Publicola

Stop whatever it is that you're doing & go over to The Smallest Minority. The permalink is down so look for a post entitled "Gun SAFETY" = "Gun ELIMINATION." Just Like "Gun CONTROL Used to.

It discusses a Washington Times Op/Ed piece on the newly introduced Corzine-Kennedy bill which would regulate firearms under the guise of consumer safety.

& in case you're wondering - even though the Senate is in the hands of Republicans this bill stands a good chance of passing. How is that you may ask? I discussed this in a previous post on the Mcarthy-Conyers Assault Weapons Ban & Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2003 but I'll reprint the relevant part here.

"...Yes, I know we have a Republican controlled Congress. Yes I know there are more anti-gun Democrats than there are anti-gun Republicans. But there are more anti-gun Republicans than there are pro-gun Democrats & Republicans combined. Look here for the House of Representatives. Look here for the Senate. Anything less than a "B" rating means they are not oppossed to voting for gun control if it suits them. According to my calculations there's 18 pro-gun Senators & 176 pro-gun Representatives. That's counting the B minus among the pro-gun. !8 out of 100 & 176 out of 434.
There are 64 anti-gun senators & 205 anti-gun Representatives. That's counting D, F & Not Rated. 64 out of 100 & 205 out of 434.
In the Senate it would merely take the F,D & Not Rated Senators to vote for the McCarthy-Conyers assault weapons bill for it to pass. In the House it would take 13 C rated Representatives in addition to the F, D & Not Rated Representatives for it to pass. The Senate would have enough votes to negate a presidential veto, but it'd take 261 or so from the Senate, which would mean 56 C rated voters in addition to the F,D & Not Rated."

I'm thinking the guise of consumer safety would swing a lot more votes for this bill. After all, I'm sure a lot of pro-gun people wouldn't see the harm in having guns regulated for safety. This is unfortunate because most pro-gun people would see the harm in the details of this bill should they ever come to light. But politicians count on the people who vote for them to not read in too much detail what laws they vote for or against. So I doubt that any Senator or Representative would think they were endangering the pro-gun vote by voting for a consumer safety bill. Hence this one may have a better chance of passing than the Mcarthy-Conyers bill that was the focus of the paragraph above.

Thanks to The Smallest Minority for being on top of this.