I am not going to post the language of the Leahy Amendment. You can read it for yourself. It increased the penalty for purchasing a gun on behalf of a felon or someone who is insane or someone who is subject to a restraining order to no more than 15 years in prison. It provided that the leader or organizer of a group of more than five people involved in gun trafficking could receive a sentence of no more than 25 years in prison. The idea is that it should be a very serious felony to intentionally give a firearm to someone who is dangerous or who you know intends to use the firearm to commit crimes. The National Rifle Association approved the language in this amendment, and yet it still failed.
It received 58 votes, including all the Democratic senators and Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois).
To me, this is an even bigger scandal than the vote against expanded background checks. Some people are giving John McCain credit for voting for the background checks, but he voted against harsher penalties for straw purchasers. Here’s Patrick Leahy announcing the NRA’s approval of his amendment:
“Senator [Susan] Collins and I are both strong supporters and advocates of Second Amendment rights for law-abiding Americans. We also agree that our law enforcement officials deserve our support in their efforts to keep guns out of the wrong hands,” Leahy said. “We worked with the NRA and with several other Senators to ensure that nothing in our bill infringes on the Second Amendment rights of lawful gun owners and purchasers, while still providing a strong new set of tools for law enforcement officials. We are pleased that the NRA agrees with us that this legislation is a focused approach to combat the destructive practices of straw purchasing and firearms trafficking while protecting the Second Amendment rights of Americans.”
Collins said “Our bill would help keep guns out of the hands of criminals without infringing upon the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens. It protects legitimate sales and would not penalize legal transactions nor place unnecessary burdens on lawful transactions. I am pleased to have worked out differences with the NRA on bipartisan legislation that would help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals and individuals with severe mental illnesses, and give law enforcement the tools they need to investigate and prosecute these crimes more effectively.”
So, why did all but three Republican senators vote against this NRA-approved amendment? Why?
Why?
Well there are “journalists” out there, I suppose they could ask some of these fine “conservative” senators why even NRA-approved(TM) legislation was unacceptable.
It seems to me that this exercise was more about defeating Obama than anything else. This straw purchase scandal would support that theory. And what sense does it make for McFool to vote against this but for background checks? He hates Leahy but likes Manchin? It’s irrational (except to “conservatives”).
Finally, when we talk of “amendments” to the gun “bill” what does this mean? IS there any “bill” other than these various “amendments” to it? It seems like the “amendments” contained everything that we ever heard about the “bill”.
That’s the effect of the filibuster. In exchange for allowing debate to end on the bill, the unanimous consent agreement provides that all amendments must have 60 votes to pass. So, everything controversial must be offered as an amendment, allowing it to, in effect, be filibustered, even when it is technically getting a vote.
Republicans differentiate themselves by stiffing Democrats, especially anything President Obama wants passed. It’s McConnell’s brilliant strategy, and so far it is working because (1) there are cowardly Democrats who will filibuster the leader’s position and (2) the media is totally dishonest about what is going on in Congress. Some Democratic Party unity and less coddling Republican positions might help, but the next decade is looking more and more like a disaster because of the contradictions in the Democratic Party.
It is quite possible that we might see the collapse of both parties before 2016. Both are seriously out of touch with the realities of their constituents.
Or the corporate coup through trade agreements might be complete by then and no signatory nation retains enough sovereignty to rein in transnational corporations.
The failure of Newtown to move things in a new direction in Congress speaks volumes about the immorality and callousness of Congress. Totally sold out.
Sold out to whom? This amendment was approved by Wayne LaPierre. There was no real reason to vote against it aside from strict partisanship. No one was giving out cash for this vote.
Did Wayne LaPierre advocate actively for the amendment, or did he set up Leahy?
There are more ways than direct cash to sell out. There is not excuse for any of the Democratic Senators to have filibustered any of these votes.
As for “sold out to whom”? Sold out to whichever K Street lobbyist is against the general public interest. The overcontrol over communications with constituents means that Congress and Congressional staffs never have meaningful discussions of policy with anyone but lobbyists, major donors, and each other.
Who cares if he “actively” advocated for the amendment? He approved of it, publicly. He didn’t score it as a bad vote. No member of Congress had to fear voting for this amendment for any reason whatsoever.
Still believe “A man’s word is his bond.” eh.
If no member of Congress had to fear voting for the amendment, why did it fail. What exactly happened between NRA lobbyists and mushy Democrats when no one was looking?
Every Democrat voted for this amendment precisely because no one had any reason to fear voting for it.
At this point the Republicans are just soulless monsters.
Hmm, the NRA doesn’t directly represent the industry. Perhaps individual industry lobbyists made it clear about donations to individual senators. They don’t give to Democrats anyway so NRA is good enough for them.
Still, set up is possible. Why didn’t Toomey vote for it?
Every Democrat voted for this amendment
And yet Tarheel’s response is to blame the Democrats.
David Broder strongly approves.
I also had to spell it out three times, including in the body of the post.
Well there was that opportunity to end the filibuster.
Which was also supported by the vast majority of Democrats, an opposed uniformly by Republicans.
So, obviously, it shows that the Democrats – all of them, in the aggregate – are to blame.
This “both sides are the same” nonsense, in response to a vote in which the vast majority of Democrats voted the right way, and all the Republicans voted the wrong way, is absurd.
This idiocy should make it apparent to one and all that there will be NO significant new legislation passed in this Congress and there is NOTHING to be gained by offering the Republicans anything but an upraised middle finger.
You actually think the second half of your sentence follows from the first, don’t you?
Yeah, yeah, we know, the mainstream media will start castigating the Republicans for their intransigence any minute now. And a pony!
On the other hand, at least you, unlike BooMan, actually did understand that no legislative compromises will be forthcoming. So I’ll give you that.
Right, just like they did during the fiscal cliff talks.
I guess you missed that. You’re good at missing things.
Don’t give me anything. You’re a south-pointing compass.
Business Week: On the Fiscal Cliff, Republicans are Blowing a Great Deall
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-31/on-the-fiscal-cliff-republicans-are-blowing-a-great-
deal
Reuters: House Republians Balk at Fiscal Cliff Deal
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/01/us-usa-fiscal-idUSBRE8A80WV20130101
The Economist: THE collapse of John Boehner’s “Plan B” reveals the Republican Party to be in a politically disastrous position. The media narrative is shaping up to pin the full blame for sending the country over the fiscal cliff on the Republicans. News coverage of Mr Boehner is characterised by a mixture of disdain and pity. The tea-party congressmen who have sabotaged his position are portrayed as delusional zealots unable to connect their professed goals to their actions in a rational fashion.
Shall I go on, or is that enough ponies for one day? Because the Google machine keeps spitting these out.
LOL at the idea that Business Week influences voters. Points for creativity though.
Follow the dancing goal post, kiddies:
Yeah, yeah, we know, the mainstream media will start castigating the Republicans for their intransigence any minute now.
one-and-two-and-
LOL at the idea that Business Week influences voters.
It’s impressive that your head can keep barking out forced laughter after being handed to you.
Aw, what’s a few more?
CNN: Boehner’s Plan B fiscal cliff bill pulled amid dissension in GOP caucus http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/20/politics/fiscal-cliff
David fucking Brooks: “Most of the blame still has to go to the Republicans,” he continued. “They’ve had a brain freeze since the election. They have no strategy. They don’t know what they want. They haven’t decided what they want.”
Giddyup, pony.
I decided yesterday evening that I would again call my two GOP Senators, this time to express my disappointment in their votes to sustain the filibuster of the Manchin-Toomey bill.
Ironically, I just received a robo call from the Brady Campaign asking me to call Sen. Isakson to urge his vote in support of that legislation (as if it were yesterday pre-vote). I stayed on the line and got connected to Isakson’s office. A young staffer answered right away.
I identified myself and asked her why Isakson voted to uphold the filibuster; she seemed a bit surprised and taken aback. Then she said that he was only in favor of “instant” background checks and opposed to “registration” and “wait times”. I asked her to explain what he meant by registration and asked her what’s wrong with asking someone to wait a bit to get approval to buy a gun? Then she said that he thought the amendments were a violation of individual rights to privacy. My response was ” phooey, we give up rights to privacy all the time. Like when we get a drivers’ license, which in this state, thanks to the GOP, is now a bureaucratic nightmare and a total invasion of one’s privacy.
I plan on calling the other in a bit, although all along he’s not had the courage to do anything other than send incoming calls into his voice mail. And he’s an even greater coward, since he’s not running for reelection. I urge everyone to personally weigh in on the phones today with some of those 46 voters yesterday. If nothing else, it lets them know that we are still here and are very disgusted with their political cowardness.
“They are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook!”
They are petty, poisonous, cowards.
Why?
Because they’re sociopathic pieces of shit.
Simple answers to simple questions.
There is only one answer. The pro-gun control groups must work together. They must
Until anti-NRA voters are as motivated as NRA voters, the gun thing will continue to be a huge problem for democrats and rational non-gunsuck persons.
I’m going to go with the simplest and most plausible explanation: All but three Republican senators become sexually aroused when they see this kind of stuff.
They voted against it because there are other gun groups that have staked out positions even further to the right than the NRA, and they don’t want to get “outgunned” by those groups, either.
Repubs who voted against the Leahy amendment were scared that their gun crazy constituents would support a primary opponent on their right if they voted for any form of gun control at all, whether or not it is unopposed by the NRA. They are big chickenshits who couldn’t do the right thing because of their fear, which controls them. That’s why they are Republicans.
and until the anti-gunsuck groups can produce the same kind of fanatical one-track voting, the gunsucks will continue to win, and children will continue to die. Until we can threaten them with loss of office if they vote pro-gunsuck, we lose.