Here’s A Bit Of A Surprise
Eric Holder talked about reviving the assault gun ban. But he’s meeting opposition from unexpected quarters.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will join Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in opposing any effort to revive the 1994 assault weapons ban, putting them on the opposite side of the Obama administration.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the Nevada Democrat will preserve his traditional pro-gun rights voting record.
“Senator Reid would oppose an effort (to) reinstate the ban if the Senate were to vote on it in the future,” Manley told The Hill in an e-mail late Thursday night.
There’s a pretty political explanation for the opposition.
A) gun bills are always losers for Democrats. It seems that Pelosi and Reid have finally figured out (at least in this case) that it is rather stupid to hand your opposition ammo (no pun intended).
B) unpopular legislation like this wastes time and goodwill. They have a much more ambitious plan to sell us down the river than piddling stuff like this, and they don’t want to be distracted by something that will be virtually ineffective the second it is signed into law (but put the pro-gun lobby front and center for a while).
C) Reality.
A number of House Democrats lost their seats after being targeted by the National Rifle Association for voting for the 1994 ban.
And finally, it is a way to make sure the Obama administration knows that it is Congress they must coordinate these things with before they go shooting their mouths off. Eric Holder said, without such coordination, that he planned on trying to reinstate the assault weapons ban. Pelosi and Reid used the opportunity to send a message.
That said, be aware that Holder certainly appears to have an anti-gun agenda, or, at least, so it seems.
~McQ
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Hey, look over there! One of your pet issues on which you have repeatedly insisted that Democrats were no better than Republicans – because you hate them too much to think empirically! You were wrong!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/26/holder-vows-to-end-raids_n_170119.html
Write a post about it! Or, you could be intellectually dishonest and avoid the topic entirely now that it doesn’t suit your biases!
LOL!
You’re reduced to taunting like a common, everyday troll?
Yeah, don’t bother coming back and lecturing anyone on “intellectual honesty” or “honest debate”, ‘kay?
Wow, the great and terrible glasnost now sounds exactly like mkultra. How the mighty have fallen. How tragic indeed.
HopenChangen getting you down?
With the Obama admin, everything seems to come with an expiration data so when it gets actually passed, he will get kudos. Until then words, just words.
Look! There’s something shiny over there!
A) gun bills are always losers for Democrats. It seems that Pelosi and Reid have finally figured out (at least in this case) that it is rather stupid to hand your opposition ammo (no pun intended).
C’mon McQ you intended the pun. Fess up!
Yeah, I’d have to agree. It’s possible to make an unintended spoken pun, but once you’ve thought about something and written it, then you’ve intended to make it. If you don’t intend to make it, say something else.
Yeah, except the “pun” wasn’t discovered until the editing process, so it was made unintentionally.
More importantly – who cares?
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.
The dems (spit) may recognize that the “AWB” was a loser, but don’t think for an instant they’re going to give up on destroying the Second Amendment. The AWB merely made them look stupid: they passed a bill that was largely cosmetic, was easily side-stepped by the firearms manufacturers, did little or nothing to reduce crime, but wound up costing them seats in Congress.
They’ll try again. They are presumably learning that nobody in MiniTru will call TAO or the rest of the trash when they twist, spin and outright lie, so they’ll merely craft a more comprehensive measure that won’t be a “ban” but will have the same effect. Look at some of the talk about the “Fairness Doctrine”: they aren’t going to come right out and ban Rush (for example); they’ll merely put in requirements for “localism” and “balance” that will make it too costly for radio stations to carry programs like his. This will allow them to take the high road and talk about how “fair” they are, while allowing their stoogest (like a certain commenter here) to claim, “See! I told you! They didn’t bring back the FD!”
They will do everything they can thru regulation and executive order, no votes needed…. just like I predicted before the election.