Anti-Gun Agenda Cost Candidates for House and Senate

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Republicans focused their mid-term election campaigns on homeland defense and the potential of a war with Iraq while Democrats mainly concentrated on the economy, Social Security, and healthcare issues. But for many candidates in both parties, their position on the Second Amendment played a significant role in their election or defeat.

Preliminary analysis indicates that, of 24 Senate candidates endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA), 21 were elected. The South Dakota Senate race is within the 500-vote margin mandating a recount, and would mean an additional NRA victory if Republican Rep. John Thune surpassed incumbent Democrat Sen. Tim Johnson. Even without a Thune victory, the results are a net gain of two pro-gun senators.

The NRA endorsed 246 candidates in House contests. Of those, 230 won, with two - Colorado's 7th district and Texas' 23rd district - still undecided. That represents a net gain of at least 11 pro-gun representatives.

"Were pleased that NRA members, sportsmen and law-abiding gun owners across America answered the call to freedom and helped play a significant role in this great victory for the Second Amendment," said Kelly Whitley, spokeswoman for the NRA.

"This was a clear message to gun ban advocates across the country that the American people believe in the Second Amendment and want candidates who will fight for that freedom," she added.

On Oct. 21, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence released its "Dirty Dozen" list of candidates who "endanger public safety" by their support of the Second Amendment.

"These are the candidates who let the NRA write their campaign speeches. Their records," said campaign chairwoman Sarah Brady, "demonstrate their indifference to public safety."

Of the five Senate candidates opposed by Brady, only one lost, Doug Forrester (R-N.J.). Similarly, only one of the three candidates on the Brady Campaign's House target list, California Republican Dick Monteith, was defeated.

Two of the three House candidates endorsed by the Brady Campaign, including Republican Felix Grucci from New York's 1st congressional district, also lost.

One symbolic defeat for the pro-gun control movement was that of anti-gun incumbent Republican Rep. Connie Morella from Maryland's 8th District. Democrat Chris Van Hollen effectively neutralized the Second Amendment issue during the campaign by attempting to "out gun control" Morella, but Sarah Brady personally supported Morella with commercial endorsements and campaign appearances. Morella lost by more than five percentage points.

Another Brady "Dirty Dozen" list member from Maryland, Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert Ehrlich, also defeated incumbent Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Townsend had campaigned heavily on her support for stricter gun control laws, and the Brady Campaign launched a last minute "issue ad campaign" Oct. 30, targeting Ehrlich for defeat, despite his support for several gun control measures.

Gun Owners of America spokesman Erich Pratt found the results remarkable, especially because Maryland is considered to be "one of the most anti-gun states in the union.

"The elections in Maryland show how small the Brady Campaign's constituency really is," he said. "We see that [Sarah Brady's] endorsement tended to be the kiss of death for her candidates."

While Whitley was unwilling to speculate in too much detail about how a more gun-friendly Congress might behave, she did offer one prediction.

We're pleased now, and we're going to take it one day at a time," she said. "Hopefully, whether it be in the lame duck or early next session of Congress, we'll see the Senate pass a bill to arm commercial airline pilots. That's something that we've supported since Sept. 11 [2001]."

Pratt was a bit more optimistic.

"We think we're seeing the nail in the coffin as far as many major gun control proposals are concerned," he said.

Calls to the Brady Campaign requesting comment on the election outcome were not returned.

E-mail a news tip to Jeff Johnson.

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Neil Smith (the author) put it this way...

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single-issue thinker, and a single-issue voter, but it isn't true. What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician -- or political philosophy * is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.
Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.
If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.
If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.
What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?
If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?
If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend -- the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights -- do you want to entrust him with anything?
If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil * like "Constitutionalist" -- when you insist that he account for him self, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in jail?
Sure, these are all leading questions. They're the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician -- or political philosophy -- is really made of.
He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn't have a gun -- but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn't you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school -- or the military? Isn't it an essentially European notion, anyway -- Prussian, maybe -- and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?
And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.
Try it yourself: if a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man -- and you're not -- what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have?
On the other hand -- or the other party -- should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?
Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue -- health care, international trade -- all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.

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