House of Eratosthenes

The President might have forged a compromise from the political center out that reduced gun violence at the margins while respecting Second Amendment rights. Instead, liberals cleaned out their ideological cupboards in favor of gun restrictions that would have little practical effect but would have notched a symbolic victory over the National Rifle Association and those benighted rubes in the provinces. By so overreaching, Mr. Obama couldn’t even steamroll moderate members of his own party.

A word, first, about that Senate “minority.” Majority Leader Harry Reid was free to bring the deal struck by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey to the floor for an up-or-down vote, and this background-checks amendment might have passed. It did convince 54 Senators, including four Republicans.

But under Senate rules, a simple majority vote would have opened the measure to up to 30 hours of debate, which would have meant inspecting the details. The White House demanded, and Mr. Reid agreed, that Congress should try to pass the amendment without such a debate.

Majority rules would have also opened the bill to pro-gun amendments that were likely to pass. That would have boxed Mr. Reid into the embarrassing spectacle of having to later scotch a final bill because it also contained provisions that the White House loathes. So Mr. Reid moved under “unanimous consent” to allow nine amendments, each with a 60-vote threshold.
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Manchin-Toomey was rushed together on a political timetable, and a thorough scrub would have revealed that its finer legal points aren’t as modest as liberals claim. Tellingly, the White House blew up earlier negotiations with Tom Coburn on background checks. The Oklahoma Republican favored more and better checks across secondary firearms markets like gun shows and online, but liberals insisted that federally licensed dealers had to keep records.

In other words, keeping guns away from dangerous or unstable people was less important than defeating the NRA. The Senate GOP offered an alternative background-checks amendment that failed 52-48. Nine Democrats were in favor, but their colleagues voted en masse to block it from moving forward. How’s that for incoherent?

Mr. Obama is technically right that Manchin-Toomey would not create a federal firearms registry. Then again, its most clamorous supporters are also contemptuous of the Second Amendment, and they are explicitly hoping for a fifth Justice to overturn the Supreme Court’s landmark gun-rights rulings. Manchin-Toomey opponents can be forgiven for worrying that gun controllers will attempt to build a registry from whatever records they get.

From all the arguing that’s gone down about this, I’ve been rather taken aback by the zeal with which the anti-gun noisemakers continue to put forward this whole charade that, had Congress passed the bill and the President signed it, tragedies like Tucson, Aurora and Newton could have been avoided. They keep it up right on until I call ’em out on it, and then they don’t even bat an eyelash about it. As if to say “Yeah well, we had to give it a try to see if you’d fall for it.” So the phrase about “keeping guns away from dangerous or unstable people was less important than defeating the NRA” finds resonance with me.

I think most people get that by now. But I’m concerned that the public doesn’t understand the extraordinary lengths to which the Senate majority, along with the White House, went to avoid transparency. And I’m concerned about the ongoing pattern, this continuing chorus-refrain of “we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” Everything they want to pass is real-good-legislation, as if crafted from glorious hands above the mortal plane, like Moses brought it down from Mt. Sinai on stone tablets. Oh, except for one thing: We “forgot” to open our discussions on it in any way, so you little peons weren’t involved this time. Whatever! It’s still perfect and wonderful and it is vitally important that we not discuss any of the details. But…it’s very, very moderate, very common-sense, and you’re some kind of a nutcase if you don’t back us up to the hilt on it, every word, letter, jot and tittle.

That’s the part I’d like people to understand a bit better. These are supposed to be our representatives in Washington. Quite a few of them are giving speeches to the effect that something bad is going down, if we manage to get represented when it really matters.

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- House of Eratosthenes | 04/20/2013 @ 06:30
But I’m concerned that the public doesn’t understand the extraordinary lengths to which the Senate majority, along with the White House, went to avoid transparency.

Caesarism: the scrupulous maintenance of the outward form of the rule of law, with all actual power consolidated in the hands of an unaccountable clique.

They had this nailed by the turn of the 20th century.
- Severian | 04/20/2013 @ 08:50
So, question:

I’ve read in many media outlets that the GOP killed this by the threat of a filibuster – which to my understanding is the process of infinitely debating something while being able to defeat a cloture vote (which requires 60 votes) that would cut off debate. But now here I read that a lack of 60 votes would still leave debate limited to 30 hours. That’s not a filibuster to my understanding. Can someone explain this, and give me a source that I can cite?
- RonF | 04/25/2013 @ 15:11
Seems the 30-hour period is an inherent aspect of the filibuster process. I’m sure there’s a recent (20th-century) history behind that, as even the United States Senate can recognize time is too precious to be re-enacting “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” on every issue that comes up. This report makes mention of a “Senate Rule XXII” which is the cloture vote, but I don’t see where this 30-hour debate period originated.
- mkfreeberg | 04/26/2013 @ 05:52

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