“For the first time, the terrible calculus of politics seemed to be on gun-control advocates’ side. But there was still one thing they needed to prove. They needed to prove that they could protect the lawmakers whom they coaxed out on a limb. On Tuesday, they failed that test. Future lawmakers facing similar votes aren’t going to care about the particulars; they’re going to look at John Morse and Angela Giron and think, That’s going to be me. No thanks.” – Molly Ball in The Death of Gun Control [at theatlantic.com]

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27 COMMENTS

  1. Were Morse and Giron assassinated by NRA sniper teams? No. They were recalled and voted out. It turns out the only thing the lawmakers would need “protection” from is democracy, and the reason supporting gun control is “going out on a limb” in the first place is that the people don’t actually support it. That’s the bottom line, “Gun Control: The People Don’t Agree.”

    • I’m starting to get onboard with the whole “NRA Boogeyman” syndrome they’ve got going on. It has two great benefits.

      1. The gun control advocates don’t seem to realize that the NRA is generally given a favorable reputation by a majority of the population, whether they are members or not.

      2. It’s distracting as hell. While it’s easy to blame the NRA for the failures the gun control politicians don’t seem to realize how badly they need to actually woo constituents and sell their ideas. Instead they are too busy targeting the NRA while ignoring their voters. This tactic has turned out to be a huge win for us.

      Ineffective, inefficient, and impotent. Exactly how I like my gun control lobby.

      • The left have nothing else but to target and demonize. Their ideas, especially on gun control, are hollow, their supporting evidence all smoke and mirrors. They might try to change the language they use, or switch to demonizing another entity. However, It’s not like their plan A isn’t working so they might realize it and switch to plan B. They don’t have a plan B.

    • Many “Democrats” are in reality DINOs, and roundly despise the process by which the nannied masses can refuse their “help.”

      I say this as a card-carrying member of the party of Truman — as differentiated from the current holders of the name.

      • @Russ, if you’d said that you were a card-carrying member of the party of JFK, I’d give you a big cheer. But Truman was an uneducated dunce with a Napoleon complex, a wad of chewing gum in the jaws of history — and a crappy piano player to boot.

  5. Wait a moment. If “the terrible calculus of politics” really did favor the civilian disarmament camp, the recalls would have failed. And the national measures would have passed.

  6. I tried to be the first response to this post. Ever since the changeover every time I try to be first comment I get a blank white screen. What gives?

  7. I love how the proposed answer is to mimic the gay marriage lobby and show the politicians that they will be re-elected no matter how bad they are and how much they deserve to lose an election. How very Machiavellian of them…

    “Some of these people were not easy to reelect — alcoholism, ethics issues, bad votes. Some didn’t collect enough signatures [to get on the ballot] and had to run write-in campaigns. We were determined to reelect every single one. Some of those people are now in prison, but we got them reelected.”

  11. “Matt Bennett, a veteran gun-policy strategist and researcher now with the center-left think tank Third Way, pointed me to a poll that showed that even recall supporters still favored gun background checks; it was Colorado’s ban on high-capacity magazines they revolted against.”

    They still can’t get it. Morse and Giron acted badly by ignoring their constituents and bragging about it. They didn’t do their jobs; that’s why they’re gone.

  12. “But the NRA turned the money against the lawmakers, painting them as pawns of fancy-pants out-of-state liberal interests. And the NRA won.”

    The NRA won because that was an accurate portrayal of Morse and Giron – pawns of NYC mayor Bloomberg and his millions of dollars for anti-gun politicians. They blatantly ignored and derided the wishes of their constituents, and the NRA made sure their constituents understood that.

    The left keeps describing the NRA as “the gun lobby”, which helps them to forget that it consists of 5 million members and 20-30 million more people who identify themselves with the organization’s goal of enforcing the 2nd Amendment. That is a whole bunch of voters who will work to defeat anti-gun legislation. The NRA is a true grass-roots organization, not some Bloomberg-financed astro-turf group like OFA or the Moms for Whatever.

  13. “Future lawmakers facing similar votes aren’t going to care about the particulars; they’re going to look at John Morse and Angela Giron and think, That’s going to be me. No thanks.”

    Translation: ‘Note to self: don’t ignore constituents on gun-control measures. Ignoring them on everything else is still OK.’

  16. Mz. Ball’s knowledge of history must start at some point after 1994 and the AWB to make such a statement as “For the first time, the terrible calculus of politics seemed to be on gun-control advocates’ side.”

    While I can echo her dismal view of US politics, and I can clearly see her anti rights bias, I cannot conscience her use of self evidently untruthful statements to manufacture distress.

    These people truly seek out ways to feel victimized and persecuted then complain that they are victimized and persecuted. Perhaps this is why leftists pursue socialist economic policies; they want the economy to collapse so they can feel further downtrodden. There ought to be a specific diagnosis for this sort of self destructive behavior in the DSM.

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