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Old May 19, 2009, 11:54 PM   #15
Ricky B
Senior Member
 
Join Date: November 3, 2002
Posts: 251
WSJ editorial: Democrats and Guns

This from a Wall Street Journal editorial entitled "Democrats and Guns":

Quote:
Amid so much other news, a Senate vote last week to allow loaded guns in national parks slipped under the media radar. The vote shows how the political cause of gun control is as dead as a mounted moose.

By 67-29, the Senate passed Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn's amendment to let law-abiding visitors carry legal firearms into national parks. This overturns a 1983 federal rule requiring that firearms be kept unloaded and in an inaccessible place such as a trunk of a car. The provision (now part of credit-card legislation) protects Second Amendment rights, and it preserves the right of states to pass firearm laws that apply consistently, even on federal lands.

As recently as the 1990s, guns in parks legislation would have provoked a Congressional uproar. But gun control has proven to be a consistent political loser, and last year the Supreme Court cast doubt on state gun bans. No fewer than 27 Democrats voted for Mr. Coburn's amendment, and the ayes included Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is up for re-election in Nevada next year.

Congressional liberals are furious, and are threatening to hold up the credit-card bill, much as they have held up Washington, D.C. voting-rights legislation to which Republicans attached gun-owner protections. Holding up both bad bills forever would be fine with us, but in any case it's clear liberals have lost the gun control debate even within their own party.
The credit card bill passed the Senate. According to an AP article, it still has intact the Coburn amendment. Of course, it has to pass in the House too, but according to the chairman of a national parks subcommittee in the House, it is likely to pass in the House, given the pro-gun rights majorities in both the House and Senate. Democratic leaders said there was not enough time to send the bill to a House-Senate conference committee — where presumably it could be removed without a vote — and still get it to Obama by Memorial Day as he has requested.
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