I don’t think the GOP minority is going to have as much power under the new Senate rules.
This is the dumbest fucking move the democrats could make right now. They’ve got the Republicans on the ropes. The crazy is out of hand, no one has control of that beast, and the American people are coming to realize this. We’re coming to a point where the Republican party can’t continue in their current batshit form, and would either regain sanity or be relegated to a permanent minority.
And then, as per usual, democrats are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
And for what? When they spent a lot of political capital on our medical system’s reform, we were talking about a difference of millions of people who could gain access to health care - millions of lives improved and probably many thousands of people saved. Furthermore, we were trying to get costs - hundreds of billions of dollars, a significant fraction of our economy, under control.
The democrats used up a lot of capital and inspired a lot of hate, but it was a big issue, and you could say it was worth it.
So now they’re going to play right in the Republican hands and spend a similar amount of capital. Gun control isn’t nearly as an important issue as health care, but the hatred and opposition it raises are similar in scope, maybe even greater. It will be just as hard a fight, maybe even harder.
And for what benefit? To ban “assault weapons” which are used in less than half of one percent of gun crimes? You can’t even say that if they were banned it would’ve prevented any particular crime or tragedy. Was the school shooter going to pack up and go home if he didn’t have an AR-15? He’d have grabbed any other non-“assault weapon” semi-automatic rifle with the same capabilities, or a 12ga shotgun and killed just as many people.
So we’re spending just as much political capital on this fucking minor non-issue that won’t actually affect anything, or at most, perhaps affect a few dozen lives as we did on an issue that affects millions of lives and the whole country’s economy.
It gives a huge support injection into the republicans who were finally losing the support of the American people and reinvigorates them to damage the country further. It wastes political capital that could be spent on things that actually matter.
I usually think Obama is a pretty savvy politician, but this is just fucking stupid. Bad strategy, bad policy, no upside.
You’d be surprised. Gun control isn’t as clear cut a left/right issue as you think. There are plenty on the left that can see this for the useless nonsense that it is. I mean, I personally go from a pretty solid Obama supporter to going back to neutral on him.
Greg Sargent at the Washington Post thinks the details of that poll show that Dems have little to worry about politically regading new gun control legislation (parenthetical mine):
So the Dem’s base–the coalition that got Obama and the Dems elected–is strongly in favor of gun control legislation. The largest opposition comes from non-college rural whites, who by and large think Obama is the Antichrist anyway. And if we believe that the demographic shift is making this group more and more of a minority for future elections, it seems likely that gun control will become more of a litmus test for future Dems.
As a result of this cultural shift, Dems no longer live in fear of two of the three “God, guns, and gays” issues the GOP has used in recent elections to torpedo Dems. It seems likely guns are next, as the ascendant demographic groups–highly urbanized and poor–start to view guns less as an expression of American freedom and more as a policy problem that calls for government intervention.
To further the point raised by CJJ*, in my opinion, recent political movement should have told the Democratic Party that vocal, affirmative, proactive advocacy of positions is appealing to people.
I marveled at the clarity of the Dem convention on abortion rights and LGBT equality issues, and people responded enthusiastically. It starkly contrasted with the mealy mouthed stances on these issues in the very recent past.
That’s why I’m comfortable dismissing SenorBeef’s dire warnings without reservation. Champion a position clearly and forcefully, especially one that majority favors, and even more people will be drawn to you. Be hesitant, tepid and fearful, and people will question whether they ought to bother with you or not.
Liberals would be fools to underestimate the NRA. The NRA is the Obi Wan Kenobi of political groups. You try to slay it and it comes back more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
This is an organization that in spite of its leader going on national television and acting like a complete nut in the wake of 20 kids getting shot, still managed to see its ranks swell like never before.
Remember how a lot of people thought that Columbine would finally sound the NRA’s death knell? Instead it came back just as strong as ever. It’s an organization that thrives when it’s on the defensive.
As CJJ, said, the NRA’s message probably won’t gain much traction with the Democratic base. But it’s not the base you have to worry about, it’s the middle, which the Dems still need in order to win national elections and close congressional races.
And because the NRA has such a firm grip on the GOP, any proposals that Obama dares to suggest, regardless of how innocuous they may be, will go nowhere in the House, if for no other reason than because they came from Obama. If the Republican leadership is inclined to even let such proposals reach the floor for a vote, it’s only so they can later run campaign ads about how Joe Blow (D-Springfield) voted to take your guns away.
Not saying that the Dems are necessarily in the wrong here. Just pointing out that this battle is going to be a lot tougher than most people here are anticipating.
Well, we have the proposals and they don’t seem innocuous.
Plus 23 executive orders:
(Stupid slideshow - I’ll try and find a better link)
Oh, here we go with the Executive Orders:
Gun Violence Reduction Executive Actions
Today, the President is announcing that he and the Administration will:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
11. Nominate an ATF director.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities. 18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges.
22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
Obama’s executive actions and proposals. Well, I see Merneith beat me to it while I was looking for a cite that listed the executive orders and proposals in one place.
Isn’t that largely because they keep offering new discounts on guns to get their membership up? There’s nothing wrong with that, but it hardly suggests their power is growing or that there’s a groundswell or support for LaPierre’s ideas.
Do you think then, that all this focus on “assault weapons” which are involved in less than half of one percent of gun crime, is on the same level as goals such as acceptance of homosexuals and reforming our medical system? Are these things on the same level in terms of our importance?
“Yes, of course, kids die!” is a shitty answer. If you were really interested in attacking gun crime, we’d be talking about handguns, because that’s where the vast majority of gun crimes come from. The fact that we’re focusing so much on a bullshit class of “assault weapons” that look scary indicates that the efforts aren’t a sincere effort to improve public safety and target gun crime. But rather, they’re an emotional reaction driven by ignorance.
Now, seeing the list of proposals, none of that actually focuses on “assault weapons” - and yet, I listened to his press conference a few hours ago, and he mentions military style assault weapons at least a dozen times. Why would you have to dress up proposals about expanding background checks and such under such a banner?
Because his proposals include an Assault weapons ban? Its not an executive order, but its one of the proposed pieces of legislation.
Because if he doesn’t specify that he’s talking about particular types of guns and parts and accessories, people are going to accuse him of trying to eliminate all guns.
So then we’re implicitly supporting the idea that attacking the guns that are involved in well under 1 percent of gun crime is an issue with political importance as great as reforming our healthcare system or equal rights for gays? Is this really at the top of our national priorities, and worth empowering the republicans who will come back from this and really fuck shit up?
Why do you think that proposing legislation means the President puts the issue at equal levels of importance? More likely it will get proposed, get filibustered (or straight voted down) in the Senate, and not even get voted on in the House. I doubt you will here much more from Obama after today about this, but I could be wrong. Certainly you won’t see all of the legislative maneuvering, payoffs, and reconciliation procedures used for the ACA.
This is Politics 101 - if there is a big event and your base calls for action you have to give them something. If it doesn’t go anywhere you blame the other side and call for renewed support (read: money) to try again in the future. You let your caucus treat it as a “vote of conscience” so that those in vulnerable states and districts can do what’s best for them and their constituents.
As you said, the list of executive orders doesn’t mention assault weapons, so the focus of the effort is fairly broad as regards gun violence. Why are you almost pathologically focused on assault weapons?
And yes, for some reason you do not get what the effect of Sandy Hook was. The “now is not the day to talk about this problem” was a mechanism for empowering the NRA/Republicans. Avoiding the issue is not a way to take control of it. Sandy Hook was so powerfully jarring, it changed the landscape entirely.
This idea of the NRA as superpowerful seems about as legitimate now as the “Karl Rove is a political supergenius” story does. The NRA is a stumble-fuck organization whose every step in the past month has been a head-scratching joke. Have you seen their new commercial yet?
I don’t think this will hurt the Dems and usher in another GOP revolution like 1994. I think people are sick to death of these mass killings and will see the continuing GOP obstruction as something not to be rewarded. 2 years is a long time and by the 2014 midterms, there will be little residual outrage to motivate enough conservatives to vote GOP over this one thing. I do think the House Republicans will kill this particular bill though, and I hope they have to pay for it later
He already passed healthcare reform. And several measures to expand rights for gays. So it appears Obama agrees with your priorities.
I don’t really care about the AWB one way or the other (and in any case, its not going to pass the House). But the rest of the proposed legislation seems pretty reasonable, and seems like it will have at least a decent chance of becoming law (especially closing background check loopholes, its sort of ridiculous those have survived this long). I’m not sure the mental health stuff will do that much to prevent gun violence, but its probably a good idea in any case.
Because we’ve all seen what a hot button issue gun control is. The republican takeover in '94 is pretty clearly attributible to the '94 AWB. Gun control is a serious fucking issue for gun rights advocates, and it’s going to fire up opposition in the extreme. To use this much political capital to tackle an issue, you must think it’s really fucking important.
There’s nothing but downside in this. You’ll say that Obama isn’t losing anyone by doing this, but I quite disagree - there are lots of Obama supporters who are also gun rights advocates. The political reality is that he’s not gaining any supporters by doing this - while gun rights advocacy has significant support on the left, gun control advocacy has almost no support on the right.
It’s politically stupid, it’s stupid policy (attacking the guns involved in a miniscule number of crimes), and it’s a stupid use of political capital.
There’s no such thing as attacking guns, and the assault weapons concept is part of a broad range of proposals that are supposed to improve law enforcement, mental health services, and school security as well as reducing crimes committed using all kinds of guns.
It wouldn’t be a top priority if it hadn’t been ignored for so long.
The idea that the Republicans were going away forever is pretty shaky - they have control of one House of Congress, almost half the Senate, and plenty of state legislatures and governorships. And no, this issue along isn’t going to do what you’re saying.
That’s more or less my gut feeling on this too- it’s not nearly such a clearly drawn partisan issue as say, healthcare reform. There are plenty of minority and liberal gun rights people out there- even here on the SDMB, I’ve seen several posts by posters who on most issues would solidly swing Democrat, be solidy pro-gun.
I suspect this is more of a regional thing than a party thing as well. Going to the shooting range in western Houston, you find all kinds- men, women, gay, straight, black, white, hispanic, etc… It’s really not what you might think (white, male, older, angry). I’d bet that those people vote all over the map, but are all probably firmly pro-gun. And there are LOTS of them- the range is very large, and is frequently packed on the weekends- so much so that you have to wait for a lane often times.
It was partially attributible to the AWB maybe. But the basic reasons went a lot deeper then that. There isn’t really a comparable situation today. It might cost the Dems some seats (though I doubt it), but we won’t see anything like '94.
I guess. But amongst other changes since '94, the NRA and SCOTUS have pretty much put a hard political and legal limit on how far gun laws are able to go. A govenment ban on guns was at least somewhat conceivable in '94. Today, its pretty much been relegated to the fever-dreams of paranoid anti-government types. And they’re going to keep believing it regardless of what Obama does.
Only one part of the proposal deals with assault weapons. What do you think of the rest of it?