This isn't a good news after a Senate buttkicking pick me up, this is real good news if you care about gun control and control of our congressional representation. Yesterday will be looked back on as a pivotal day.
We Won Because: 90%
While 90% of Dems voted for a background check policy with a 90% public approval, 90% of Repubs voted against that policy. This is a non-partisan issue with a 70% approval among registered Republicans and even gun owners! I have many friends, life-long Rs, who became soft Ds after Bush's many betrayals. This is a moral sorting hat moment. We need Rs to put that hat on and own it. The ads write themselves but here's a tagline that should be wrapped around every NRA-publican Senator who voted against this amendment would be "A Senator who sold out your childrens safety to protect the rights of rapists and murderers to buy machine guns"
We Won Because: "I'm Furious"
That is the title of Gabby Giffords Op Ed in the NY Timestoday but it is a sentiment shared by millions this morning.
“Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I’m furious,” she wrote. “I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done, and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe.”
...
“I am asking,” she said, “every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote.”
That is the kind of liberal fury we have not seen since Iraq swept Nancy Pelosi and her Dems into House control in 2006. It's the kind of fury the Tea Partiers ginned up for the Reds return to relevance in 2010. Hell, even Barack's Rose Garden caliber pissed!
We Won Because: Hilarious
BrooklynBadBoy couldn't have smacked Harry Reid harder than this with Lawrence Lewis holding the Turtle down (but I'd pay to see it):
Do you think this might strengthen the case for Filibuster reform just a little bit? Dya' think?!!!
We Won Because: The Stink
This amendment and most of this bill stinks. It has the reek of a Max Baucus negotiated Frankenstein monstrosity. There is a reason even some professional gun nuts were pushing the bill:
one gun rights organization broke with the powerful National Rifle Association on Sunday to urge support for a compromise drafted by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.).
The endorsement by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms — which calls itself the second-largest gun rights organization in the country, behind the NRA, claiming 650,000 members and supporters...
Yep, and these guys have criticized the NRA for being pussies in the recent past but they realized, like Toomey (not a good bone in there BTW) that this will be looked back on as the best the Gun manufacturers could have got. Heck, this amendment and this bill makes gun trafficking easier, not harder. This isn't an entitlement, it won't get stronger with time... remember the assault ban?
No, we need good legistlation and we won't get that with this congress Period - We need a new congress and this is the hammer to get it.
Politics is not boxing, it's jiu jitsu. Learning to take your opponents force and use it against them is the sign of a wise politician and a competent party. Now it is up to the Good Guys to take this advantage and put it to good use in the Senate now and the voting booth next year.