David Codrea: Senator Testor (D) MT Shows True Colors

“A Senate committee unanimously passed a measure Thursday to allow people to carry guns on postal service property, but killed a broader push to let gun owners carry their firearms into actual post office buildings,” The Washington Times reported yesterday. That means once the measure becomes law, people won’t need to be defenseless driving to or from the Post Office, but will still be mandated helpless if they have business inside.

“Mr. Paul’s amendment failed on a 9-6 vote,” the report explained.
At this writing, the Committee website and other resources like the Library of Congress THOMAS and the GovTrack legislative tracking websites do not give a breakdown of the vote, and the volume and camera placement on the session video makes identifying by voice votes problematic. This columnist requested clarification from Sen. Paul’s office, which replied “All Dem members of the committee voted against the Paul Amendment. All Rs except Portman (who did not vote on any of the amendments) voted for it.”

One vote should be viewed as a special disappointment by gun rights advocates, although it’s hardly surprising to those who have seen similar past betrayals from so-called “pro-gun Democrats.”

"This is about politics,” Sen. Jon Tester of Montana complained in a Pool/CNN report. “It's about 100 percent politics because if I vote against the amendment that Rand Paul has, the commercials aren't going to say ‘Jon Tester voted against guns in post offices.' They're going to say ‘Jon Tester voted against guns in parking posts,' which is where their concern would be. So let's not fool anybody here. This isn't about good policy. This is about a political election in November and what kind of ads are going to be available to be ran and how the record will be distorted in those ads."

The tortured grammar in that transcription of whatever it is he actually said notwithstanding, no distortion is needed: Sen. Tester’s own words do quite an adequate job all by themselves, and are recorded for all to hear on the afore-mentioned video. He came on at 1:25:11, following an introduction by virulently anti-gun Post Office bill author Tom Carper, who argued unconvincingly of the need to “study” the “impacts” of recognizing rights he has no legitimate authority to infringe in the first place.

 (snip)

 Those are among the reasons the “no compromise” Gun Owners of America gives Tester an “F” rating, and what he just told his countrymen about how he actually "respects" their right to bear arms ought to solidify that grade. Whether NRA now downgrades him in any meaningful way, or allows him to get away with protesting that his own words and actions don’t matter, and anyone who points them out is merely playing political “gotcha” games, remains to be seen.

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