Mitch McConnell posted this image mocking Democrats for losing on gun control
From Grace Wyler, Business Insider
Republican Minority Leader Mitch wasted no time mocking his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid Wednesday over the Senate’s failure to pass a bipartisan gun control bill that would have expanded background checks for gun purchases.
Moments after the vote — as Democrats joined victims of gun violence to mourn the defeat — McConnell’s team posted this to the Kentucky Senator’s Facebook page with the caption: “We love the memes you send us! Keep them coming!”
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Public opinion gets trumped in gun control defeat
By CNN Political Editor Paul Steinhauser
Washington (CNN) – Four months after the massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, the gun-control proposal with arguably the best chance of passing through Congress went down to defeat. And in this case, a powerful gun lobby, coupled with 2014 campaign politics, trumped public opinion.
A bipartisan yet controversial proposal that would have extended current background checks for gun buyers to include gun shows and internet sales Wednesday fell six votes shy of the 60 needed in the Senate to advance through the chamber. The amendment by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania went down in defeat even though just about every national poll conducted the past couple of months indicated that the vast majority of Americans supported tougher background checks.
The most recent surveys included a CNN/ORC International poll released last week that indicated 86% of the public supported some form of background checks that are not currently required by law for gun sales, and an ABC News/Washington Post survey released Tuesday which indicated that 86% of Americans said they favored background checks for gun sales on the internet and at gun shows.
The two new polls were also in-line with past surveys by indicating no partisan divide on the question, with the vast majority of Democrats, independents, and even Republicans supporting increased background checks. The ABC/Washington Post survey also indicated that 86% of gun owning households supported the proposal.
The bill was backed by President Barack Obama, who’s made gun control a signature issue since December’s horrific shootings by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 young students and 6 adults dead. The president’s been a vocal advocate for passing gun control legislation, and he’s touted public opinion as he pushed Congress to act.
“The American people are trying to figure out: How can something have 90% support and yet not happen?” said the president in comments made at the Rose Garden in the White House, an hour after the vote in the Senate.
“All in all this was a pretty shameful day in Washington,” added Obama, who was flanked by victims of gun violence.
“This is clearly a disappointed, frustrated president who’s asking a question about how Washington can ever get anything done if they can’t do something that nine of out of ten Americans want,” said CNN Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger.
But while the shocking events in Newtown influenced public opinion, in the end that wasn’t enough. The White House originally pushed for passage of a new assault weapons ban as well as the limiting of high capacity ammunition magazines. But hopes of passing those proposals soon faded and they were stripped from the main Democratic bill introduced into the Senate, leaving tougher background checks as the last major component of gun legislation.
In the end, it wasn’t just Republicans but also some Democrats from conservative states where gun rights are sacred, that sank the background checks compromise. Senators Mark Begich of Alaska, Max Baucus of Montana, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who all face re-election next year in red states, voted against the Manchin-Toomey proposal. So did Heidi Heitkamp. The freshman senator’s not up for re-election for five and a half years but she’s from North Dakota, another state with strong sentiment for gun owners rights.
The senators may have feared that voting in favor of increased background checks would hurt their re-election chances, especially with the extremely influential National Rifle Association, the leading advocate on gun rights, fiercely opposed to the Manchin-Toomey amendment. And the NRA’s opposition seemed to serve as a counterweight to public opinion.
(Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also voted no at the last minute for procedural reasons, allowing him to bring the amendment back up at a later date.)
Besides Toomey, John McCain of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois were the only GOP senators to support the measure. For other Republican senators who considered supporting the proposal but ultimately voted no, re-election politics and the realization that even if the amendment had passed the Senate, it was likely to die in the GOP dominated House of Representatives, may have been factors in their decision making process.
“It came down to politics, the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections,” said the president. “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 they caved to that pressure.”
CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash analyzed the vote this way: “There is a feeling that some of these middle of the roaders on the Republican and Democratic side decided that on this gun issue there was too much risk and not enough reward to defy the NRA lobby and many of the constituents in their states.”
But the NRA, in a statement, called the Manchin-Toomeny amendment “misguided” and added that “as we have noted previously, expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools.”
While polling indicated widespread support for increased background checks, recent surveys also pointed to two other factors that explain why the proposal failed to survive.
The ABC/Washington Post poll highlighted an engagement gap between those who own and those who don’t own guns. About one in five gun owners questioned in the survey said they have at some point contacted a public official to express their views on gun control. That number dropped by half for those in non-gun households. Nineteen percent of gun owners say they’ve contributed to an organization engaged in the gun control issue, with just 4% of non-gun owners saying the same thing.
The CNN/ORC poll pointed to public concerns that increased background checks would lead to a federal registry of gun owners and their firearms, which according to the survey is opposed by 55% of Americans. And two-thirds of those questioned said that if the government did keep a list of gun owners, it would eventually use that list to take guns away from people who own them.
To allay such concerns, the Manchin-Toomey proposal included language to bar the creation of such a federal registry. But it appears that wasn’t enough to save the measure.
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Women shout ‘shame on you’ in Senate chamber after gun measure fails
Posted by CNN Senior Congressional Producer Ted Barrett
Washington (CNN) – Two women whose lives were touched by recent mass shootings shouted in the Senate chamber “shame on you” just after lawmakers defeated a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks on gun sales.
After the outburst on Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden, who was presiding in the Senate, called for order. The women were later expelled from the Capitol although it did not appear they were arrested.
Patricia Maisch, of Tucson, Arizona, who took the gun magazine from the hands of the man who shot former Rep. Gabby Giffords and several other people, explained to reporters why she yelled at the senators.
“Because they are an embarrassment to this country that they don’t’ have any compassion or care for people who have been taken brutally from their families,” she said.
Lori Haas of Richmond, Virginia, whose daughter, Emily, was shot but survived the Virginia Tech massacre also was angry.
“We are sick and tired of the death in this country and these legislators stand up there and think it’s a bunch of numbers. There’s been 187,000 Americans killed since Virginia Tech. My daughter was shot and injured six years ago yesterday. It’s a shame, it’s appalling, it’s disgusting,” she said.
Photo: WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 15: Patricia Maisch, one of the people who helped halt the Tucson shooting involving Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), holds up a photograph of victim Federal Judge John Roll while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee on Capitol Hill November 15, 2011 in Washington, DC. Maisch, 61, helped to disarm gunman Jared Loughner by grabbing a fully loaded magazine away from him, helping disarm Laughner before he could inflict more damage. Maisch testified in support of the Fix Gun Checks Act, which would strengthen federal power over the states handling of individual background checks. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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