Assault Weapon Ban extension PASSES (Senate amendment to gun industry protection bill)

C-Span ^ | 3-2-04 | Sen. Dianne Feinstein D-CA

[Atlas Sneezed]

The vote was:

52 -Aye in favor of extending the ban 47 -Nay opposed to the ban.

[JohnnyZ]

let's not bother with the bulls**t ad hominum crap, shall we?

Hey, I'm just marking down your prediction which had no relation to reality! If you can't stand by that, you're free to take it back . . . what do you say, Laz???

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Of course it will. It's anti-freedom, isn't it?

Which is exactly why Bush will sign it.

[Lazamataz]

GW ....if ya sign this POS...............Bye Bye in November !

I'm getting the feelin' he'd be happy to return to Crawford. I think he enjoyed his term, and wouldn't really mind moving on.

[KQQL]

Tim Johnson of South Dakota did not vote.
-------

He's got better things to do.. prostate cancer surgery...

I wish him the best...

[Lazamataz]

How old are you, Johnny? An approximate age will suffice.

[ArrogantBustard]

BTW, Jawn 'Putz' Wahnuh has earned the honorific "traitor and backstabber".

[MineralMan]

"I fully expect this to come out of the conference with the AWB intact and it will land on Dubya's desk and he will sign it as he's promised to do."

I agree with you. Fairly recent polls about extending the AWB come back with almost a 2/3 majority in favor of the extension. And these aren't one-sided web polls.

DeLay may strut a little and show his spurs, but my bet is that the AWB amendment to this bill gets through conference. I'll further bet that they pull one or another amendment to "clean up" the bill in conference, while leaving the AWB extension in place.

Then, it will pass both the House and Senate, Bush will sign it, as he said he would, and the AWB goes on.

Single issue Republicans may decide not to vote for Bush because of this, and it will make no significant difference in the November elections.

What will Bush gain? He'll gain the ability to say, "See, I helped take all those assault weapons off the street, making our nation safer." What will that get him? Enough soccer mom votes to offset the RKBA voters, who may well not have voted for him in 2000.

He can't veto such a bill, because that will become the Dem's big issue for 2004. Similarly, only those GOP house members who know they will lose if they vote for the bill will give a good goshdarn. The rest, as we saw in the Senate, will vote Yes or No, not based on principle, but based on what they expect their district voters to care about.

Sadly, "assault weapons" are disliked by a heckuva lot of Republican voters, right or wrong. This ain't as simple as it seems.

[Dead Corpse]

Without our full Second Amendment Rights, there is nothing to stop them from turning us INTO said carcass. THAT is why this is a "Last Line in the Sand" argument for quite a few of us. We firmly believe that the Second back up the rest. History agrees with us.

Hyena? That would apparently make you a Rat then wouldn't it?

[PLMerite]

Ditto. I'll forget to vote for W in November.

[Dane]

People don't care? Then why not equate speech with the second amendment? Many here are pissed as hell at having their right to bear arms limited. Why should speech be any different?

Go ask your neighbor or someone at the supermarket about CFR. See what kind of reaction you get.

I'll bet you won't get a response saying it is an assault on the 1st amendment. There are many more millions of people like your hypothetical neighbor or person on the street than people on FR. You may not like but that is the reality. Now you can talk to your neighbor and explain why CFR is wrong and maybe change one mind at at time, but to the vast majority of people, CFR does not affect them one bit and they could care less.

There is a world out there other than FR.

[Teacher317]

Stunning, isn't it?

[Merdoug]

And by 2008, the Republicans might grow a SPINE and we will have a Republican President actually CONSERVATIVE in other ways besides big business interests.

[TC Rider]

I'll send you one of the honorary Signing Pens that Bush will use to sign it in to law.

And I will send you a high-cap Glock magazine when it sunsets. (no, not really, but I couldn't think of any other cheap physical object to make my point)

[My2Cents]

How, precisely, is a ban on assault weapons a violation of the 2nd Amendment? I'm being serious and sincere in the question, so I'd appreciate a serious and sincere response.

[Lazamataz]

These principled stands over bits and pieces of the proverbial pie are going to cause the eventual and problematic loss of the entire pie.

I'm losing the desire to care. We are getting closer and closer to the point where there's not that much left to save. We're only, I'd estimate, 5 to 10 years away from a complete pistol ban. Then maybe 15 years out from a set of severe rifle and shotgun restrictions. At that point, we are pretty much where the Soviets were in the 1970's.

The rest of the socialism seems to be catching up, too. (c.f.: Federal spending)

[Cold Heat]

Hyena? That would apparently make you a Rat then wouldn't it?

This type of comment is precisely what I was addressing.

Pure emotional knee jerk rhetorical pap.

[Dane]

BTW, rintense there are 80 million gun owners in the US, I doubt the people who care about CFR is 1% of that total.

[El Gato]

See, Bush wants this thing dead. He knows that AWB renewal is a trap set by Democrats to discourage his base voters and cause a split in the Party.

If he wants it dead, why do his official spokepersons keep saying he will sign it? If he really wanted it dead, he would say that on the basis on new information not available to him in 2000, he would now veto the bill. Then it would be dead, because no way are there enough votes to overide a veto. After all how many gun grabbers were going to vote for Bush even if he did sign the AWB extension?

[OXENinFLA]

If I give you a list of guns and say YOU CAN'T OWN THESE.

Is that an Infringement?

[Charles Martel]

See, Bush wants this thing dead. He knows that AWB renewal is a trap set by Democrats to discourage his base voters and cause a split in the Party. So does DeLay. That's why this will die.

Yep. Had the Democrats managed to hang onto control of Congress and the White House, passing an extension/expansion would have posed no problem - and they would've done it real quiet-like. Knowing that it was possible that the opposition would have to deal with it, the Dems planted the AWB sunset provision like a land mine for Republicans to step on. That was the main purpose of the legislation in the first place, exceeding the actual anti-gun content in importance.