In 2013, as Nevada Senator Dean Heller faced a critical vote on firearm safety issues, he selected a strange place to contemplate his feelings on the issue.
… He returned to his hometown of Carson City and ate with his family at an IHOP restaurant—the same one where a gunman went on a rampage in 2011, killing four people and injuring more than a dozen others before killing himself. In the process, the gunman unloaded a 30-round magazine clip and rocked the sense of safety in the small Nevada community.
A few days later, Heller voted against renewing a ban on assault weapons. He voted against limiting the size of magazines to 10 rounds. He voted against a bipartisan proposal to extend background checks. Heller kept his A+ rating with the NRA, while making it clear he but put in some deep-thinking … before doing exactly what the NRA wanted.
“For Heller, it’s a win. He can say, ‘I’m not one of these crazies who will fold my arms and not talk,’” Herzik says. “But by the same token, he can say, ‘I don't think these provisions are going to work, and they’re a threat to the Second Amendment.’ In an off way, he’s able to have it both ways.”
The IHOP where Heller did his deep thinking played host to a 2011 shooting in which a gunman with an AK-47 who shot a woman in the parking lot before coming inside to open fire on a table of uniformed National Guard. A nearby man, who was armed, regretted not stopping the shooter …
"But when he came at me, when somebody is pointing an automatic weapon at you — you can't believe the firepower, the kind of rounds coming out of that weapon."
What was fired in Carson City was just a preview for overnight events in Las Vegas.
Heller squeaked into the Senate by just 12,000 votes. He’ll face voters again in 2018, and is already in a bind from his position on health care.
A Public Policy Poll survey released Tuesday found that only 22 percent of Nevada voters who responded to the survey approve of Heller's job performance, compared with 55 percent who disapprove. Twenty-three percent said they weren't sure.