45 Senators against background checks

Gun safety has lost. Just to be clear, the proposed background check law didn’t get fewer votes in the U.S. Senate, it just didn’t meet the 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.

That’s what it’s come to now in the U.S. Senate: any bill, many bills, must reach a 60-vote threshold just to be entered into debate and then to get an up or down vote. A senator doesn’t even have to filibuster anymore to stop a bill. He or she just needs to put a hold on it and if 40 other senators agree, the bill goes nowhere.

And of course there are GOP senators and other Republicans (and a few Democrats) who are joyously celebrating the defeat of what 90 percent of the U.S. population thinks is common sense legislation.

On Facebook there were the people rejoicing as if a great victory had been won, some question where the president got the idea that 90 percent of the American people support universal background checks. The Pew Research poll says 85 percent, the Quinnipiac University poll says 91 percent.

In fact every poll figures between 85 to 92 percent of all Americans want universal background checks. They also say that between 65 to 75 percent of NRA members support having universal background checks. Even a majority of rank and file Republican voters want universal background checks, so passing a bill for universal background checks, which means background checks for any purchase at gun shows and private sellers, seems like it should have been a sure thing.

There are exceptions in the bill for people who want to give guns to family members, friends, co-workers and other acquaintances. A seriously nice-sized loophole that committed criminal arms dealers can exploit.

• Bob, hanging out in the parking lot of a gun show venue: “Yo! Wanna buy a Bushmaster, no questions asked?”
• Ed, passing by: “Hell yeah!”
• Bob: “My name’s Bob. Now we’re friends and we don’t need to mess around with background checks!”
• Ed: “Cool, ’cause I brought my cousin Caitlyn to buy a few guns for me ’cause I got some felonies on my record. My name’s Ed.”
• Bob: “Well I got lots of guns. Save yourself the admission fee! Yer cousin single?”
• Ed: “Nah, she’s my girlfriend.”

Or something like that.

Anyway, even the name of the bill was written to please the NRA and other lobbyists for the gun manufacturers. Should have written it down because now the name eludes me, but it had “Second Amendment Protection” in the name.

A Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and a Republican, Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, put the bill together with the help of a lobbyist from gun rights advocacy group, “The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.” That sounds like a name straight out of the Soviet Union or Red China. On top of that both Manchin and Toomey get “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association.

What Manchin and Toomey proposed was a counter to a bill brought forward by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. Schumer’s bill would have been much closer to a universal background check, which the gun manufacturers didn’t like. So Toomey and Manchin wrote their bill, making sure there were enough loopholes big enough for the gun and ammunition industry to drive trucks through it, preferably loaded with their products.

So, one would think getting the background check provision passed would have been a no-brainer, a done deal. But it was not to be. And this wasn’t even the vote to pass the amendment; this was just to have it added to the larger gun safety bill. The vote was 54 to 46.

Forty-five of the Senators who voted “Nay” did so against the will of the American public. People in the galleries of the Senate, mostly victims of gun violence and family members, yelled “SHAMEFUL” after the vote. The president made a statement from the Rose Garden echoing the public assembled in the Senate chambers.

The opponents of any gun legislation were ecstatic. Some even went on Facebook and mocked the parents of the children killed in the various mass shootings around the country, calling them “hysterical.” Others said they didn’t believe the polling date because nobody asked the personally.

The sentiment seemed to be less about opposing gun legislation and more about opposing anything President Obama supports. Remember: it was just 12 years ago when Wayne LaPierre came out in support of universal background checks. Now there’s a Democrat in the White House so anything he proposes has to be rejected by the NRA and conservatives.

Thanks to the defeat of the gun safety bill you know you can buy just about any weapon you want online — without a background check. What that means is if you can do it any criminal or terrorist can do it too.

The reasons given for opposing background checks was the provision would lead to a national registry of gun owners, even though the bill strictly prohibits a registry. It’s a slippery slope they say. Pass this one gun control measure and the floodgates will be open.

Another reason they like to put out there is that criminals wouldn’t comply with background checks so it wouldn’t serve a purpose. But then Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, when defending his no vote, that background checks wouldn’t work because existing background checks had already stopped 13,000 fugitives from buying guns in 2010, but less than 15 were prosecuted. Well Senator, background checks stopped 13,000 fugitives from buying firearms. Kind of proves background checks work.

Then Graham had the temerity to say there were many people not eligible to own firearms who were not in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Well, no kidding. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, made it nearly impossible to enforce gun laws. For instance: the states are not required to add any information to NICS.

There are so many loopholes and disqualifiers in the existing gun laws that they are nearly useless.

Then there is the gun show loophole that allows “private” sellers to sell guns without any checks of any kind. Forty percent of the guns sold in America do not go through any check system, meaning anyone, including foreign and domestic terrorists can purchase high powered assault weapons without worry.

With universal background checks criminals and terrorists would have to find other avenues for purchasing firearms. Same for people with psychological issues; they would be prevented from buying firearms.

But, since the gun show loophole exists people who could not possibly pass a background check avoid the licensed gun dealers — the sellers who are required to conduct the checks — and just go to private sellers to buy their weapons and ammunition.

Probably emboldened by the lack of 100 percent enforcability of gun regulations, you have crazy governors and state legislatures that pass all kinds of incredibly stupid laws, like the “Stand Your Ground” laws, which are basically your license to kill. And this is pretty funny — almost: Texas, in its zeal to make voting more difficult, passed a law that says you can show up to the polls to vote with a concealed-carry permit, but not with a college I.D. I guess in the Lone Star State college students are not as trustworthy as people who pack heat.

And then there’s Kansas’ crazy Governor Sam Brownback. His state’s equally crazy legislators passed a law that outlaws federal gun control measures. Being the nut that he is, Brownback signed it. The bill says, “Any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States which violates the second amendment to the constitution of the United States is null, void and unenforceable in the state of Kansas.”

Yeah, well, we’ll see how that flies with the U.S. Supreme Court which has historically upheld the supremacy of federal law over state laws — including this current, conservative, court.

The proponents of this legislative insurrection have as one of their legal experts “Judge” Andrew Napolitano, of FoxNews. He’s never met a conservative idea he didn’t like. According to Napolitano noncompliance with federal laws a state feels are unconstitutional is constitutionally sound.

The Kansas State Government ought to get a second opinion on that. They can start with the former Confederate States and see how noncompliance worked out for them. Of course there’s no state, not even Texas that’s willing to go toe-to-toe with the federal government, so once the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down that law the issue will fizzle away.

• Remember how quickly Governor Rick Perry of Texas backed off his secession rhetoric?

Now, after the Boston Marathon bombers have been killed and captured — one each — we look at this culture we live in. No, gun laws and background checks had nothing to do with the motivations of these two brothers, and owing to their clean records (that we currently know of) gun laws wouldn’t have prevented either one from purchasing firearms. Anyone can purchase the items they used to make their bombs, so, what’s the answer to how do we prevent these things?

The simple answer is one none of us likes: we simply cannot prevent every act of violence or terror. Maybe if a family member or acquaintance had noticed one or both of them acting differently … but our friends and family act differently from time-to-time without committing murder, so how would you know? Maybe we’ll find out they, like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (the two responsible for Columbine) bragged to people before the attacks. But how many times have we heard our friends make outlandish threats we didn’t need to take seriously?

We don’t know any of that yet. But we do know that banning assault weapons works because Australia did it and their gun violence dropped significantly. You can still own guns Down Under, just not civilian versions of the AK-47 or M-16.

We do know that limiting the capacity of gun magazines works because when Jared Loughner stopped to reload a 33-round clip into his Glock-19 after shooting Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and 18 others, some of his potential targets were able to wrestle him to the ground and disarm him. And at Sandy Hook Elementary the shooter had to stop to reload his Bushmaster, allowing 11 children to escape.

Here’s something that just bugs the hell out of me. Several times now I’ve heard NRA Spokesmodel Wayne LaPierre use as one of his arguments the guns in question (the civilian versions of the assault weapons our troops use in battle) only use a .233 caliber round, which isn’t the most powerful round in use. Not one interviewer on television has challenged that statement. The fact is — and you can ask any Marine or Soldier who has killed the enemy in battle — the .233 round (the military designation is the 5.56×45 ml) is a very lethal round. It’s killed tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans in the past 11 years.

That’s the reason the .223 is the standard caliber round for NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It’s a small caliber, high velocity round that will inflict maximum damage to tissue once it hits its target. But no one, not even David Gregory on Meet the Press, challenged LaPierre when he claimed it was just a .223 round, not the biggest bullet a person can buy.

It may seem like an insignificant detail, but most people have no idea NATO has a standard round they use for battle, let alone that the standard round was the one used by the shooter at Sandy Hook. So, when Wayne LaPierre gets on television and says, “It’s only a .223 caliber round, not the heaviest you can buy,” the average person will think, “He’s got a point.”

No he doesn’t. It’s a very effective round for killing other humans. Ask the military and the parents and family of those killed by Adam Lanza in Newtown, CT how effective the .223 round is when used for killing people.

But apparently Congress, and the Senate in particular, did ask the victims and family members of shootings from all across America in the run-up to Wednesday’s vote — and that wasn’t enough to even get a watered-down version of a background check law passed.

Yep, the NRA, lobbyists for the gun and ammo industry, won this round, but if you care about your safety and that of your neighbors, don’t let your representatives get away with it. In approximately 19 months we get to vote. Make Congress’s inaction a reason for you to vote. And remember the 45 that voted against the background check — three Democrats and 42 Republicans.

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voted “No” as a procedural move so he can bring the bill to the floor again without having to start from square one.

Here are the names of the 45 that voted “Nay”: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY)
, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
, Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK)
, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)
, Sen. John Boozman (R-AR)
, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC)
, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
, Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN)
, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN)
, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
, Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID)
, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY)
, Sen. Deb Fischer (R-NE, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA)
, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV)
, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND)
, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)
, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE)
, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI)
,Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)
, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS)
, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH)
, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR)
, Sen. James Risch (R-ID)
, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS)
, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)
, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC)
, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)
, Sen. John Thune (R-SD)
, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)
 and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).

Don’t tell them “Shameful,” show them when they come up for re-election.

Tim Forkes

Tim Forkes started as a writer on a small alternative college newspaper in Milwaukee called the Crazy Shepherd. Writing about entertainment issues, he had the opportunity to speak with many people in show business, from the very famous to the people struggling to find an audience. In 1992 Tim moved to San Diego, CA and pursued other interests, but remained a freelance writer. Upon arrival in Southern California he was struck by how the business of government and business was so intertwined, far more so than he had witnessed in Wisconsin. His interest in entertainment began to wane and the business of politics took its place. He had always been interested in politics, his mother had been a Democratic Party official in Milwaukee, WI, so he sat down to dinner with many of Wisconsin’s greatest political names of the 20th Century: William Proxmire and Clem Zablocki chief among them. As a Marine Corps veteran, Tim has a great interest in veteran affairs, primarily as they relate to the men and women serving and their families. As far as Tim is concerned, the military-industrial complex has enough support. How the men and women who serve are treated is reprehensible, while in the military and especially once they become veterans. Tim would like to help change that reality.

www.forkesreport.com