (who Mike and I discussed the other day) who probably get a hard on just thinking about it, but those, unfortunately, exist on both sides of all issues--see Bill Ayers' activities in his younger days for an example of a leftist who, at least at one time, had a similar lack of scruples.
Right now, we are becoming Balkanized as a nation--not divided left vs. right, but truly Balkanized. Left vs. Right, pro-gun vs. anti-gun, Privacy and Due Process vs. War on Terror extralegal shenanigans, leave me alone libertarianism vs. elitist nannystatism, pro-life vs. pro-choice; right to educate your children vs. right of community to influence everyone else's children. Some of these divides line up, but they don't all overlap, and people are falling into different subgroups which are becoming farther apart so that we are becoming a tinderbox waiting for the pressure on one of these issues to reach a breaking point.
Many of these issues have one side driving the divide even deeper than it has been in the past. On the gun issue, it's the new round of gun control attempts that have raised the pitch on an issue that both parties were ignoring. On Civil liberties, it's powerful factions in both parties that have been pushing further and further. Before Obama's first election, I hoped that he'd pull back on the insanity since he and the Democrats had been protesting Bush's overreach, but then he tasted the power and took it to new heights with his Kill List and the portions of the 2012 NDAA. In this last election, I saw both candidates as equally capable of igniting that tinderbox.
If we don't take a step back and look at what's going on, I'm afraid we may see the outcome you predict. That's why I've been trying to explain the pro-gun side here (I'll admit I've gotten caustic at times because my past attempts at reason have been answered with insults to my intelligence and insults of the region I hail from by parties who haven't lived here and don't know what it's like here). It's why I try to point out the dangers of all the special rules in the "War on Terror" to Republican friends, and try to point out that the Democrats haven't stayed true to civil liberties to Democratic friends.
In these times, with all the tension building, maybe a little minority gridlock isn't such a bad thing--hopefully it gives us time to fix the fracturing before things get out of control.
Over 100,000,000 American citizens own at least one firearm. That's a pretty significant minority, wouldn't you say? And most of these people go to the polls on election day while the "Free Shit Army" sits on their asses come election day waiting on their government cheese. Is it any wonder y'all are losing the battle on gun control?
DeleteNo, Mr. G., I wouldn't say. As I've told Greg many times, which he keeps ignoring, you guys cannot claim kinship with the 100,000,000. Many of them have granddad's hunting rifle in the garage and they haven't seen it in years. Many more actually agree with the gun control folks on the hot issues. And a still larger number are apathetic and couldn't give a shit one way or another.
DeleteNo, you gun-rights fanatics are a tiny minority.
That is until you offered to throw the guy with granddad's hunting rifle in the garage in prison for improper storage, or conducting an illegal transfer for going out of town for more than seven days. You've done a remarkable job of pushing the apathetic ones towards us "fanatics".
DeleteApathetic people don't vote one way or the other in any consistent manner. The number of people who yearn for gun control is much smaller than the dedicated supporters of gun rights. If you doubt that, look at how often we win.
DeleteI don't think so, TS. Any fence-sitters who read these pages would most likely come over to the gun control side. For one reason, they'd know that I never said "granddad's hunting rifle in the garage" should land the owner in jail. And they'd be slightly offended that you felt it necessary to purposely mis-characterize what I say like that. They'd ask themselves, if those pro-gun guys were right why do they keep exaggerating and lying.
DeleteYou have a hyperinflated view of yourself, Mikeb. An undecided reader here will see how your side is alternatively insane or dismissive, will see how you never address facts, will see your tingles of joy at the idea of violating rights, and will walk away with a recognition that no one like you can ever be allowed in power.
DeleteMike,
DeleteWe've already seen one self-identified liberal repudiate gun control after reading the exchanges here.
As for TS's other comments--you've never stated it the way he did, but you have said that unless someone had a gun in a safe, they should lose their rights if someone steals their gun and they should be held responsible if the crook shoots himself with it.
As for the other part, people know that the Schumer bill would have criminalized leaving your gun with someone when you leave town for over a week. You never called for that, but you did support the bill and held out for days after we kept showing you how bad that bill was. Even after we convinced you, you preferred to have that bill, with its overreach, rather than no gun control. That's the type of attitude that helps us greatly.