There are some people who think that Manchin-Toomey could not have gotten past congress even immediately after the NRA’s disastrous response to Newtown. I remember things differently.
I remember a time back in January when I think the pro-gun side of the debate would have jumped at something as watered down as Manchin-Toomey. I remember a time when the anti-gun side seemed pretty sure that something was going to happen.
I think that the anti-gun folks overplayed their hand and screwed up their chances at getting anything by pursuing an AWB as the centerpeice of their legislative push.
So do you think that gun legislation was doomed from the start or did the anti-gun folks shoot themselves in the foot by pursuing an AWB (or was it something else)?
This is America; there was never any chance of real gun control, nor will there be any for the foreseeable future. The gun nuts will keep their toys, and the rest of us in and out of America will pay the price for it.
the National Firearms Act;
the Safe Streets Act;
the Gun Control Act;
the Firearm Owners Protection Act;
the Gun Free School Zones Act;
the Brady Act;
or the Federal Assault Weapons Ban?
I think this. There was an opportunity for anti-gun advocates to make a little progress, if they would have settled for ‘a little progress’.
But then they replied with a revival of Diane Feinstein’s bill to ban non-existent assault weapons, banning the so-called ‘gun show loop hole’ which also doesn’t exist. Then there was a smorgasbord of hopeful items like recording ammo purchases and other issues that had nothing to do with the reasons behind the mass shootings. There was an almost glee at the prospect that, *now is the time *to achieve our gun control objectives all at once.
But it wasn’t the time.
We were not allowed to discuss the actual background of these disturbed individuals or their psychological problems, or medications, because of privacy you know. The Sandy Hook shooter is dead. He didn’t buy any guns, he stole them during a murder. The Colorado theater shooter is now going for an insanity defense. Both of these disturbed young men had shown many signs of instability prior to the events.
Then there was the issue that none of the proposed solutions would have prevented any of these events. That was roundly ignored.
‘A little’ might have been possible. After the media frenzy and the congressional theater from these recent events it is no longer possible to restrict gun rights in the US. Indeed there is a backlash against new gun law proposals.
We will see if the gun control advocates are vindicated in the next election or whether this issue works against them.
Naturally. America is a nation devoted to selfishness and brutality; there’s nothing more American than spreading death and suffering and destruction. A true American is someone who will willingly sacrifice his or her children and those of others to death by guns, because guns are important, while children are only of use in that they can eventually be used to fire guns.
Tell me, Der Trihs, do you still stand by your statement that you would murder and rob an innocent bystander to sustain your own life? If so, perhaps you are not in a position to accuse others of selfishness and brutality.
I agree with your take, the gun-control Congressmen gambled and lost, there was an excellent chance of passing something like Manchin-Toomey if it had been the plan from the outset.
So, we have a surge in support for gun control, and a profoundly inept response from the NRA. Seems to me like a recipe for passing a modest law as quickly as possible. In April, after the gun-control side had gone for broke, they still got 54 votes for Manchin-Toomey in the Senate. It’s not a huge reach that they could have found another 6, given that there were 3 Democrat “no’s”, and if something like Manchin-Toomey was framed as a mild concession needed to hold off much more far-reaching control. Instead, it proved to be fairly easy to give no ground whatsoever.
So your evidence is that polling on the broader question of “should gun control laws be made more strict” got 57 percent support in December in polling done by CBS?
So, the same poll done in late April 2013 resulted in 54% endorsement.
How is this evidence to explain the failure of Manchin Toomey, particularly vis a vis universal background checks?
I would look at who voted to against the gun control bill, and if they would have done so back in January even without the AWB. I see little reason to be hopeful that simple political discourse could change someone’s opinion. More likely that the NRA and its ilk laid low after Newton for a while, waiting to see what would happen. When a bill was moving through Congress and getting consideration, they pounced.
Even without the AWB, does anyone think the NRA would be for gun control? Especially in light of all of the demonizing and lies they spread against it? These are the same people who feel empowered going against 90% of the American people and more then 80% of their own members. The NRA would never have let any bill get through
What sort of evidence would you possibly accept of a hypothetical outcome? Testimony from Senators in a parallel universe? Can you prove that Manchin-Toomey wouldn’t have passed if it was the only bill proposed?
Once the assault weapon ban went back on the table, it provided political cover for opposition to all the bills, in part because the average person can’t be bothered to learn exactly what’s in each bill. If something like Manchin-Toomey was the only bill introduced, that cover would not exist. As it was, Manchon-Toomey and the assault weapons ban were conflated by several gun-owning friends of mine, and I doubt they are the only ones. If the bill could have been brought to a vote sooner, the NRA would have had less time to recover from their PR blunders and organize opposition to and distortion of Manchin-Toomey.
Again, we’re talking about 6 more votes in the Senate. Given that Sen. Manchin’s appeal to the Senate was “The only thing that we’ve asked for is that people would just read the bill”, and that his post-mortem was that the NRA had lied about the bill, it’s not rocket science to realize that such deception is much harder with a single bill, and that Senators in moderate areas have an easier time defending their votes when some of their constituents think that it was an assault weapon ban that they voted against.
And, some well-above-zero percentage of phone calls and emails and such flooding Senators’ inboxes expressing opposition to new gun laws were motivated by the notion that it was an assault-weapon ban that was in the offing, not a mere overhaul of NICS and some expanded background checks. People like me, who own firearms that would be outlawed as assault weapons but have no problem with expanded background checks, do exist. Gun owners aren’t as monolithic as people imagine.
Gun enthusiasts have had a run where US gun laws became weaker and weaker. But, judging by this animation, the shall-issue permit trend peaked about three years ago:
