Posted on 02/04/2013 1:00:13 PM PST by neverdem
Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said vulnerable Senate Democratic incumbents could be the key to preventing an assault weapons ban from passing this year.
In an interview on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers”set to air Sunday, Grassley acknowledged that support for such a ban remains strong in some quarters of the Democratic Party, but he said he believes the electoral politics make it a difficult prospect at best.
“I feel that an outright ban would have a difficult time passing the [Republican run] House of Representatives, so that would keep it from becoming law,” Grassley said. “But when you have five, six, maybe even seven Democratic senators from rural areas, that come from Second Amendment states ... I think that is a tough go in the Unites States Senate.”
Twenty-one Democratic Senators face reelection in 2014, including several from rural areas, such as Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Udall of Colorado, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Max Baucus of Montana, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Mark Warner of Virginia.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced legislation that would ban the future sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of 157 specific kinds of semi-automatic guns and impose the same restrictions on ammunition magazines that contain more than 10 rounds. Her bill would also ban rifles, handguns and shotguns that accept detachable magazines and have certain physical characteristics, including a pistol grip or folding stock. The California Democrat helped put in place the 10-year assault weapons ban which expired in 2004.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who backs the ban, said it’s too early to tell what can pass, but he said Democrats intend to push for the ban and the president’s recommendations.
“We are going to try hard on every piece of the president’s package and the package that various Senators have,” Schumer said. “It’s too early to tell where the votes are for each one.”
Grassley, who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and who opposes such a ban, said in the C-SPAN interview, “banning guns doesn’t prevent killing.”
He noted that the massacre in Columbine, Colo., happened while the previous assault weapons ban was in place. He also took issue with deciding what types of guns to ban.
It’s “difficult to justify that somehow you ban some guns and not others,” Grassley said. “When you look the whole picture it just makes it very difficult to say you ban these guns and that is somehow going to stop these killings.”
Grassley said he supports updating the National Instant Criminal Background Check System with mental health information. The NCIS is currently incomplete where mental health records are concerned.
“Its something we definitely have to deal with,” Grassley said, adding that an updated database could have helped prevent shootings at Virginia Tech and in Tucson, Ariz. — where former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot — and Aurora, Colo.
But Grassley said he doesn’t see a need for increased background checks, even at gun shows.
“Probably there are not enough background checks,” Grassley said. “But when you get into a one-on-one sale — as opposed to a business that is in that, full time in that — and some friend wants to sell to another friend, I don’t think I want to go that far.”
He noted gun show sales are typically one-on-one sales, and he stressed that federally licensed gun dealers at the shows already must use NCIS to check backgrounds.
The Judiciary panel will also be dealing with changes to immigration policy this year, but Grassely said he wasn’t asked to be part of the bipartisan group of eight senators currently working immigration legislation. That group includes Schumer, who chairs Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.
“I supposed I could have volunteered,” Grassley said. But he added that as the ranking member of the full panel,”I think I have to be a person that is an honest broker and particularly a leader among Republicans.”
Still, the Iowa lawmaker said Republicans in the group, such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, are right to try to resolve the issue, but he warned that pursuing policy changes would not necessarily change the attitudes of Latino voters toward the GOP.
“I think Sen. McCain is right, but also I think he is a little naïve to think that Hispanic people, [once] we pass an immigration bill, all of a sudden are going to vote Republican,” Grassley said. “I think its part of the reason they didn’t vote Republican in the last election, but I also think that we have not spoken to them.”
Grassley added that the GOP has done little outreach and has not been inclusive regarding Latinos voters.
“We felt like we didn’t have to worry too much about minority groups,” he continued. “I think to pander to them through an immigration bill, even if we are successful, its not going to get the job done.”
He said he believes that Latinos would be a natural fit in the GOP tent as they are “family-oriented, religion-oriented, they have a good work ethic, all things conservative Republicans say they stand for and hopefully do stand for.”
Grassley said he thinks immigration changes are contingent on whether a pathway to citizenship is put in place only after the border is deemed to be secure. That condition is a key compromise included in the bipartisan group’s principles.
Grassley, who has served in the Senate since 1981, is up for re-election in 2016 and he said he has no plans to retire.
“My plans right now are to do things that it takes to be re-elected,” Grassley said.
For the gun shows I've attended the last 20 years, I'd see on average maybe two or three people at the show walking around with a gun for sale sign on their back. Usually it was some sort of safe-queen high price collector military rifle (non-auto). You can sell a gun on Craigslist quicker than waiting for a gunshow.
If we're disarmed, so are they... It can be called the 'If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander' bill of gun control.
Gee, you mean the NRA's single-issue strategy actually works?
But I thought a common theory here suggested that the NRA only endorse Republicans?
the MSM is settling in on the Universal (permanent record) backgroun check as a compromise.
staw man sales are already illegal.
sales as shows require a background check.
this is about abolishing the 90 day destroy records rule.
This does not make me feel much better, what with how the Republicans have folded on everything else recently.
Which pubbie would vote for gun control knowing that they would be challenged in a primary from the right? You can argue about being fiscally conservative, the consequences of shutting down gov't and threatening credit ratings. Not gun control. It's the rats who were supposedly pro 2nd Amendment in 2006 and 2008 who won in those years giving the rats control of Congress, not the gun grabbers!
As long as the Republicans lack any conviction or backbone, any dangerous legislation has a good chance of passing.
“Gee, you mean the NRA’s single-issue strategy actually works?”
It hasn’t worked in the past, they seem to be listening better now.
The NRA has supported every major gun control law passed in the last 50 years.
Universal background checks have nothing to do with gun shows. Its about abolishing the private transfer of firearms between law abiding individuals.
A background check will also require a 4473 which creates a paper trail and increases cost.
Well, look what happened when they criminalizd alcohol. Honest citizens went out and bought lots of firearms and then machine guns, so they criminalzed machine guns, and these formerly honest citizens, now armed criminals, became wealthy armed criminals, protecting their turf. Did they go back to normal jobs? No, because now they had power.
Now, the honest citizens being turned into criminals aren’t going to be dealing in a secondary product; they’re going to be dealing in a primary product. It won’t be moonshining and bootlegging, it will be arms dealing, magazine and arms manufacturing, and ammunition manufacturing and sales. And a large amount of it will be an underground black market, non-taxed economy.
Obama and the democrats are complete idiots. They now say they need more taxes and can’t see where they can cut spending? They could raise about a billion dollars easily with all the excess ammo they’ve bought just in the last few months.
Well, look what happened when they criminalizd alcohol. Honest citizens went out and bought lots of firearms and then machine guns, so they criminalzed machine guns, and these formerly honest citizens, now armed criminals, became wealthy armed criminals, protecting their turf. Did they go back to normal jobs? No, because now they had power.
Now, the honest citizens being turned into criminals aren’t going to be dealing in a secondary product; they’re going to be dealing in a primary product. It won’t be moonshining and bootlegging, it will be arms dealing, magazine and arms manufacturing, and ammunition manufacturing and sales. And a large amount of it will be an underground black market, non-taxed economy.
Obama and the democrats are complete idiots. They now say they need more taxes and can’t see where they can cut spending? They could raise about a billion dollars easily with all the excess ammo they’ve bought just in the last few months.
BTW, those who have been adjudicate/committed are already reported to the NCIC by the institutions and denied firearms purchases.
*** Its about abolishing the private transfer of firearms between law abiding individuals.***
So true. Years ago I went to a BIG gun show and before I left I had traded for several guns and traded off several. wheeled and dealed, left in the evening with a new firearm and a few dollars to boot. I had traded around at least five or six firearms before the day was out.
Now, think about how many “background” checks I and the person I was trading with would have had to make.
Yup. That’s what he wrote.
I saw it and found it funny. I like the show.
The key term here is DIAGNOSED. It really needs to be ADJUDICATED. With maybe some verbiage added regarding being "Baker Acted" or involuntarily committed for observation or something. If you're going to start tracking down folks who have ever sought help for being depressed you're going to make the problems much worse in the future because people will just stop looking for help. What about all the vets who've sought help for depression but aren't suffering from PTSD or some serious issue? You going to make them second class citizens based on a diagnosis of depression alone?
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