Senate Kills Anti-Gun Bill With Bi-Partisan Majority

The Democrat dominated Senate killed the new gun control bill championed by Majority Leader Harry Reid.

It ended up getting only 54 votes, six short of the 60 needed to avoid a filibuster. President Barack Obama brought thew parents of the Newtown tragedy to DC at taxpayer expense to twist the arms of the Senate, and the president, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, (D-Ariz), and with her husband, Mark ( 'I'll take an AR-15 please') Kelly, had personally lobbied senators, but it the end it failed.

It was an extremely anti-Second Amendment piece of legislation no matter what its proponents said, and while it didn't specifically mandate a federal gun registry, it lay the way open for one and created the means to create it. The bans on 'assault weapons', which the Left defines as 'scary looking guns' since there's no other criteria for them and what are termed high capacity magazines were downright silly and should have ensured the bill's defeat all by themselves.

And finally, while the people pushing the bill said that certain exemptions for personal sales would be allowed, they weren't in the bill itself.The new regs for background checks and the banning of certain firearms and magazines definitely were.

As I wrote before, this was an open attempt to subvert the Constitution by legislating away part of the Rill of Rights.

And among other things, the gun grab doesn't poll well. Only 4% of Americans consider more restrictive gun legislation an important issue, according to Gallup.

Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) voted against it. Reid voted against it to preserve his ability to bring the measure up again.

GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) all voted "yes."

Toomey in particular did himself some serious damage, as did West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, both of whom were instrumental in engineering this bill as one of those bi-partisan compromises that really isn't.

Our Founders provided us with a legal and constitutional way of repealing amendments or inserting new ones. You pass the legislation in both Houses of Congress, with a 2/3 majority and then it goes to the states, where 3/4 of them must ratify it.

Thankfully, enough senators cared enough about the Constitution (or at least about getting elected again) to do the right thing this time.

And underline 'this time'. President Obama isn't giving up on this one, as he said today .