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.

Could ATF Agent Cooperation Bring Down ATF Leadership, Others?

On Sunday, Dave Workman, the Seattle Gun Rights Examiner wrote about how Phoenix Assistant Special Agent in Charge George Gillett was, through and in conjunction with his attorney, “cooperating with” Grassley’s investigation of ATF’s Project Gunrunner.  Gillett may be cooperating because he feared he was about to be "thrown under the bus" by ATF higher-ups.

Workman writes that Gillett's cooperation now is "steeped in hypocrisy."

It was Gillett’s name that surfaced early in Grassley’s investigation, in a Jan. 31 letter the senator wrote to Melson, posted here by my colleague, David Codrea. In that letter, Grassley wrote, “I understand that Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) George Gillette of the ATF’s Phoenix office questioned one of the individual agents who answered my staff’s questions about Project Gunrunner. ASAC Gillette allegedly accused the agent of misconduct related to his contacts with the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Workman continues now it is Gillett who is talking to the committee, and Grassley is covering him with the same whistleblower protection he gave the agent Gillett allegedly confronted. The irony is overwhelming.

Workman spoke with NRANews' Cam Edwards about the article on Monday night's Cam and Company program.

Without the hard work of Dave Workman, David Codrea and CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson none of this information would have seen the light of day.

Hat tip to Cam Edwards and NRANews. 

ATF Asserts Its Authority To Montana and Tennessee

So writes David Codrea in his National Gun Rights Examiner piece - complete with a copy of the letters.

Both Montana and Tennessee passed laws this year stating that the federal government had no authority over firearms manufactured in the respective states that are only sold and used in those states.

Some 2nd Amendment scholars hinted the laws likely would not stand if challenged but ATF apparently decided they were not going to wait before a court told them the laws were hollow.

Lou Dobbs and Gun Rights

Found this video over at David Codrea's Gun Rights Examiner web site. CNN is not at the top of my list of reliable news sources but Codrea is right, Lou Dobbs has done some excellent coverage of the ATF abuses in the David Olofson case.

Assault Weapons Ban on Front Burner for Obama

As we run up to the 2009 Session of the General Assembly, I have been posting a lot about what is going on in the shooting industry. That will likely change once the General Assembly convenes but for now, most of the news is at the national level and it has centered around talk of what may or may not happen when the new administration comes in on January 20th. Some believe firearm related legislation will be on the back burner and others (me included) believe the new team will strike sooner rather than later.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to listen to the podcast of Sunday's Gun Talk Radio - Tom Gresham's radio program. I have to say, some of the best intel I have heard so far on the topic came from the guests Tom had on the program. These folks included The Shooting Wire's Jim Shepherd (by far the best segment of the program), and The War on Guns' David Codrea. Shepherd is a longtime veteran of the media and he has well placed sources who tell him that the new administration will move on the so-called assault weapons ban sooner rather than later. Shepherd was on the program for the entire second hour with the most important parts of his analysis coming in the last ten minutes. I recommend you listen to his comments yourself because I simply can't do them justice in this space.

I will comment one comment made by Shepherd. He makes a good point when he says in response to a question from a self described liberal caller who asked "what does gun control have to do with getting the economy moving again?" Shepherd said it is exactly about the economy. Attacking a billion dollar industry that supports conservation efforts through excise taxes makes no economic sense. Attacking the industry with gun bans will result in the loss of jobs through the closing of plants in states like New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, states that already have depressed economy. Putting hundreds of people out of work makes no economic sense.

Codrea's comments were made during the first hour of the program. Today he also linked to a post by Michael Bane that talks about how the administration will definitely move in the early days of the administration.

Basically, Bane says his insider source explains it this way. Due to the fact Obama has taken such a beating from the "moonbats" on the left over the Rick Warren inaugural invocation and the fact Obama is installing a third Clinton administration, he has to "rebuild his left-wing creds." Taking on the assault weapons ban so soon will burn a huge amount of political capital, but it will "drive a stake in the ground" to prove Obama means what he says about "change" regardless of the consequences. Plus, the Republicans are so disorganized and the Blue Dogs in his own party are less likely to band together early in his administration that striking early makes sense. The source also posed that the "gun lobby" is as weak now as it is ever going to be.

After the reaction to his economic stimulus plan by members of his party in the Senate I don't know if I completely agree with the Blue Dogs not rebelling this soon but the reasons for a quick strike given by Bane's source (there were a total of six) make sense to me.

Needless to say there are storm clouds on the horizon for gun owners and they are getting darker as January 20th approaches.