AWB Removed From Base Gun Control Bill in Senate

Here's my take ... this will NEVER be over ... it appears we won this time ... but the next time some psycho decides mass murder might be a good idea, all these ideas will come tumbling back out of DiFi's desk, and each time it happens, it becomes harder and harder for even our best friends in Congress to stand against the tide ...
 
While I agree that it will never be over, I have to disagree with you, bikerbill, on this point:
. . . each time it happens, it becomes harder and harder for even our best friends in Congress to stand against the tide ...
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Apparently, it's not harder to stop an AWB now than it was in 1994.

That's not to say that it's time to become complacent. Nothing could be further from the truth. From a political perspective, we have to let our representatives know that we oppose X, Y, or Z. Just as the anti-gun folks like to say (for example) "82% of the American public support A or B," the folks on our side need to be able to say that their polls say that "85% oppose A or B." If we don't call, don't write, don't vote in polls, then the folks who support us have no "political cover" for voting with us.
 
It's a small battle won in an ongoing war. Anyone who thinks the worst is over is sadly mistaken. We cannot be lulled into complacency. Look for universal background checks to be morphed into back door universal gun registration, by the anti-gun forces. This will not be clear in early summaries presented by the media. The true dangers will be buried deep in the bill. Never forget the old saying about the "devil being in the details".
 
Not sure I agree with your disagreement, Spats ... at some tipping point, backing gun owners and the 2A will become a losing proposition and we will see A-Rated Reps and Senators defect ... I think this should encourage all of us to keep after our elected officials to do the things that really can make a change; IMHO, we need to look first at identifying the loons among us and see to it that they get treatment and have no access to weapons they can use to respond to the voices in their heads ... arming teachers after proper training is also an excellent idea which of course has been rejected by anti-gunners whose real agenda is not safety but confiscation. Get rid of preposterous "gun-free" zones.

Just because I'm pessimistic about the future doesn't mean I'm not still working to assure we and our children and their children are never disarmed ... it's a battle worth fighting ...
 
Well, bikerbill, I'm not sure I disagree with your non-agreement with my disagreement . . . ;)

Seriously, though, I think my disagreement was more in regards to the implication that I read in your thread that the battle for 2A rights will always get harder.

. . . each time it happens, it becomes harder and harder for even our best friends in Congress to stand against the tide ...
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There will be ebbs and flows in the difficulty of this fight. It will not always get harder, it will not always be easier. Right now, Feinstein's bill is dead as a standalone bill. That doesn't mean it won't be offered as an amendment (which is what I expect). Accordingly, we must remain vigilant.

at some tipping point, backing gun owners and the 2A will become a losing proposition and we will see A-Rated Reps and Senators defect
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This only becomes true when we quit showing up to vote and voice our opinions. When politicians cease to have any of that political cover I mentioned, you bet they'll defect. As long as we offer more political cover than the anti-gun folks, they'll defect to our side, though. That's the nature of the popular vote.
 
According to this article in the New York Times:
The Senate bill is likely to include the school safety measure, and it may be expanded to include the enhanced background checks. But Mr. Reid is weighing the relative merits of bringing that measure to the floor, which for now has limited support from Republicans.

Mr. Reid said he would allow the assault weapons ban and the limits on magazine sizes to be offered as amendments, Ms. Feinstein said.
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So Sen. Reid has separated the magazine size limit and the AWB both from the bill and from each other -- each will require a separate vote to be included as an amendment.

And judging from the above, Mr. Reid is still considering stripping the background check provision from the bill in the same way. If that happens, that will leave two things as part of the actual bill, before amendment votes. First, it will make straw purchases more of a crime than they are already, with stiffer penalties; second, it will provide for grants for increasing school safety, which may or may not actually be funded.
 
And judging from the above, Mr. Reid is still considering stripping the background check provision from the bill in the same way. If that happens, that will leave two things as part of the actual bill, before amendment votes. First, it will make straw purchases more of a crime than they are already, with stiffer penalties; second, it will provide for grants for increasing school safety, which may or may not actually be funded.
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I can't wait for the media to tout this as a victory for the children, because straw sales are MORE illegal and we're spending more money on underfunded schools.
 
The Washington Post says that the anti-gun folks will "find the votes."

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said in an interview Tuesday that Senate Democrats’ decision to introduce a gun control bill that doesn’t include an assault weapons ban does not constitute a setback for President Obama’s gun control efforts.
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Most telling, from the same WaPo piece, is the following:

"...the White House has at times de-emphasized the assault weapons ban, apparently hoping that its gun control efforts would be viewed as a success even without the ban."

My guess is that they're hoping to pass something, no matter how watered down and de-fanged. My bet is that it'll come down to increased criminalization of straw purchases, and supporting grants to increase school security, those being the only parts of this that stand any chance at all of passing the House. President Obama would like to have something that he can be photographed signing.
 
I agree with Vanya; they want to pass SOMETHING, ANYTHING, even if it's completely de-fanged and will result in nothing of substance being done.

Then, if it doesn't include the stuff they'd have liked (AWB, registration, universal checks), they'll just blame us. They like to use us gun rights people as bad guys and scapegoats; they have before, they are now, and they will in the future. They'll just keep it up.

I don't see them getting the AWB, even added as an amendment. The WH Chief of Staff's comment just reminds of the Iraqi Information Minister saying "What American tanks?" (or whatever it was)... they refuse to admit that their agenda is getting no traction out there and they never will admit that it was rejected by the people. They'll just blame the mythically powerful "gun lobby."
 
Sen. Feinstein is already blaming the NRA. From the same NYT article I linked in an earlier post:

“The enemies on this are very powerful,” Ms. Feinstein said, referring to the National Rifle Association. “I’ve known that all my life.”
 
President Obama would like to have something that he can be photographed signing.
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Yep, but he hung his hat on AWB 2.0, both in the Presidential debates and his State of the Union speech. He's got to be fuming over this.
 
I'm sure the President is fuming.

But unless he wants to invest some SERIOUS political capital on this one he's going to have to accept a loss. Most legislators aren't such ideologues or so beholden to the party heirarchy that they're willing to trade their seats for a yes vote on that kind of bill... which is what it would amount to (as Bill Clinton has already noted).

I find it amusing that it wasn't that long ago that all these gun grabbing politicians were throwing around the death of the NRA's political power since Obama managed to win reelection despite the lobbying efforts otherwise. And now we're some kind of hugely powerful bloc. They can't seem to make up their mind, which is fine, since they can't manage to pass their desired laws either.
 
I'd be OK with stronger laws against straw purchasing and grants to increase school security IF I wasn't cynical enough to think that the stronger laws will do nothing but bite law abiding citizens.
 
dakota.potts said:
I'd be OK with stronger laws against straw purchasing...
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What's wrong with the current laws that carry years in a federal penitentiary and many thousands of dollars of fines?

Gun trafficking is already way, wicked illegal. There isn't one single thing on the table making it more illegal any more than there is a magic pill that can make a girl less pregnant. It's a ruse. Pure and simple.

Oh, the current laws aren't enforced. Oh yeah. But we all knew that because we've been jawboning about it forever.
 
I'd be OK with stronger laws against straw purchasing and grants to increase school security IF I wasn't cynical enough to think that the stronger laws will do nothing but bite law abiding citizens.
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The problem with grants for school security is that they'll be squandered.

There was an article in one of the two daily newspapers that circulate in this neck of the woods just a couple of days ago about school security. From this article I discovered a couple of things:

1) Schools just don't "get it" (as if we needed to be reminded). The article noted a number of schools were going to spend large sums of money to install buzzers at the main entrance (a system that was in place at Sandy Hook and failed spectacularly to stop the shooter), and to put locks on all classroom doors that can be locked from the inside (there are a number of problems with this, mostly revolving around the same problem at Sandy Hook: "Do you have the key?" "No, I thought you had the key.")

2) Much of this money will go to pay for police officers to be assigned as school resource officers. And the interviews with some SROs clearly showed that they don't regard their role as "security" at all, but rather chatting up the students and trying to be a "positive influence." So if Officer Friendly is wandering around the auto shop wing when the invading horde shoots out the front door -- what purpose has he served? Don't forget: Columbine had an SRO. When the shooters hit, the SRO was outdoors, eating lunch in his cruiser, and he had to fight his way back in to get to where he should have been in the first place. By then he was far too late.

"School security" is an oxymoron, and will remain such as long as the schools are run by morons.
 
and to put locks on all classroom doors that can be locked from the inside
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Actually, I think this makes a lot of sense, and would be inexpensive to implement. Just as I believe that the most useful aviation security change after 9/11 was to armor the cockpit doors, I think a policy of locking classroom doors from the inside while classes are in session would go a long way toward "hardening" schools.

There's no worry about lost keys, because there aren't any keys. It's just a simple deadbolt lock with a thumbturn on the inside, and nothing on the exterior of the door. Also, classroom doors should either be windowless, or at most have a small window (think 6" by 16") with a blind that can be pulled down.

Sure, if a shooter wants into a particular room, he'll be able to breach the door, but it will slow him down.
 
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