Gun Control: Obama Fail?

Barack Obama

Obama lost the gun debate recently.  Now, there is some discussion as to whether he was playing politics or really trying to pass new regulations concerning the purchase of guns.

In either case, it’s hard to argue that he won or scored points.

And yeah, Obama smarted.  He was visibly upset and even took offense to the notion that he used the Newtown families as props.  “As if” he claimed.

But he did:

If you believe that politics were at play, that the plan was to pass the bill in the senate and then have it fail in house only to pin the republicans as killers, he failed.  The senate is under democrat control and he couldn’t even get all of THEM to vote with him.

However, if you are less cynical and think that Obama was really trying to pass legislation that would impact guns and how they are bought and sold, well, again, he failed.  Not one new regulation even moved out of the upper chamber for consideration by the house.

Why?

Well, Reid and Obama didn’t want debate:

A word, first, about that Senate “minority.” Majority Leader Harry Reid was free to bring the deal struck by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey to the floor for an up-or-down vote, and this background-checks amendment might have passed. It did convince 54 Senators, including four Republicans.

But under Senate rules, a simple majority vote would have opened the measure to up to 30 hours of debate, which would have meant inspecting the details. The White House demanded, and Mr. Reid agreed, that Congress should try to pass the amendment without such a debate.

No debate – no up-or-down vote.

Oh yeah, there is a ton of talk about the filibuster being used to defeat any gun legislation, but every time democrats bring that argument into play, it’s important to point out that Reid doesn’t allow amendments to bills he DOES bring to the floor:

Majority rules would have also opened the bill to pro-gun amendments that were likely to pass. That would have boxed Mr. Reid into the embarrassing spectacle of having to later scotch a final bill because it also contained provisions that the White House loathes. So Mr. Reid moved under “unanimous consent” to allow nine amendments, each with a 60-vote threshold.

The White House was right to worry. An amendment from John Cornyn of Texas that would have required all states to recognize every other state’s concealed-carry permits earned 57 votes, 13 Democrats among them. The nearby table has the list. On Thursday, Wyoming’s John Barrasso offered an amendment to protect gun ownership privacy that passed 67-30.

Obama didn’t want amendments.

And while the bill has language that prohibits the creation of a national registration, there was language that didn’t demonstrate intent:

Manchin-Toomey was rushed together on a political timetable, and a thorough scrub would have revealed that its finer legal points aren’t as modest as liberals claim. Tellingly, the White House blew up earlier negotiations with Tom Coburn on background checks. The Oklahoma Republican favored more and better checks across secondary firearms markets like gun shows and online, but liberals insisted that federally licensed dealers had to keep records.

But did the GOP do nothing but resist?

The Senate GOP offered an alternative background-checks amendment that failed 52-48. Nine Democrats were in favor, but their colleagues voted en masse to block it from moving forward. How’s that for incoherent?

Hardly.

Whatever Obama’s agenda was, political brinksmanship or honest to goodness legislating, he failed.  And gun regulation is a biggie.  Or was.

6 responses to “Gun Control: Obama Fail?

  1. I think the elephant in the room here is the assumption that voting against gun control is safer for most politicians then voting for it. That has been the operating principle for the entire GOP and for a good chunk of democrats since around 2000.

    The NRA opposed the bill, so the G.O.P. opposed the bill and a few scared democrats went along. Now if that operating assumption were demonstrated no longer to be accurate, we might see a different result down the road http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/04/poll-backlash-senators-background-checks.php.

    • I think the elephant in the room here is the assumption that voting against gun control is safer for most politicians then voting for it.

      I think the elephant in the room is the fact that the democrats don’t want Americans to own guns; they would rather we be more like the UK and just outlaw them.

      If that’s the case, admit it, own it and try to sell it.

      Otherwise this bullshit that Obama is shoveling is just that – bullshit.

  2. This is pure, unsupported paranoia.

    • This is pure, unsupported paranoia.

      Do you think that John Lott is incorrect in his recollection of Obama’s stance on guns during his time at the University of Chicago?

      Then there is this. And that was after just 15 seconds on Google:

      In the House, HR2038 has been introduced by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. Instead of a “reauthorization” of the earlier ban, McCarthy wants to ban millions more guns and begin a backdoor national registration scheme. All told, HR2038 is a giant step closer to the goal stated by the assault-weapons ban sponsor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on CBS “60 Minutes”: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them — Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in — I would have done it.”

  3. Here’s what I think
    1) even if Obama did want to ban all guns, and he’s made clear that he doesn’t, the Supreme Court wouldn’t allow it. They’ve already struck down handgun bans, so anything as broad or broader than that isn’t going anywhere anyway.

    2) the background check wouldn’t have stopped a single person who is entitled to own a gun from owning one. The reason amendments were limited on the bill is because the GOP had pledged to propose amendments to try and poison the bill so that even democrats wouldn’t support it.

  4. Anything that President Obama makes clear is never clear. In 1996 State Senate Candidate Obama favored Gay Marriage. In 2004 State Senator Barak Obama was against Gay Marriage. In 2007 Presidential Candidate Barak Hussein Obama was again for Gay Marriage. President Obama drew a red line in the sand about Syria using chemical weapons. It would be a game changer, except now it isn’t.

    President Obama does not now want to ban guns unless down the road the politics make it possible for him to evolve towards that goal.

    The Supreme Court cannot be trusted to stop gun banning. Roberts caved on Obama-Care and made up new law. If the anti gunners ever get momentum going their way down that slippery slope, Justice Roberts will be greasing the way with new English words.

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