The quote of the day is presented by Guns.com
Unpaid Democrat party mouthpiece Chris Cillizza is back, fretting again about the effect Robert Francis O’Rourke’s fire-breathing gun confiscation advocacy is having on Congressional Democrats’ efforts to lure Trump and Republicans into a potentially fatal bargain on gun control about a year from the election.
The fact that Cillizza is hitting this point again so hard is evidence in and of itself that Dems in the House and Senate see Beto’s gun-grabbing crusade as a threat to getting anything passed or signed by the President.
That [I’m coming for your guns] stance is winning O’Rourke plaudits among liberals who had been waiting (and waiting) for the former Texas congressman to show some of the flashes that made him a national phenomenon in his 2018 Senate bid. Suddenly, O’Rourke, who looked dead in the water heading into last Thursday’s debate in Houston, now has a spark. And he’s not going to let that go for anything — especially scoldings from Senate Democrats like Schumer.
But, the politics of what’s good for O’Rourke’s presidential hopes don’t align terribly well with congressional Democrats’ goal of using the latest series of mass shootings to get something done on expanding background checks. Or passing any sort of further gun control measures.
For decades, Republican lawmakers — fueled by the National Rifle Association — have effectively cast the gun control debate in the starkest of possible terms: Give an inch to Democrats on their desire for what they call common sense gun safety measures and you are priming the pump for a day when the government will come and confiscate your weapons. See, the theory goes, all Democratic politicians want to come take your guns but they won’t come out and say it. But, give them power and just watch what happens.
It’s these inaccurate scare tactics that led to surges in gun purchases immediately following Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012. During the 2016 campaign, Republicans seized on Hillary Clinton’s expressed interest in an Australian buyback program as evidence of her secret intentions. “Of course Hillary does not support national mandatory gun buyback programs, including those modeled after Australia’s program,” a Clinton spokesman told PolitiFact.
Now, the NRA has O’Rourke’s “Hell, yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” line during the debate to hang its ominous warnings on. And Senate Republicans — and the Trump White House — have it as a ready-made excuse for not acting on proposals that large swaths of the public support.
– Chris Cillizza in Is Beto O’Rourke single-handedly dooming a gun control bill?
