Hindsight from The New Gun Week July 10, 1999
Mining House Gun Votes for Lessons
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive EditorHow does it feel to be a political football?
I don't mean guns in general. I mean you, as an American gunowner.
In the aftermath of the June votes on gun legislation in the House of Representatives, many political commentators have suggested that the votes were not related to the Littleton, CO, high school shootings-despite all the hype that the gun control debate was in response to the shocking deaths at Columbine High-but on the congressional and presidential elections in November 2000.
President Clinton and the Democratic Party leaders in Congress were convinced that being pro-control on guns would help their party retain control of the White House and regain control of Congress. In the real but murky world of political strategy, they didn't really care whether the Republican-controlled House actually even voted on the gun measure, because the Dems had devised what they thought was a winning strategy.
If the restrictive new gun laws pushed by Clinton and the Democrats forced the Republicans in the House to cave as they did in the Senate, Democrats could claim that they were the party that "saved American school children from gun violence"-even though they never explained how anything they proposed was going to accomplish that objective.
Interpreting national polls in support of gun control, the Dems figured that they would win whether or not a bill was passed, and even thought they would have a stronger hand if they could point to the Republicans as lackeys of the NRA who opposed gun control.
"Six Seats"
Indeed, during the House voting, the school-boy taunting of the GOP by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) with the phrase "six more seats, six seats" (the GOP over Dem margin) was indicative of how confident the Democrats were that they had whipsawed the Republicans on the issue. The Democrats thought they would win back majority control of the Senate and House in 2000 on the backs of gunowners, control of which they lost in 1994 because of gunowners.
But while their strategy worked to some extent in the Senate, it failed in the House.
In part that is because the Senate and House are different creatures. Senators are elected statewide in macro-political elections that, more often than not, more closely reflect public opinion as expressed in nationwide polls. House members are elected and re-elected in micro-political elections where a party-line position is not as important as a closer reflection of popular opinion in each particular district.
When the House GOP leaders delayed a vote until mid-June rather than before Memorial Day as Clinton and Democrat leaders in Congress wanted, they changed the political dynamic. Of course, the delay provided Americans an opportunity to express themselves to Congress. But those expressions became even more meaningful to House members than they would to senators.
Then, when the amendment by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) was introduced into the equation, another major change was effected. The amendment by the House's ranking Democrat helped return the debate over guns to old-fashioned district-by-district politics rather than party line politics. It gave both pro-gun Democrats and anti-gun Republicans a free pass to vote the wishes of their districts rather than the wishes of their national party leaders.
When the votes were counted, there were still more pro-gun members of the House of Representatives than anti-gun-regardless of party.
In a last desperate attempt to salvage their long-term year 2000 election strategy, enough anti-gun Democrats voted with pro-gun Republicans against the entire package mostly in the hope of being able to claim that the GOP had killed their "gun safety legislation." Notice that the Democrats don't like to say "gun control" because it has bad political vibes with the voters.
But that wasn't the only reason they voted against the whole package. They did so to avoid embarrassing their President and their party.
The final version of the bill contained four of the five items Clinton had asked for, and its passage would have given him and his party crowing rights. But it also contained a poison-pill for Clinton and the Democrats. That was the amendment which would have allowed the people of Washington, DC, to once again legally possess firearms for the protection of themselves and their families.
Clinton would have had to veto the bill as promised, not because the bill was not anti-gun enough for his agenda, but because it contained a pro-gun provision which would have exposed the big lie about Clinton and his cronies supporting the Second Amendment. If he had to veto the bill, in spite of its many anti-gun provisions, it would have forced him to admit to the people of Washington, DC-and the nation-that he doesn't believe law-abiding Americans have the right to keep guns for protection of themselves, their families and properties.
Avoid Public Debate
The national polls may continue to show that the public supports some forms of gun control, but they also show that the vast majority of Americans still believe that they have the right to keep and bear arms. They say "Yes" to some controls, but "No" to banning most guns outright. A public debate on those grounds is something that Clinton-Gore and the Democratic Party leaders want to avoid.
However, returning to the Dingell amendment vote, it is interesting to note that even media commentators who are anti-gun have to admit that "guns delineate America's political geography, because so many House members break from their party to vote with their districts on the issue."
Associated Press noted that "relatively few House races feature sharp disagreements between the candidates on guns."
A close look at the tabulation of four roll call votes that appears on Page 10 of this issue will give you some insights into the political dynamic of the House.
In states like Alabama or West Virginia, it didn't matter which party you organized with, you still voted pro-gun. Similarly, in a state like Massachusetts, it doesn't matter if your are a Democrat or a Republican, you still vote anti-gun.
That isn't to say that there are people in Alabama who are anti-gun, or people in Massachusetts who are pro-gun. It says that if you hold the wrong view in those states, you probably won't get elected or re-elected.
It also says that if one party or another is going to make any inroads on the other, it has to be on issues other than guns.
Interestingly, while some pundits where claiming Vice President Al Gore's tie-breaking vote in the Senate would help him in his 2000 presidential campaign, others don't agree.
In fact, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) said the tie-breaking gun control vote that Gore cast in the Senate in May could turn out to be a political detriment rather than a benefit in a run for the White House.
"The news media in its lather to distort this whole issue may be wrong in their estimation that this will help Al Gore," Lott said in an interview reported by Associated Press. "As a matter of fact, it may already have hurt him and it may hurt him a lot more."
Lott noted that the gun issue varies from state to state.
"In a lot of places, people don't agree with what he did and how he voted. I don't think it helped him," Lott said. "Certainly his poll numbers haven't gone up.''
Meanwhile, many irate Democrats are complaining that Dingell neutralized a potent political issue for them.
Reportedly, Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-MO) privately urged Dingell not to offer his alternative.
'Pilgrim Gun Fairs'
But Dingell, who was perhaps the most widely feared lawmaker in Washington when he served at the helm of the Energy and Commerce Committee between 1980 and 1994, appeared impervious to such criticism as he met with reporters recently. Dingell recounted how he had undergone a background check in Maryland in June when purchasing "a wonderful little shotgun" and compared gun shows to "what the pilgrims did when they had fairs in the early days of the United States."
Even the traditionally anti-gun Boston Globe commented two days after the final House votes that any Democrat gain from the gun-control issue was "uncertain" at best.
After a few days' reflection, The Globe reported Rep. Kennedy, who led the "Six Seats'' cry and is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, cannot name a single Republican who could be defeated because of his or her vote on gun control.
If the House votes demonstrated anything, however, it was the volatility of the gun-control debate and the riskiness in trying to predict how events will turn out.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com