Reported Demise of Gun Control In Congress May Be Premature
March 20, 2005
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
In ancient times, soothsayers would cut open the innards of a bird to predict the future.
Crazy as that may sound to us these days, it’s probably as safe as placing too much credence in the wrong kind of news report. Some of which can be extremely misleading.
On Feb. 27, a Knight Ridder Newspapers article which appeared in several newspapers around the country and was disseminated farther and wider on the Internet, proclaimed that the gun control debate in Congress was all but over.
“The national debate over gun rights, for decades among the most searing and divisive of political issues, appears to be all but over in Congress,” the article began.
“That means that the assault weapons ban, a signature achievement of gun control advocates that expired last year, probably will not resurface anytime soon.
“Conversely, congressional leaders and the Bush Administration haven’t put a priority on efforts to expand gun rights,” Knight Ridder noted.
“ ‘There’s a perception that Washington is not the place to take the debate at this moment,’ said Saul Cornell, a historian who is director of the Second Amendment Research Center at Ohio State University,” according to the article. He said that politicians on both sides see little advantage in pressing the issue.
“Democrats, desperate to regain their appeal to middle America, are moving away from the party’s long identification with gun control, much to the relief of many beleaguered Democrats in states such as Missouri.
“ ‘It’s a loser,’ Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, said of gun control.”
The syndicated column went on to caution, “Republicans, on the other hand, have become wary of boasting about their long and profitable alliance with the National Rifle Association (NRA), the nation’s leading gun rights group.”
The Knight Ridder article went on to discuss the NRA’s expenditures in the 2004 election cycle, which reportedly mostly aided Republicans. In early March, The National Journal published the results of a poll it had taken of members of Congress, in which it said congressmen and women—on both sides of the aisle—rated the NRA as the most effective lobbying group in the country, ahead of even the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and many other corporate and labor organizations.
“Yet during the (2004) campaign,” Knight Ridder noted, “Bush joined Kerry in supporting an extension of the assault weapons ban and closing the so-called gun show loophole, which allows buyers to avoid background checks by making purchases from private sellers at gun shows. Both were popular among many swing voters.
“ ‘There is a potential for backlash,’ ” the column quoted George Connor, a political scientist at Southwest Missouri State University, with regard to what it called “the Republican two-step.”
“Connor pointed out that Republicans basically have already ‘gotten everything they wanted. They wanted to protect the rights of gunowners and average citizens, which they’ve done. ... I don’t think they’re going to push any farther than they already have.”
Significantly, Knight Ridder’s assessment does not paint a rosy picture with regard to legislation that would insulate the firearms industry from the kinds of frivolous suits which have been filed by a mix of some 30 cities, counties and even states. Such lawsuit preemption legislation, which is a priority for the NRA and the firearms industry, has been refiled in the 109th Congress as S-397 and HR-800. And while pro-gun and industry groups are trying to get the measure enacted, the anti-gunners are almost as vigorous in their attempts to block passage.
Knight Ridder claimed that “While Bush and many Republicans voice support for a bill that would give gunmakers immunity from civil lawsuits, the bill is not a priority of Republican congressional leaders.”
Then the column went on to says that “It’s the Democrats who are moving further and faster from their previous position on guns. It’s a notable change from 1994, when the assault weapons ban passed with backing from President Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress.
“That coincided with the beginning of a big decline in Democratic support in rural areas. The year the ban passed, Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.
“Now Democrats want to reconnect with those voters,” Knight Ridder claimed.
“Two new Democratic leaders, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, are examples of the party’s current direction.
“Reid received $4,500 from the NRA in his 2004 re-election campaign and voted last year against extending the assault weapons ban. Dean was endorsed by the NRA in his races for governor of Vermont and said during his presidential campaign that the issue should generally be left to the states.”
The Knight Ridder column did point out that another national Democratic leader, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, has long been a gun control advocate, but added that “she also founded the House Rural Working Group in an effort to reinvigorate Democratic support in rural America. Skelton, one of the group’s members, said their message to Pelosi included: Ease up on guns.”
But while all of this may sound encouraging to supporters of the right to keep and bear arms, it may be no more accurate in predicting the future than the color of an old chicken’s innards. That’s because some Democrats haven’t gotten the message or don’t want to play the game. And they have a number of Republicans who listen to their messages, cock an ear toward the shouts from the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center, and read The New York Times and Washington Post religiously.
The real noisemakers and the Democrats with the most strident voices are still people like New Jersey’s anti-gun twins, Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, or New York’s Chuck Schumer and the Massachusetts Gemini, Ted Kennedy and and John Kerry.
Even as the Knight Ridder article was circulating, Lautenberg and friends were busy filing bills and getting press in an effort to put gun control back onto the congressional front burner.
Among their recent contributions to the gun control cause are bills to ban .50 caliber rifles (supported by spurious television shows like the recent CNN effort), a bill to ban the FN FiveSeven pistol, bills to build national databases of gunowners by retaining forever records of all approved gun-purchase background checks, more registration through background checks for firearms sales between private individuals as gun shows, shooting matches and other events.
At the same time, they are trying to block pro-gun legislation such as the lawsuit preemption bill, and fostering their cause in the public media. Lautenberg was the man who asked for the government study of “terrorist watch list” people who had been approved for firearms purchases and who handed the story to The New York Times to launch a media blitz. Where’s he going with this project? Right back to background checks and record keeping for private sales!
And Schumer was quick to make headlines in the wake of the recent Hudson Mall shooting with his call for reauthorization of the Clinton gun and magazine ban, while other anti-gunners hop on every gun-related incident, even legal citizen interventions as in Tyler, TX, recently, to demand more and more gun control.
In concluding his Knight Ridder column, reporter Matt Stearns did not quite say the gun control debate had ended. He quoted John Lacey, a spokesman for Americans for Gun Safety, as saying the gun issue is only evolving from the extremes that once distinguished both political parties.
Stearns ended by quoting NRA spokesman, Andrew Arulanandam, as vowing to keep an eye on Democrats to ensure “their record
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