Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Thune Amendment Fails...

...but, IMHO, fails good. This from MSNBC:
Gun control proponents scored a rare victory as the Senate rejected the carrying of concealed weapons across state lines.

The 58-39 vote Wednesday defeated a measure giving people with concealed weapons permits the right to carry their firearms into other states that have similar gun laws. Sixty votes were needed to approve the provision, an amendment to a defense spending bill.

It is an unusual setback for the gun rights side, which has been able to muster majorities of Republicans and pro-gun Democrats to move its agenda through both the Bush and Obama administrations.
Actually, nobody I talked to on our side (including me) thought the reciprocity bill had a snowball's chance in hell of getting this far. It needed 60 votes and got 58, Speaking of snow in hell, Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell has the round-up:
UPDATE: Final vote 58-39. The bill is defeated, as it needed 60 votes under the rule. I told Bitter this morning I expected majority, but no passage. We have done better than I would have anticipated, and this was a major piece of pro-gun legislation that would have altered the landscape significantly.

UPDATE: Expect gloating from the anti-gunners, but we came very close. We will be back with this bill, or another like it. They can take that to the bank.
Amen to that! A key point is that the Blue Dog Dems are proving to be far more reliable and far more committed to the 2nd Amendment than the Republicans they replaced, which is certainly good for us and good for America.

I would personally like to thank Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet for standing up for their constituents in this shall-issue state and voting "YES." Today's Denver Post featured a full-page ad from antigun forces, filled with misinformation and outright lies trying to swing the vote, but Udall and Bennet stood up to the BS intimidation. Senators, gun owners in Colorado will remember this vote!

20 comments:

Geoff aka Pathfinder said...

Both Dems from ND voted YES!!!!!!!!

Helps (a little) with all of their other bad votes, but they stood up on this one.

Sebastian said...

Amen to that! A key point is that the Blue Dog Dems are proving to be far more reliable and far more committed to the 2nd Amendment than the Republicans they replaced, which is certainly good for us and good for America.

You're not kidding. I think we're better off with a Dem senate under Harry Reid on the gun issue than we were under a decade of Republican leadership.

We'd actually be sitting pretty if it weren't for Pelosi, her cronies, and Obama.

John Richardson said...

I would like to know what the hell was up with Richard Lugar (NRA D+) and George Voinovich (NRA D). They were the ONLY Republicans not to vote for the amendment. Their two votes would have put it over the top. Voinovich is up for re-election in 2010 and Lugar in 2012. Maybe it is time for them to go home!

Louis said...

There are also the former blue dog democrats who turn against us once they go from congress to being the senator from NY. From Fox news:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) calls it a "harmful measure" that will put the public at risk.

The article by John Lott is worth a read.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/21/john-lott-concealed-carry

DonWorsham said...

I would personally like to chastise both Senators from Ohio for voting NAY. I called both and specifically told them (via their staff) to vote YES.

Good thing Voinovich, Republican, is not not running for re-elect.

Dave said...

Sebastian, you are probably correct. When Republicans are voted in to power, some gun owners and RKBA activists give a little sigh of relief, and let their guard down a bit. I figure we are being taken for granted in a similar way that minorities are by the Dems. We need to make certain they can't just chalk up this voting block as theirs and then sit on their frickking hands when they have the opportunity to do something important.
Oh well. I am pleasantly surprised we got 58.

George said...

So this is a strategic defeat or a victory in disguise?

Folks, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades! We have to change our mindset to not be satisfied with close votes.

Like in a real gun fight, one should not aspire to come in second and call it a good day....

Dave said...

No doubt about it. It goes firmly in the loss column.
Having said that, if you told me before the election that this would have even been been proposed, and received this many votes with a Democrat majority in congress, I would have thought you were smoking crack.
Don't mistake my previous comment on the 58 as thinking that is good enough.

Anonymous said...

I'm somewhat torn on this issue. I'm glad both my senators voted yes as I requested, but are we that much worse off without this bill? I'm thinking we might be better off to keep this among the states instead of encouraging more Fed involvement in firearms laws...

Can some of you please educate me on this issue? I need some schoolin, evidently...

;-)

Dan said...

And why is this not a step toward national registration?

If the 2A can be enforced against the states... then why in God's creation is FEDERAL reciprocity a good thing?

Just look at how well the .gov does everything else. Let the states handle their own firearms business.

Secesh said...

Both Dems from VA voted Yes. That takes some of the sting from HAVING 2 Dems from VA.

Maybe they knew the fix was in and they could curry some favor with gunowners.

Dave said...

Hey there anonymous. Here is a little shoolin' such as it is.

Well, the ideal situation is Vermont. Their CCW permit is listed second on an old piece of parchment called the Bill of Rights. However, if you explain that to someone, they may look at you as if you sprouted horns, a third eye, and asked to bend their wife over the table for a good poke. :)

The ideal world doesn't exist.

So in order for us to reclaim our natural right to defense of self and loved ones, we fight for concealed carry permits. That fight has been pretty darn successful.

With the Full faith and credit clause in the constitution( the reason you don't have to get a drivers license in each state you want to drive in BTW) and with at least one state having CCW laws, theoretically that should have been enough.

Of course it isn't, because so many politicians could give a dang what the constitution explicitly spells out.

Bringing us slowly where we are today, where we have to try to craft a law to restore what has been taken by creatively ignoring the most inconvenient portions of the Constitution.

Back to the drivers license thng. Folks may dismiss this as apples and oranges if you wish, but here goes anyway. All states have different tests and standards, yet a DL is good everywhere.
For all the PSH about universal recipricocity, if you look at the number of people harmed by the tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of ccw holders that do something wrong vs. the number of people hurt by unsafe drivers. Well there is just no comparison. It isn't in the same ball park, it isn't the same game. it isn't the same sport. Heck it isn't on the same planet.

It would take Steven Hawking and Carl Sagan together to explain the millions, and billions, and billions of miles difference. :)

Petey said...

Just throwing out a theory:

Is it possible that the dems planned the vote this way? By that I mean it has been talked about a lot that the dems could stand to take losses in the midterms and this vote was orchestrated so the dems in tough races could point to their vote and say "I tried to get it passed" but still knowing it would fail.

I hope I'm wrong.

Jeff said...

Note the phraseology of the MSNBC quote, it says defeated by a 58-39 vote. To the average barely intersted person skimming through the story it looks like the vote was 58 against the measure.

nj_larry said...

Petey, my thinking exactly ! Voting on a bill like this gives the Dems and RINOs some street creds. They all know whether or not the bill will pass. So what is to stop a member from tossing in his or her vote at the last minute and boosting their NRA rating along with being able to go back to their state and bragging? If it comes up again in the next year or so as a separate bill (subject to a simple majority vote) I would be interested in seeing who changes their vote.

John Richardson said...

According to this article by Dana Milbank in today's Washington Post,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/22/AR2009072203282.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Petey is absolutely correct. It was orchestrated and pro-Thune Amendment votes like both Udall and Bennet were willing to vote NO if needed to make sure it went down.

So Michael, instead of thanking Udall and Bennet, you should be asking them about their quid pro quo's and why they were willing to vote NO if Chuck Schumer needed it.

Sebastian said...

You should still thank them. What matters is the vote. If you want to bring up the WaPo article, go ahead, but this kind of crap happens in politics all the time. You hold them to their vote. Not what they told their leadership they were willing to do. Chips are down, they might not really have been willing to switch.

Either way, the important thing is that they hear from you. The only way to shore up their support is to make them understand that there are votes to be had by voting with us, and votes to be lost by voting against.

John Richardson said...

I agree and disagree with what Sebastian says. First, I agree that you are right to thank the Senators who did vote Yea regardless of their motive. I thanked Kay Hagan (D-NC) for her Yea vote as well as Richard Burr (R-NC) who was both a co-sponsor and a Yea vote.

I also agree that you need you need to make them understand that as long as they vote our way (pro-gun) that they will get your support.

However, where I disagree with Sebastian is on bringing up the WaPo article. I would make it clear to them that I was "concerned" by the allegations in the article that they were willing to vote No.

I would go further and state that the political retribution for switching from a Yea to a No vote will be much worse than if they had just voted No in the beginning. A potential traitor must be made to understand that the punishment for treachery will always be worse than that inflicted on an avowed enemy. It is called deterrence.

Avenir labs said...

The 58-39 vote Wednesday defeated a measure giving people with concealed weapons permits the right to carry their firearms into other states that have similar gun laws.and i'm disagree with his decision ...

nj_larry said...

John Lotts blog carried this story this afternoon about the Thune vote. As we suspected it shows how slimy pols handle votes of conscience.

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/
2009/07/senator-mark-pryor-profiles-in-courage.html