View Single Post
Old July 2, 2010, 01:35 PM   #4
Bartholomew Roberts
member
 
Join Date: June 12, 2000
Location: Texas and Oklahoma area
Posts: 8,462
OK, I don't have time to go through every vote on the list; but let's just look at the four votes in the last 9 years:

Quote:
February 26, 2004. Vote 17. Voted for mandatory triggerlocks.

March 2, 2004. Vote 25. Voted for Federal regulation of gun shows.
It so happens I remember these two votes very well since they were offered as amendments to S.1805. For those who don't remember, S.1805 was the bill protecting manufacturers against spurious lawsuits. It was strongly backed by the NRA until Feinstein managed to attach an AWB renewal to it, at which point, the NRA swiftly and decisively killed the bill.

Reid voted in support of the Boxer triggerlock amendment (Vote 17) and the McCain gunshow background check amendment (Vote 25). I agree both of those votes are not pro-RKBA; however, what your list doesn't show is the several dozen pro-RKBA votes that Reid did make that day.

You can see the list of nasty amendments here with links to the votes. Most notably, Reid voted against the AWB renewal that day.

Quote:
July 28, 2005. Vote 207. Voted for mandatory triggerlocks.
Same bill Reid voted for earlier, with almost the same result - passed the Senate with 70 votes in favor of requiring manufacturers to provide a free child-safety lock with each handgun. Not a pro-RKBA vote, I'd agree; but hardly a big issue.

Quote:
March 5, 2009. Vote 83. Voted against a ban on the United Nations imposing taxes on American citizens after France and other world leaders proposed a global tax on firearms.
This has nothing to do with firearms. The entire text of the amendment is "None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available under any title of this Act may be made available to make any assessed contribution or voluntary payment of the United States to the United Nations if the United Nations implements or imposes any taxation on any United States persons." Apparently GOA scored this as a "key vote" though.

So in the last nine years, Reid helped the NRA build a $61 million public range in Nevada, voted against the AWB renewal, for the Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, and basically voted even the GOA platform except for the four votes noted above, Previous to that he had a record of anti-gun votes.

So now the choice for the NRA is:

1. Endorse the Senate Majority Leader and incumbent with 9 years of voting your platform (except the triggerlock and McCain gun show votes). Get points with the Senate Majority Leader regardless of which pro-gun candidate wins.

2. Endorse the challenger with no record and hope you trade a friendly Senate Majority Leader for a junior Senator in the minority party who has said really positive things about gun rights; because if they don't win, you've just stomped on the one guy in the current Congressional leadership who can block gun control legislation.
Bartholomew Roberts is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.02789 seconds with 8 queries