CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
May 29, 2009 – 12:11 a.m.
Oops! Gun Foes Mistakenly Side With the NRA
By Jonathan Allen and Richard Rubin, CQ Staff
As they study the vote in Congress to ease gun restrictions in national parks, the National Rifle Association and gun-control groups agree on one important point: The final tally was a surprise.
In some cases, Democrats accidentally cast votes opposite of the way they intended — more proof, if any was needed, that the way the House of Representatives operates can be confusing even to insiders.
“There were certainly votes that weren’t expected,” said a satisfied Chris W. Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist.
At least 11 House Democrats (not including freshmen) who have typically sided with gun-control advocates on past votes this time around favored allowing state and local gun laws to take precedence over federal law in national parks.
Those 11 were Reps. Adam Smith of Washington, Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, Joe Courtney of Connecticut, Gregory W. Meeks of New York, Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Hank Johnson of Georgia, Melissa Bean of Illinois, Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island and Diana DeGette of Colorado.
“It was a mistake,” said DeGette’s deputy chief of staff, Kristofer Eisenla.
Meeks said he sided with the NRA “by accident.”
Kennedy said he voted the way he did because he was concerned about slowing down a bill that the White House wanted to see finished before the Memorial Day recess.
“I didn’t want to hold up the bill,” Kennedy said. “I’m not in favor of guns.”
Actually, Kennedy could have had it both ways; Democratic leaders set up the vote in a way that would have let House members oppose the gun proposal and still pass the unrelated credit card bill (
That amendment would allow national park visitors to openly carry loaded firearms, changing current policy permitting guns in parks only if the weapons are stowed away or disassembled.
The Senate had added the gun provision to a credit card regulatory overhaul measure (
Had the gun amendment failed, the bill would have headed back to the Senate, but the tally wasn’t even close — the House vote on May 20 was 279 in favor of the gun provision and 147 against.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to End Handgun Violence, said he wondered whether House members “weren’t sure what they were voting on.”
“We’re just sort of questioning whether this came up [too] quickly,” he said. “It almost makes me wonder, maybe we need to go through with a few others.”
Leslie Oliver, a spokeswoman for Perlmutter, said the lawmaker “felt the credit card bill was too important and needed to go through now — and so the gun amendment needed to pass.”
Smith said he supports local control of gun laws, but opposed a similar motion last year because it was on a procedural question and could have killed the underlying bill. The structure of the votes was different this time, so his support for local decision-making on guns wasn’t at odds with his support for the rest of the bill.
Still, though, “In an ideal world, you don’t have a vote like this attached to a credit card bill,” he said.
“We were pleased with the broad bipartisan support for this common sense update to an outdated policy,” said Cox of the NRA. “As far as members of Congress who say they made a mistake, that’s something they need to reconcile with their staff and their constituents.”
Comments
This is the state of our legislature. Particularly the Democrat idiots in Colorado. They do waht Nancy tells them to do. Remeber the Stimulus bill? They didn't read IT either. Truly, a bunch of morons are now running/ruining the country. Mind you, I love that the outcome in terms of an individual's right to defend themselves in the wilderness. I think their vote is a window on how they conduct business...CLUELESSLY! They've destoyed the housing industry, the banking industry and the domestic energy market. Is there no stopping these morons?
So, they voted for it before they voted against it but meant to vote against it before they voted for it? Now they want us to think the NRA tricked them? Hogwash. Either this pack of fools doesn't have a clue what they are doing or they are running for political cover from their leftist gun-hating drones.
I wonder if this is a sign of Pelosi's attempt to grow the Democratic Party by admitting some relatively more conservative and libertarian types. These people might have a core left wing bunch of supporters, but, they also have a wider audience as well. So, they might say these votes are a mistake to appease the left, but then, in town hall sessions, might be quick to point out that they did something that supported gun rights.
No doubt, some of Meeks's constituents are happy with the outcome of the vote, and some are unhappy. But they ALL should be furious that their representative is apparently throwing his votes around pell-mell. What other 'mistakes' might he make? The passage of the stimulus bill, without a single one of its supporters reading it, is simply the same thing writ large. As a class, our representatives are ridiculous. And yet, year after year, they are reelected. Said Mencken, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." Well, we're getting it. Moreover, we deserve it.
Ironic that an article about Democrats being confused (what's news about that anyway?) confuses what the amendment is supposed to do. The article says: "That amendment would allow national park visitors to openly carry loaded firearms,..." No. "Open carry" has a distinct meaning -- a handgun in holster that is visible to others, like a uniformed policeman. The amendment says the Park Service rules for firearms must follow whatever the State law is for firearms on similar types of land. In the freer states that might in fact be open carry -- in the controlled states, it might not allow guns at all. Thankfully the majority of states will at least have legalized concealed carry.
Confused? Yeah right. They voted for the bill to get the NRA off their backs, and are now claiming to be confused to get Brady off their backs. Of all the places to infringe on the unifringeable, I'll never understand how a law banning guns out in the middle of nowhere is going to make anybody safer. At least in the inner city they have an excuse (albiet one that has been long proven wrong), but out in the middle of nowhere?
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