Gun rights advocates understandably celebrated Wednesday after the Senate failed to approve any gun control legislation. It's hard to say what is more gratifying--the defeat of even the "universal background checks" legislation (once thought to be unstoppable, especially with ostensibly "pro-gun" Republican Senator Pat Toomey on board), or the fact that Senator Dianne Feinstein's (D-CA) bill to ban so-called "assault weapons" went down by a bipartisan supermajority.
It was indeed a victory worth celebrating, but there is no more time for partying. Now it's time to get back to work fending off the next wave. And there will be a "next wave." Rabidly anti-gun billionaire and New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has already telegraphed his intention to pump additional millions into both pressuring perceived "swing votes" in the Senate, and unseating any senators who do not succumb to that pressure.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), no longer bothering to try to maintain the "pro-gun" facade he has hidden behind all these years, vows to take another shot at passing S. 649, with the apparent strategy of again amending the bill to soften the details of the background check language just enough to change the minds of five of the senators perceived to be susceptible to the pressure the anti-gun groups, the Obama administration and the mass media have never stopped putting on them since well before last week's vote.
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) is already the target of a new ad campaign, although not a particularly competent one, claiming to quote a poll commissioned by "Mayors For Illegal Guns."
Of course, what the gun prohibitionist lobby cannot buy with all the money they pour into "gun control" (while, simultaneously, whining, and whining and whining about all the money the "gun lobby" spends) is real grassroots activism--something they're aware of, and hope desperately to change. The good news for them is that they have succeeded in recruiting a few enraged "activists." The bad news is that some of these recruits cannot rein in their hatred, and even desire for violence. Meet David Stachelski, who left this charming message on U.S. Senator Heidi Heitkamp's (D-ND) Facebook page:
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