On April 17, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) tabled gun control legislation when he failed to muster enough votes to pass it. Since that day, Democrats have been absolutely obsessed with finding another opportunity to bring it up for a vote and pass it.
That began to be evident on April 28, when Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) told Fox News’ Chris Wallace he was “absolutely” going to bring his gun control bill back to the Senate floor for another vote. Days after this, President Obama said the failure Democrats suffered on April 17 was “just the first round.”
Two days after Obama made these comments, Democrats at all levels were in full-blown hysterics to get gun control another vote. This included Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly using their gun control group to run ads against Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for voting against gun control. It also included Democrats converging on Senate town halls outside their states to try to turn civil gatherings into emotionally driven spectacles focused on gun control.
These events were followed by Vice President Joe Biden’s claims that four Senators called him to say they wanted to change their votes and support gun control. He added: “I’m convinced we’ll be able to bring [gun control] back up, and I’m convinced we can win this.”
While that was happening, Senators like Barbara Boxer (D-CA) were voting against legislation that would have expanded gun rights at campsites on land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Boxer raised the rhetoric to new heights by saying more guns on such lands would set up “a national security threat.”
On June 13, Democrats promised Newtown families they will “never” give up on gun control and on June 14 Mayors Against Illegal Guns launched a 100 day bus tour aimed at pressuring Senators into changing their votes on gun control.
On June 21, Biden again talked about Senators contacting him to change their votes on gun control–only now he said there are five who want to change votes instead of four.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins
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