Democrats Clinging To Guns

In the words of Right Democrat:

Hats off to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the following Democratic Senators for supporting the right to keep and bear arms: Max Bacus of Montana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Michael Bennett of Colorado, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Udall of Colorado, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Mark Warner of Virginia and Jim Webb of Virginia.

From CQ Politics:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ’s decision to join nearly two dozen Democrats in supporting a Republican gun amendment could foretell difficulties for the Obama administration if the White House pushes for stricter firearms limits.

Twenty-two Democrats — most of them from Western or conservative-leaning states — voted Thursday in favor of an amendment by Nevada Republican John Ensign that would codify a 2008 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a District of Columbia gun ownership ban and declared for the first time that the Second Amendment includes an individual right to bear arms. The amendment, which Ensign offered to legislation (S 160) that would grant D.C. residents full voting rights in the House, was adopted 62-36.

“People are afraid,” Ensign said after the vote, when asked to explain Democratic support for his amendment. “From a purist standpoint, I hope that they now just see more of the importance of the Constitution. But from a cynical standpoint I guess you could say that they’re just making sure that they’re not voting against what they think voters in their states would respond to.”

Ensign’s amendment would repeal the District’s ban on semiautomatic weapons, bar the city’s registration requirements for most guns and drop criminal penalties for possessing an unregistered firearm.

The first gun-related Senate vote of the 111th Congress underscores a schism within the Democratic Party. While senators from more densely populated, urban states in the Northeast and the West Coast are committed to tightening gun restrictions now that Democrats control Congress and the White House, senators from more rural and conservative states in the Midwest and West are prepared to block such efforts.

“Any gun vote is difficult for Westerners — Democrat Westerners,” said Sen. John Thune , R-S.D.

Thursday’s vote came one day after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the Obama administration would work to reinstate the nationwide assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

Reid, who is facing a potentially tough re-election bid in 2010, was endorsed in 2004 by the National Rifle Association and has opposed a ban on assault weapons.

“The Second Amendment’s pretty important,” said Montana Democrat Jon Tester , who voted for Ensign’s proposal.

Tester, who added that he would oppose any attempt to reinstitute an assault weapons ban, said Democratic leaders did not pressure him to vote one way or another on the amendment. “Not a word,” he said. “I think everybody in Congress knows where I am on this issue. It’s not a secret. So there was no pressure. No pressure either way.”

Private gun ownership is compulsory in Switzerland and practically impossible in Japan. They are both very peaceable and orderly countries. They are also still politically self-governing and culturally self-respecting ones. And, which is the present point, they have very traditional and effective family and community structures, such as America, and indeed Britain (gun-sodden and knife-sodden entirely regardless of the law), used to have.

Just as there is a pressing need to restore those structures, so there is also a pressing need to stop drugging teenagers up to their eyeballs, also a recent phenomenon.

Neither adolescent angst nor simple maleness in all its adolescent hormonality is a medicable condition, and they should not be treated as such. Look what happens when they are.