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Bush is clearly counting on there not being a large enough bloc of gunowners who resent this to cost him serious votes. He assumes he will be perceived as more pro-gun than any Democrat. The same will largely be true of Republican races in Congress.

We'll see. Gun owners routed the Democrats and put Newt in power. And Rove certainly made many many mistakes in Bush's first campaign, from the failed attempt to win the black vote (excusable) to the completely idiotic attempt to win in California (stupid). I don't think that in domestic politics that Rove and Bush have become more shrewd or principled, especially to core constituencies. If anything, they've moved farther away from activists in the Republican party.

Bush could cost himself the election doing this. His father was run out of office by disgusted conservatives. And, despite the scolding the GOP still tries to administer that failing to vote for Spook Daddy gave us eight years of Clinton, I think the voters know that if Spook Daddy got away with breaking his Read-My-Lips promise, that he was going to go very liberal on us in a second term. And that, once re-elected, Spook Daddy might have been just as liberal as Clinton was. I like to think that W. is a lot smarter and more politically perceptive than his father was. I suspect that Bush will have to do something for the gun constituency to keep their votes. If he extends the personal weapons ban, he'll have to make a very large effort to do something else that will satisfy the entire gun movement and make them accept the trade-off over the assault weapon ban. Otherwise, he probably should expect his appeal to rabid gunowners to drop by as much as 25% in some states, people who just won't show up to vote for him unless he does something to strengthen gun ownership or to repeal restrictions, some within he power of the executive branch.

I notice Bush will finally get a partial-birth abortion ban. Doing things like this can satisfy the one-issue voter base in the party. Bush will have to do something comparable or bigger for gunowners if he expects to hold their vote after supporting a renewed assault weapons ban.