# Surprising? No "pro-gun rights" Senators would go on Meet the Press Sunday **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [December 17, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325 "2012-12-17T18:05:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/1 "2012-12-17T18:05:27Z")
> [@](#): > > ‘Meet The Press’ host David Gregory said that no pro-gun rights senators would agree to go on the show on Sunday. > > “We reached out to all 31 pro-gun rights senators in the new Congress to invite them on the program to share their views on the subject this morning,” he said. “We had no takers.” > [@](#): > > “Face the Nation” invited on politicians who oppose gun control, including representatives from the NRA, but they declined the program’s requests. I just want to talk about this politically. Is this unusual? Did this happen after the Sikh shooting or the Aurora shooting? Does is have any significance? I’m not interested in yet another gun rights or gun control argument. This is just about how this is going politically. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/2 "2012-12-17T18:13:11Z")
There was nothing to be gained from it politically. Despite a great deal of hollering from both sides of the gun debate over the last few days, I doubt the line has budged. The pro-gun side is still pro and the anti-gun side is still anti. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/3 "2012-12-17T18:14:56Z")
I agree that there was nothing to be gained, but the anti-gun people showed up. And it seems (note the “seems.” I’m hardly keeping track) that the NRA usually wouldn’t turn down an offer like this. Sorry, I forgot the link in the OP: [David Gregory: No Pro-Gun Rights Senators Would Go On 'Meet The Press' | HuffPost Latest News](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/david-gregory-pro-gun-rights-senators_n_2311559.html) ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/4 "2012-12-17T18:17:24Z")
It seems a few congress critters are re-thinking their views, either as a reaction to the tragedy or perhaps as a cynical nod to public sentiment. From the [New York Times](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/renewed-and-some-new-support-for-gun-control/): > [@](#): > > Joe Manchin III, the pro-gun-rights West Virginia senator who drew attention in 2010 after running a commercial that showed him firing a rifle at an environmental bill, said that “everything should be on the table” as gun control is debated in the coming weeks and months. > > Representative John Yarmuth, a moderate Democrat from Kentucky, held a news conference to say he backed new legislation. > > “I have been largely silent on the issue of gun violence over the past six years, and I am now as sorry for that as I am for what happened to the families who lost so much in this most recent, but sadly not isolated, tragedy,” Mr. Yarmuth said in a statement. “The National Rifle Association has spent untold millions of dollars instilling fear in our citizens and our politicians.” > > He added, “ **I believe it is more rational to fear guns far more than the illusory political power of the N.R.A.** ” ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/5 "2012-12-17T18:18:49Z")
Accepting this particular invitation would have been foolish. There’s an feeding frenzy of gun-grabbing hysteria at the moment. The invitation wasn’t really for a reasoned debate, it was a request for a public whipping boy. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/6 "2012-12-17T18:31:01Z")
You’re right, there’s an absolute absence of any discussion. Because people from the NRA and the like push phrases like “feeding frenzy of gun-grabbing hysteria” to avoid it. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/7 "2012-12-17T18:33:30Z")
But - that in itself is a new attitude. Pro-gun politicians have never seen themselves as “whipping boys” before after previous shootings, have they? I think it would be a strategical mistake for the Democrats to push to far on anti-gun legislation here but there does seem to be a new wind blowing. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/8 "2012-12-17T18:34:29Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > It seems a few congress critters are re-thinking their views, either as a reaction to the tragedy or perhaps as a cynical nod to public sentiment. Can anyone provide any context as to how, if at all, this differs from reactions to previous incidents? ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/9 "2012-12-17T18:39:17Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > It seems a few congress critters are re-thinking their views, either as a reaction to the tragedy or perhaps as a cynical nod to public sentiment. From the [New York Times](http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/renewed-and-some-new-support-for-gun-control/): The NRA’s power is not illusory. The Democratic Party found this out after they passed The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act in '94. Bill Clinton himself admits as much in his autobiography. > [@](#): > > “Just before the House vote (on the crime bill), Speaker Tom Foley and majority leader Dick Gephardt had made a last-ditch appeal to me to remove the assault weapons ban from the bill. They argued that many Democrats who represented closely divided districts had already…defied the NRA once on the Brady bill vote. They said that if we made them walk the plank again on the assault weapons ban, the overall bill might not pass, and that if it did, many Democrats who voted for it would not survive the election in November. Jack Brooks, the House Judiciary Committee chairman from Texas, told me the same thing…Jack was convinced that if we didn’t drop the ban, the NRA would beat a lot of Democrats by terrifying gun owners…Foley, Gephardt, and Brooks were right and I was wrong. The price…would be heavy casualties among its defenders.” (Pages 611-612) > “On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate races and fifty-four House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946…The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. Foley was the first Speaker to be defeated in more than a century. Jack Brooks had supported the NRA for years and had led the fight against the assault weapons ban in the House, but as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he had voted for the overall crime bill even after the ban was put into it. The NRA was an unforgiving master: one strike and you’re out. The gun lobby claimed to have defeated nineteen of the twenty-four members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage…” (Pages 629-630) > “One Saturday morning, I went to a diner in Manchester full of men who were deer hunters and NRA members. In impromptu remarks, I told them that I knew they had defeated their Democratic congressman, Dick Swett, in 1994 because he voted for the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. Several of them nodded in agreement.” (Page 699) That was before widespread internet use, too. The NRA did that with magazine articles and mass mailings. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/10 "2012-12-17T18:46:05Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > Accepting this particular invitation would have been foolish. There’s an feeding frenzy of gun-grabbing hysteria at the moment. The invitation wasn’t really for a reasoned debate, it was a request for a public whipping boy. I agree it would have been foolish. It is far easier to say that the deaths of 20 children are well worth our gun rights on a message board than to say this in front of the national press. BTW, how many deaths before the “hysteria” is justified? 20 is clearly not enough. 40? 100? 1,000? 3,000? ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/11 "2012-12-17T18:47:18Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > BTW, how many deaths before the “hysteria” is justified? 20 is clearly not enough. 40? 100? 1,000? 3,000? Have you stopped beating your wife? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/12 "2012-12-17T18:47:50Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Can anyone provide any context as to how, if at all, this differs from reactions to previous incidents? No one seemed to want to talk about increasing controls on guns after the Aurora incident. But (most) human beings feel a lot more strongly about innocent children being slaughtered than moviegoers, it seems. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/13 "2012-12-17T18:50:34Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > BTW, how many deaths before the “hysteria” is justified? 20 is clearly not enough. 40? 100? 1,000? 3,000? I’d like to keep this thread on the political fallout, please. Australia and the UK both enacted different gun control laws as a result of this sort of mass killing. That hardly means the same thing will happen in the US, but it lends credence to the idea that big stories can change everything. (Look to 911 and the shoe bomber for other examples.) ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/14 "2012-12-17T19:10:54Z")
It shows a cowardly lack of courage. If guns were so great, they’d go on and defend it, especially after a national tragedy like this where the nation’s attention would be most focused on this problem. Instead they are content to try to bury this, like the NRA shut down their Facebook and Twitter feeds, so that once things blow over, they can get back to the business of selling us things that kill ourselves ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/15 "2012-12-17T19:15:29Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > It shows a cowardly lack of courage. If guns were so great, they’d go on and defend it, especially after a national tragedy like this where the nation’s attention would be most focused on this problem. Instead they are content to try to bury this, like the NRA shut down their Facebook and Twitter feeds, so that once things blow over, they can get back to the business of selling us things that kill ourselves One might as easily say that the anti’s who did show up displayed a reprehensible willingness to wallow in the blood of children in order to further their political agenda; an activity that anybody with a shred of decency and decorum would find repugnant. Are we done playing that game now? ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/16 "2012-12-17T19:20:22Z")
No, because I agree that shutting down your Facebook page is a cowardly move. Unless you’re also disbanding the organization because you’ve suddenly realized that gun control is a good idea after all, crawling away with your tail between your legs makes you look like you only stand behind your principles when the going is good. When the going gets tough, the NRA hides from the Internet, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/17 "2012-12-17T19:21:04Z")
Why do many pro-gun people like myself step back and keep silent in times like this? Because there’s nothing to be said. Anti-Gunners spin it as “what do you have to say THIS TIME!” I say that I’m tired of saying the same damned thing over and over, one incident doesn’t change anything, and you’re not really listening if you have to keep asking the same thing time and time again every time something else pops up. Why are there incidents like this? Primarily the Media. We’ve become a Celebrity Culture. Anything for attention, whether good or bad. And shooting up a school is someone screaming “I’m going to make the world listen to me!”. The media sensationalizes these incidents. They traumatize the nation and the world because it SELLS. It makes money. And each time something like this happens and gets all that attention, some other sick individual who thinks no one gives a shit about them\* decides “Hey, that sounds like just the ticket for me!” If it wasn’t guns, it would be knives, swords, bombs, plowing cars into crowds, etc. The gun only makes it easier for them to kill themselves at the end of it. - Here’s the TRUTH: NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT ANYONE. Get used to it. The World doesn’t give a rats ass about you, me or anyone else. Get the fuck over it, like everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/18 "2012-12-17T19:32:38Z")
In sheer political terms, Sandy Hook will be looked back upon as a turning point. Just as politicians have been itching for a time to overthrow Grover Norquist and seized upon the election as the opportunity, politicians have been looking for a situation so heinous that they could survive taking a stand against the NRA. This is it. With public faces like Joe Scarborough [reversing his stand](http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/12/17/joe-scarborough-gun-control/) from someone who had “received the NRA’s highest ratings over four terms in Congress” providing cover, the pendulum will start to swing. Progress will be as slow as the campaigns for gay marriage and decriminalized marijuana, but we’re heading for a future in which limiting access to guns will be the norm. That’s the best-case scenario. The worst case is one in which there are two camps in America: a side that says “the only way you’ll get my gun is to pry it from my cold, dead fingers” and a side that says, “Fine with us.” If the NRA has any political sense - that’s a big if - it will opt for the best case. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/19 "2012-12-17T19:36:04Z")
Unfortunately, the NRA is run by a bunch of rabid morons who make the Tea Party look moderate. And I say that as a Benefactor Member. I don’t foresee any changes on that front unless the membership takes things in hand at the next election. Even then, it would take a sea change, as the election process is fairly well rigged. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325/20 "2012-12-17T19:37:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > With public faces like Joe Scarborough [reversing his stand](http://popwatch.ew.com/2012/12/17/joe-scarborough-gun-control/) from someone who had “received the NRA’s highest ratings over four terms in Congress” providing cover, the pendulum will start to swing. He has nothing to lose as he is a _former_ congressman. Now he is a TV personality where controversy = ratings. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surprising-no-pro-gun-rights-senators-would-go-on-meet-the-press-sunday/644325.md?page=2)