(This cartoon is by John Branch at branchtoon.com.)I thought this might happen, and now it has. The Republican Party has effectively killed any hope of getting any gun legislation passed. The Senate will still have some more votes today on the bill, but when the watered-down version of the background check bill failed on a 54 to 46 vote, that made it pretty clear that the stronger version can't pass either.
Although 54 senators voted for the bill, including 4 Republicans (McCain, Collins, Kirk, and Toomey), the rest of the senate Republicans had enough votes to keep the amendment by Manchin & Toomey from passing (which would have slightly watered down the original bill, but was still acceptable to Democrats). That was because the Republicans threats to filibuster made it a requirement to get 60 votes. They will continue this today, and you can be sure that they will require 60 votes to even bring a final vote up on the bill.
This shows that the Republicans just don't care what the American people want (numerous polls showed that about 90% wanted a background check bill that closed internet and gun show loopholes). They don't represent the people. They represent the NRA and the gun manufacturers.
The crazy thing about this whole affair was that if the Republicans had just gone along with closing background check loopholes, they could have opposed any other parts of the bill (like banning assault weapons) and the American public would have been happy (feeling that at least something had been accomplished) -- and the issue of new gun laws would have gone away. But by not allowing anything to be done, in spite of an overwhelming desire from Americans that something be done, the Republicans have assured that this issue stays alive -- and could be a real factor in the 2014 elections. It could get many voters back to the polls in 2014 that normally don't vote in an off-year election.
President Obama said this was just "round one" and promised to continue the fight for reasonable and constitutional gun restrictions (as did many others, including Gabby Giffords). And you can bet Mayor Bloomberg will re-double his efforts to fight the NRA in electoral contests (and he has the money to do it).
It may turn out that Democrats and progressives will owe the Republicans a big thank you after the next election, because this action to kill any new gun bill has the potential to energize millions of voters.
NOTE -- To their shame, four Democrats voted with the Republicans (Begich, Pryor, Heitkamp, and Baucus). They chose the road of political cowardice.
