Democrats signal wariness on gun laws

Caution from Montana Democrat
His Montana colleague, Sen. Max Baucus, who is up for re-election next year and who voted in 2004 against extending the ban on certain types of semi-automatic weapons, sounded a note of caution, “Let’s just let people think a little bit about all of this. All of this requires a lot of careful thought… let’s get more information first.”

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters, “When I feel it’s appropriate — which will be in a few days after we get over the grieving and all of that — I’ll talk about it.”

Schumer spearheaded Democratic efforts to regulate guns when he served in the House in the 1990s. But last year as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee he made a point of supporting strong gun rights advocates as Senate candidates in GOP-dominated states.

Schumer’s pick in Montana, Tester, told one sportsmen’s group during the campaign, according to the Associated Press, “I am pro-gun, I've got a lot of ’em. And what I tell folks is because of the Patriot Act we damn well better keep ’em."

In Virginia, Democratic candidate Jim Webb was likewise a supporter of gun owners’ rights.

Webb had argued in his 2004 book “Born Fighting” that Al Gore’s “position on gun control cost him the election (in 2000), not in Florida but in the Scots-Irish redoubts of Tennessee and West Virginia, both of which through history and logic should have been slam-dunk electoral votes in his favor.”

In his second debate with Bush in 2000, Gore had boasted that he’d cast the tie-breaking Senate vote on a bill to curb sales at gun shows.

Webb on Monday called the Virginia Tech shootings “an incredible human tragedy,” but like other members of Congress did not address legislation or policy.

Last month Webb used the arrest of one his aides for unwittingly carrying a gun into a Senate office building to underscore his support for gun owners’ rights.

When asked if he thought the D.C. gun ban should be overturned, Webb stressed his support for the Second Amendment and added, “I believe the Virginia law (which allows law-abiding people to carry guns) is a fair law. I believe that wherever you see laws that allow people to carry (weapons), generally the violence goes down.”

What has changed since Columbine
After the 1999 Columbine shooting many Democrats in Congress called for gun legislation but the GOP-controlled Congress did not agree on what measures to pass.

Now, for the first time since 1995, the Democrats are in charge. But one Democratic senator who has supported gun control in the past said it was not solely the Democrats’ responsibility to lead on this issue.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D–Calif., said to reporters, “Did you ask the Republicans what they want to do about this? We have to work together. This should not be a partisan issue.”

Boxer reminded reporters of the need to get 60 votes in the Senate to avert a filibuster.

“What are the chances we will pass any strict gun laws? You’d have to ask every single Democrat and every single Republican. We would need 60. In my opinion, I doubt that we have that, but maybe this (massacre) has changed some minds and we’d be able to get some common-sense legislation passed.”

Gun regulation was a defining issue of the politics of the 1990s, but the gun controversy has faded since then — with only one major battle over the question at the federal level in the past seven years, the passage of a bill prohibiting suits against firearms manufacturers in cases where a gun was unlawfully used.

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