Posted on 04/28/2013 6:05:39 PM PDT by markomalley
President Obama, according to his own telling, would have passed a gun control bill supported by nearly every American, but the National Rifle Association drove in trucks full of money and lobbyists, buying off senators.
Obama's story isn't true. The NRA doesn't work like the lobbies Obama is coziest with. And the NRA also wasn't the tip of the spear in the gun-rights fight this month. Here is the way things really went down:
The gun-rights resistance on Capitol Hill began in late March with two first-term Tea Party senators declaring they would filibuster consideration of the gun-control bill. Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid explaining they would oppose invoking cloture on the "motion to proceed" to the bill. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., soon joined them.
That rump of three senators expanded to a platoon of 18 who eventually signed onto the letter. In the end, 29 Republicans and two Democrats opposed proceeding to the bill -- well short of the 41 needed for a filibuster. Many allies criticized this failed filibuster, but its leaders argue it was crucial to eventual victory.
"After you get the 29" votes to filibuster, one conservative staffer put it, "you know who to beat up." The filibuster effort, by this telling, was something of a whip count by a guerilla unit of conservative freshmen.
So Lee, Cruz, and Paul -- and their staffs -- set out to work on those Republicans who were less than firm. Almost the entire GOP conference was pretty strong in opposing the Democrats' more Draconian gun control proposals -- such as an assault weapons ban -- but the conservative rump didn't want any new regulations on gun ownership by law-abiding citizens. Cruz, along with almost every other Republican, signed on to an alternative bill by Sen. Charles Grassley, which mostly beefed up the current federal database behind background checks.
Anything more ambitious was a nonstarter in the eyes of Cruz, Paul and Lee. Specifically, they rejected the proposal by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to create a mandatory universal background check. Toomey-Manchin was the only real chance Obama had of passing a gun control bill. If that went down, gun control went down.
According to conservative staffers, Gun Owners of America was the most active outside group in early efforts to block all gun control efforts including Toomey-Manchin. As GOA and conservative senators worked to close GOP ranks, the NRA came in to seal the deal.
So, the Obama account is wrong in part because it portrays the NRA as calling all the shots within the GOP on guns. But it seems it was Cruz, Lee and Paul who drew the line, and then the NRA came in to hold that line.
But here's the other way Obama misrepresents the NRA's role in this gun control fight: The NRA doesn't function like corporate lobbies, which lean on an army of highly paid, revolving-door lobbyists from K Street firms.
In the first quarter of this year, the NRA spent $700,000 on lobbying, slightly less than the American Forest & Paper Association spent.
The NRA's political action committee is large -- it spent about $19 million last election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, with nearly $1 million going directly to candidates and about $12 million in independent expenditures. Only a couple dozen PACs are larger.
But the NRA's real power is its large and passionate membership of 3 million to 4.5 million. "What [lawmakers] value is the endorsement," NRA President David Keene tells me, "not the check. ... Voters who vote on Second Amendment issues look to the NRA for leadership on that."
All NRA members get a monthly magazine. Every election year, the November issue (which arrives in October) includes an insert grading candidates in all the races for that ZIP code, from state legislator up to president. Many members take that insert to the ballot box with them.
Most Republican lawmakers, especially those who came up through state politics, have had to deal with the NRA. It's on their minds.
On April 10, the NRA wrote all U.S. senators a letter declaring "the NRA will oppose any amendments offered to S. 649 that restrict fundamental Second Amendment freedoms," explictly including Toomey-Manchin. "[V]otes on all anti-gun amendments or proposals will be considered in NRA's future candidate evaluations."
That clinched it. On the Toomey-Manchin amendment, Republicans set a 60-vote threshold, and 46 senators voted no.
So Obama has reason to be upset with the NRA. But his real enemies are the Tea Party, which brought in unruly conservatives, and the NRA's membership.
But that would mean admitting that ordinary Americans beat him...and not some “evil” organization which can be isolated and vilified.
No! He should blame the actual folks in flyover country that despise this kind of control! Yes, the Tea Party has more influence than the NRA for goodness sakes but it is a popular decision without regard to politics...something that our esteemed President can never understand!
The Kenyan needs to blame that pesky Bill of Rights and the Americans who stood up to the gun Nazis to protect their “civil rights”.
Proud Tea Party Ping!
Also, Proud NRA Ping!
“...Obama should blame Tea Party, not NRA, for gun control defeat...”
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Whether you want to blame “the NRA”; or blame “the tea party”...
The NRA is made of of PEOPLE; and the Tea Party is made up of PEOPLE.
So, in either case, they are blaming their defeat on “WE, THE PEOPLE”.
As usual, Obama and other Democrats decided that the best way to finesse the fact they'd done nothing about mental illness in decades was to lay the lash on the backs of law abiding people.
This is so typical of people who sell out to donors ~ in this case, the ACLU lawyers and their running dog lackeys.
If the amendment can be repealed by statute, it can be "unrepealed" by statute since our government is not going to be in "progressive" hands forever.
Therefore, if progressives want gun registration and confisication, they must get 67 Senators and 38 states to agree to repeal the amendment.
Anything else will only be a disappointment to progressives.
Obama can take his blame and shove it.
This is who beat Obama, “Johnny Tremain - The Liberty Tree Theme Song,” at http://www.televisiontunes.com/Johnny_Tremain_-_The_Liberty_Tree.html
Actually if the President is as smart as he thinks he is he would never have attempted this is the first place...
But...Yes, you are right, he do NOT have the authority nor the power to overturn the Second Amendment, much as he might wish! The idea that 2/3rds of the Congress and 2/3rds or the States would even consider overturning this is absurd. This is the problem with this Administration - they are either nuts or think that they can ignore the Constitution.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court will interdict or if that does not work due to Liberal opinions, the people will revolt as they should. It can and should not stand!
Lots of typos there..just ignore and get the idea.
Yep, its a pain not having an edit function. Oh well, its for the best, I think.
Well, do have an edit function but sometimes get impatient to post and do not do due diligence - or miss silly things!
All my problem though - more time and forethought would eliminate those problems.
History may repeat in '14...exactly 20 years since it happened the first time.
Let us hope Obama's brain is so fried from dope that he is unable to learn anything from history...
And it infuriates me when the POTUS slams us, we the people, on national TV as lowlifes for wanting to keep our rights.
Actually, the idea that Obama is anything other than a pot head is only the idea of the media. He is and has always been a very mediocre thinker (dim actually) and depends on others for support.
He is only doing what others tell him to do. He is the puppet of others and it would be nice to expose them but probably too late now. He is the orator (although I’m not sure how he became that) for others. Those that he has put in charge are far leftists and are causing major problems. If only the rest of the Federal Government understood and acted on it. Don’t expect that though as they are also feeding at the leftist trough.
We can only hope that it is not too late to overcome this lurch to the left by our Federal Government. I suspect that is may be too late though - it is very difficult to take back from those that you have provided for.
Obama was using Alinsky rules. You don’t attack an issue, you connect a person to the issue and attack the person- Wayne LaPierre, for example.
By blaming NRA “the people” don’t get to see that the real issue is millions of people melting the phones of Congress.
The lack of gun control then gets blamed on one evil organization.
I’ll accept the CREDIT under either banner!
I want the CREDIT for the last defeat AND THE NEXT DEFEAT!
“Blame” is reserved for Obama’s successes.
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