Greg Sargent makes the point that this is the challenge going forward for gun control advocates going forward. On the one hand 90% of Americans-and a supermajority also among Republicans and even NRA members-support background checks.
However, there's a narrative that the intensity is not so high: those on the gun rights side are much more motivated. Sargent looks at a recent Pew poll that gives mixed signals.
A new Pew poll sheds light on why this may prove very challenging — but it also has some findings that will lend some comfort to gun safety advocates. The poll finds:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/04/24/the-morning-plum-the-next-challenge-for-gun-reform-advocates/
As he says you can look at it two ways. On the one hand, more people had negative than positive feelings. Yet this is hardly an overwhelming disparity particularly considering 90% support background checks? So why the stark disparity? Partly, it's believed that "gun control" still ha a pejorative connotation for many. Perhaps this is why you hear a lot about "gun reform."
So the question remains: what's the political penalty for voting against Manchin-Toomey?
This finding, meanwhile, is key:
However, there's a narrative that the intensity is not so high: those on the gun rights side are much more motivated. Sargent looks at a recent Pew poll that gives mixed signals.
A new Pew poll sheds light on why this may prove very challenging — but it also has some findings that will lend some comfort to gun safety advocates. The poll finds:
47% express negative feelings about the vote while 39% have a positive reaction to the Senate’s rejection of gun control legislation that included background checks on gun purchases. Overall, 15% say they are angry this legislation was voted down and 32% say they are disappointed. On the other side, 20% say are very happy the legislation was blocked, while 19% say they are relieved.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/04/24/the-morning-plum-the-next-challenge-for-gun-reform-advocates/
As he says you can look at it two ways. On the one hand, more people had negative than positive feelings. Yet this is hardly an overwhelming disparity particularly considering 90% support background checks? So why the stark disparity? Partly, it's believed that "gun control" still ha a pejorative connotation for many. Perhaps this is why you hear a lot about "gun reform."
So the question remains: what's the political penalty for voting against Manchin-Toomey?
This finding, meanwhile, is key:
In the 13 states where one senator voted in favor and one voted against the bill…the overall balance of opinion is similar: 49% say they are angry or disappointed, 36% very happy or relieved.
"And so, even in red or purple states, ones in which Senators voted No (Kelly Ayotte, Max Baucus, Jeff Flake, Rob Portman), significantly more were unhappy about the vote than were happy about it. Gun control advocates still hold out hope that these Senators can be won over, and these numbers will not dim those hopes. On the other hand, they don’t tell us whether an intensity gap persists in these states, in which partisans on the right do more to organize, lobby Senators, and donate money than partisans on the left do, which has historically been the case. This is something Mike Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns — and liberal groups — are hoping to change by building a long term pressure infrastructure."
In this vein the gun control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns is planning on putting some pressure on the Arkansas Senator, Pryor, to drop his opposition:
"In a very interesting experiment along these lines, Ron Fournier reports that Mayors Against Illegal Guns is seriously considering a months long advertising campaign pressuring the Arkansas Senator to drop his opposition to expanding background checks. No doubt Pryor would scoff at pressure from a New York billionaire, but the campaign may focus on Dem base voters, such as African Americans, and possibly also suburbanites."
"The campaign would function as a test case as to whether partisans on the left can be energized and engaged around the gun issue in a sustained way, as they are on the right. Gun control advocates need to show that Dems can be made to pay a genuine political price for opposing gun reforms that enjoy near-universal support (despite the fact that guns are not a motivating issue), even in a red state."
In the same vein, the gun control group started by Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and her husband, Mark Kelly, is hitting both Kelly Ayotte and Mitch McConnell with new ads calling both of them out in their respective states.
"Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Gifffords (D-AZ) and her husband Mark Kelly to promote moderate gun control laws, will begin airing radio ads in Kentucky and New Hampshire Wednesday in order to hold Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) accountable for voting against background check legislation."
"The New Hampshire ad attacks Ayotte for ignoring her constituents' support of background check legislation. The ad asks listeners to call Sen. Ayotte and will air in Concord, Manchester, Keene and Seacoast. The Kentucky ad targets women voters and will air in Lexington and Louisville. McConnell is up for re-election in 2014 and Ayotte in 2016."
“As Gabby said last week, if we can’t keep our communities safer with the congress we have, we will work to change congress, “ said Pia Carusone, the group's executive director, said in a press release. “Senator McConnell and Senator Ayotte turned their backs on their constituents at home in order to do the bidding in Washington of the corporate gun lobby. We’re going to make sure their constituents know that, effective immediately.”
Going after McConnell in particular shows a certain level of confidence, perhaps. After all, he was never considered reachable on this issue. Yet as the ad points out, 82% of Kentuckians support background checks; he's also the most unpopular Senator in the country to boot.
On the need to demonstrate the ability to extract payback, Bill Daley had a major call to arms in a hard hitting op-ed on Sunday where he urged fellow wealthy donors like himself not to give money to any Senator who voted against background checks: he had donated to Heidi Heitkamp's campaign in 2012 and says he feels betrayed.
There's a really good piece on the New Republic that argues that the backlash against the gun-vote is just beginning. Kelly Ayotte is already feeling a backlash:
"As the Boston area was gripped by the manhunt that followed the Marathon bombings late last week, the opinion pages of the Concord Monitor just up the road in New Hampshire were consumed with another subject: Senator Kelly Ayotte’s vote against legislation to expand background checks for gun purchases. The paper’s lead editorial Sunday decried Ayotte’s rationale for opposing the bill as “utter nonsense” and an “abomination.” The letters to the editor section is riddled with anti-Ayotte broadsides, the tenor of which are conveyed by their headlines: “Ayotte’s vote should propel her out of office.” “Beyond disappointed.” “Ayotte did not represent her New Hampshire constituents.” “Enabler of murderers.” “Ayotte’s ‘courage.’” “Craven pandering.” “Reckless vote.” “Illogical vote.”
"If gun control advocates are going to have any chance of resurrecting reforms after last week’s crushing defeat, much is going to depend on the depth of the initial backlash against the Democratic or swing-state Republican senators who opted to vote with the gun lobby. In a piece the day after the vote, I lamented that some leading liberals and mainstream media types were so willing to chalk the vote up to the predictable dynamics of the gun control issue, thereby essentially letting the senators who cast the crucial votes against the legislation off the hook for their decisions. One major columnist avoided holding accountable the senators who took the actual votes by wishing that President Barack Obama had acted more like a president in a movie."
Ayotte is not the only Senator to take hits for her vote: so has Jeff Flake from Arizona.
It's nice to see Dowd called out again for her ridiculous criticism that the President isn't more like the Green Lantern.
While the chances of passing background checks and tougher trafficking is held to be a long shot in the near future-the conventional wisdom seems to be that the Dems may have a really good 2014 wedge issue but that for the time being the bill is dead-I'm not so sure. It failed by 5 votes. Indeed, as has been pointed out it didn't really even fail. It passed with more than enough support but it didn't meet the current Senate rule that everything motst receive a 60 vote supermajority to pass.
The trouble is that those on the fence-Heitkamp, Ayotte, etc-didn't want to go out on a limb. If there were more like 58-59 votes rather than 55, you may have seen a couple willing to switch. Based on the pressure we're already seeing on Flake, Ayotte, etc. is it so hard to imagine at least a few switching? This would then create the groundswell for a few more timid swing votes.
"But there are signs that the reaction against the vote will be stronger than what has followed prior setbacks for the cause. First, of course, there was the angry cri de coeur from Gabby Giffords. On Friday came spontaneous protests around the country at district offices of senators who voted no. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has set up a number for people to text so they can be patched through to the office of a senator who went the other way. “In years past when we lost on a vote, we had to generate [reaction], we had to push people,” says Brian Malte, the group’s director of mobilization. “This time it’s just directing it to the right place. It’s ‘I’m so angry, what should I do?’
So yes, it seems different this time-a real tide rising in protest. The NR piece also mentions Bill Daley's big piece as symptomatic that there may be a new climate among Democrat establishments on gun control-ever since 1994, rightly or wrongly, they've wanted no part of gun control.
"Daley is just one person, but this seems pretty significant to me, as a sort of signal to establishment Democrats nationwide. For so long, party poo-bahs have cosseted Democrats from red or purple districts on issues such as gun control—heck, Daley’s fellow Chicagoan Rahm Emanuel deliberately picked pro-gun candidates to run for the House in 2006. Some liberals still seem inclined to cut the Gang of Feckless Four a lot of slack. But here is Daley turning the frame on its head—instead of making excuses for Heitkamp et al, he praised the Democrats running for reelection in tough states who did for the legislation, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and North Carolina’s Kay Hagan. They, not Heitkamp and the other three no’s (Max Baucus, Mark Begich and Mark Pryor) will be getting his money from now on, he said."
"Of course, it won’t be easy. Ayotte, for one, is not even up for reelection until 2016, allowing plenty of time for the memory of her vote to recede in voters’ minds. As political scientists note, the unique circumstances of the gun debate still plays to the advantage of the NRA. But as my colleague Nate Cohn argues, the NRA’s sway has been overstated for some time now—the fact is, not a few senators have managed to survive in purple or red states despite consistently voting against the gun lobby. Last week’s setback was a sign that some senators were not yet willing to embrace that reality, and by doing so, they of course further enshrined facile assumptions of NRA prowess."
"But their votes do seem to have produced a visceral reaction unlike any we’ve seen for some time on this front. And rightly so. It would take a jaded soul indeed to feel nothing on reading, say, of the scene Wednesday night in the Oval Office when some of the families who lost children in the Newtown massacre learned that 45 senators had not seen it in them to vote for even the most measured, limited reform: “Mr. Obama hugged the brother of one victim, Daniel Barden, who was 7, and told him to take care of his mother, who was sobbing quietly.”
Many important reforms take a long time to achieve in American politics. Look at how long healthcare took since FDR made it part of the Democratic agenda in the 30s. Gun control itself has always been a long game. Even the assassination of JFK wasn't enough to tighten gun laws; it would also take the murder of his brother, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King to get that. The Brady Bill also took many years to pass after the killing of the little girl who inspired the name.
So that things that are worth fighting for is nothing new. However, gun control may well prove to be another idea whose time has come like immigration reform now is, to name another issue that has taken a long time to get traction on: now with the GOP leadership itself coming down strongly for it, it's time is undoubtedly now here.
If gun control's time has come it will be because we made it such. It's up to us, the Dem voters, to make sure there will be payback for voting against the interests of the American people, for causing scenes like that one in the Oval Office last Wednesday night, after the vote.
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