Backfire--Democrats discover gun control doesn't win elections.

Wall St Journal ^ | May 19, 2003

[SJackson]

It's no surprise that Republicans in Congress aren't eager to renew the ban on certain semiautomatic firearms due to expire next year. What's more interesting is why Democrats aren't raising much of a fuss about it.

Our suspicion is that the left has learned the hard way that gun control is a political loser. The first signs came in 1994, after Bill Clinton successfully urged the Democrat-controlled House and Senate to pass legislation outlawing 19 types of "assault" weapons. In November of that year, several Democrats who had supported the ban, including then-House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington, were voted out of office in the Republican sweep. Mr. Clinton later said crossing gun owners cost his party more than 20 seats. In 1995, the House voted to repeal the ban, which wouldn't even have passed without a sunset provision, but the effort died in the Senate.

[El Gato]

And they can't prove a thing if he doesn't open his mouth and say the words knee-jerk "conservatives" want him to say.

This is politics, not a court of law, they don't have to "prove" anything. Just alleging it, and repeating the allegations often enough suits their purpose just fine.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Just alleging it, and repeating the allegations often enough suits their purpose just fine.

Ain't working so far. Ain't gonna work.

As long as AWB doesn't hit the radar screen it will die.

[El Gato]

As long as AWB doesn't hit the radar screen it will die.

You keep saying that. But what radar screen are you talking about? It's already hit the media's screen, the gun grabbing DimocRat and RINO's screens, and, as much as these things ever do, the public's screen. It's also hit the pro arms rights folks screen. What's left?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It's already hit the media's screen...

And nothing has come of it, has it Bozo?

The only way anything will come of it is if you knee-jerks get your wish and Dubya has to address it.

You won't like what happens then.

[El Gato]

It's already hit the media's screen... And nothing has come of it, has it Bozo?

It's early in the process the thing doesn't expire until the fall (almost) of next year. The House and Senate bills are only about a month old. The real danger will come in summer, probably late summer of next year. The Senate will attach the renewal to some bill, perhaps the Justice Department appropriations bill, as Neal Knox predicts in his latest released 18 May. The Republicans in the Senate, those nominally pro RKBA that is, don't have the cojones to filibuster, even without the President's nominal and weak "support" for the bill, let alone against something the President's spokesmen say he is for. Then the only chance is that the House will strip the provision from the bill. That's more or less how we got the thing in the first place,IIRC

Well, all I can say is that Neal is a long observor of the Congressional and DC scene. He's usually pretty good at reading the tea leaves on this sort of thing. Not 100%, but pretty good. See what he has to say about your vaunted "take away their issue" strategy here: But this is the gist of it:

Bush and his Political Strategist Karl Rove are wrong if they think it's "smart politics" to say he supports the law -- theoretically pleasing suburban "soccer moms" -- while giving lip service to passing it, and counting on Congress to kill it.

Rove is a protege of the late Lee Atwater, Chairman of the Republican National Committee when Presidential Papa George H.W. Bush lost his second term, and who infamously said "Where else do gun owners have to go."

As I've said before, in 1992 they either went for Ross Perot or back to the party that their unions had always supported.

At the very least, Bush 43, will have diminished the ardor of those he will need to get elected in 2004.

As NRA Director, Americans for Tax Reform President and Bush confidant Grover Norquist said last month, White House support for the gun ban reenactment is "Lousy politics."

[El Gato]

And nothing has come of it, has it Bozo?

The strength of your arguements is reflected in your need to call people names. I'm a former military officer, I'm currently a senior researh engineer and do not appreciate being called 'paranoid', 'disease'd, or a "Bozo", and I'm sure others feel the same.

Next time you post, notice the guidlines right below the "post" button. In particular "NO personal attacks". You sir are over the line, or at least getting very close. If you have a point to make or an argument to expand on or refute, do so, but please leave the name calling back in the schoolyard where it's the norm.

Thanks

[El Gato]

But what radar screen are you talking about?
And nothing has come of it, has it Bozo?

Please answer the question. I see that the media is turning up the gain on their radar. This in McPaper: Anti-terrorism efforts ignore lax U.S. gun laws

At least it's on the editorial page, although it states lots of questional things as facts with no evidence or referances. The headline, but not quite the editorial itself, ignores the fact that the two worst terrorist acts in US history, OKC and 9-11, did not involve the use of guns.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

They are trying to drum something up.

You can pay attention to them and help them do it, or you can ignore them and they will have to try to manufacture some other crisis.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Next time you post, notice the guidlines right below the "post" button. In particular "NO personal attacks"

If "Bozo" is a personal attack, contact the moderator to have my post deleted and then leave me the Hell alone.