No offense, but I trust Larry Craig's opinion more than yours. For all I know, you might be Albert Einstein reincarnated, and the smartest person in the world - but I'll go with Senator Craig on this one, simply because I know he's been supporting the RKBA cause for years.
If it had proven impossible to get a clean bill out of committee any unacceptable bill would have been defeated in the final house vote.
"Would have been defeated?" Care to bet your life on that?
Back in 1994, I spoke on the phone with my (Republican) congressman. He is still in Congress - serving as a committee chairman, as a matter of fact. He had just voted in favor of the 'assault weapons ban.' He knew I was absolutely outraged by his vote in favor of the Clinton/Feinswine AWB - and explained it this way (paraphrasing, since I was not recording the conversation): 'I thought there were more positive aspects to the bill than negative.' How nice. Maybe he liked the 'midnight basketball' provisions...
In short, you seem to be making a lot of assumptions about our supposedly 'republican' Congress. And (FWIW) you seem to be forgetting S. 1806 as well...
No offense intended - I'm sure we agree on 99.99% of the issues, and I'm not looking for more enemies (I've got a 'camera-hound' D@mocrat governor, and one D@mocrat Senator who helped 'poison' S. 1805 ;>). Maybe we should see what happens. Could be you're right, and Mr. Craig is ignoring the obvious. Or maybe Mr. Craig is doing his best, and passing the amended bill would have been somewhat less 'ideal' than your posts seem to imply...
Best regards...
;>)
Many GOP congressmen may not care about the AWB issue, but they do care about Bush's re-election. It doesn't take Einstein to know that if the the AWB renewal makes it to his desk he's in trouble whichever way he goes, and no GOP house member wants that to happen. Even the Senate RINOS want Bush re-elected and were apparently confident the renewal amendment they voted for wouldn't get to him. The "in" party never wants to vote on controversial issues in an election year, and the best way to avoid that is to stop them in committees.