Toomey: We Don't Have the Votes, Yet.

It appears that rounding up the necessary 60 votes to pass the Manchin-Toomey-Schumer background check amendment is proving to be as difficult as the task of finding the "A" rated GOP Senator to try and sell the issue.  From The Hill:

Republican lawmakers who were considered possible “yes” votes have backed away. GOP Sens. Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), John Hoeven (N.D.), Dan Coats (Ind.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.) have said they will vote against a compromise to expand background checks to cover sales at gun shows and over the Internet.

Isakson, Chambliss, Corker and Alexander were the targets of a new television ad launched Friday by the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns to pressure senators to vote for the background-check legislation sponsored by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

 

Toomey on Monday said he doesn’t have the votes: “Not yet, but we’re working on it.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid played the CCRKBA card in a floor speech yesterday.  It is still unclear whether support for the amendment from the self-described "2nd Largest Gun Rights Orgainization" in the country will help get the needed votes. 

I posted yesteday about CCRKBA's support, using audio of Gottlieb talking to Gun Talk Radio host Tom Gresham so that readers would have the message straight from the messenger, and then laid out some of the analysis that contradicted Gottlieb's claims, most notably from Dave Kopel.  Others, like National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea went further.  Codera started with the first "goodie" about a fifteen-year prison sentence for creating a gun registry noting, asking "are we to expect Eric Holder to enforce that?"  Codrea concluded:

But really, all this is just arguing over dancing angels and heads of pins -- the only acceptable answer for hard core gun owners is going to be “No,” and arguments about “goodies” and “Christmas tree ornaments” are hardly going to be persuasive to men and women who take their Bill of Rights seriously, because they know it was secured with powder, lead, steel and blood.

Put simply, while NRA is correct that the Manchin-Toomey bill is “misguided,” those who are the force behind citizen disarmament are flat-out fascist evil, and this is just one more incremental step in their quest for more control. You just don’t give such an enemy a beachhead from which to launch the next assault. And when circled by starving jackals, you don’t throw them a scrap of flesh and think that will induce them not to devour you.

What CCRKBA has done is make your job and my job harder.  It creates a mixed message.  Now when we call Mark Warner he can do like Harry Reid and say "But CCRBA supports it so it can't be anti-gun."  Like Codrea, I don't believe Gottlieb or CCRKBA is a sell out.  I also don't believe he is naive.  He was just too cute by half in my opinion.  Given the comments on a number of 2A blogs that covered this over the last couple of days, it should be interesting at this NRA Annual Meeting booth depending on how this all turns out.