Reid to shelve gun bill
(CNN) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he'll set aside proposed gun legislation without a final vote following the defeat a day earlier of major provisions sought by President Barack Obama and Democrats in the aftermath of the Newtown school massacre.
"(Obama) and I agreed that the best way to keep working towards passing a background check bill is to hit pause, and freeze the background check bill where it is," he said on the Senate floor. "This will allow senators to keep negotiating."
A Senate Democratic leadership aide said Reid can bring up the package of gun proposals again if circumstances change and he believes he has the votes for key provisions to pass, particularly a measure to expand background checks on gun buyers.
"We're gonna have time to work on what people want to do before we come back to this," Reid said, adding that this option allows them to return to the bill without returning to square one. "It will only be a matter of time."
"The stand of the Republicans is not sustainable," he said. "The question is how long they're going to stand firm–but it's not sustainable."
In a major defeat for supporters of tougher gun laws, the Senate on Wednesday defeated a compromise plan to expand background checks on firearms sales as well as a proposal to ban some semi-automatic firearms modeled after military assault weapons.
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Gun whackos don't have real jobs, so here they are making comments. NRA set off bombs in Boston and West to cover up the story of thier payoff of the senate.
The myth of the "90% support" evaporates as soon as you look at the facts.
Democrats are literally trying to take guns away from the American people yet give them to the Mexican drug cartel.
How typical of them.
Everyone in this country has the freedom to be shot dead, anywhere, anytime. This is the freedom the NRA thinks to be more important that the general welfare and domestic tranquility. They do not believe it is possible to have a government that will not take away all of our freedoms if we don't have guns to keep them in line. To the best of my knowledge, they are the only special interest group left on this planet that have more faith in guns that democracy, more faith in killing than in peace, more faith in gunfights than in courts and litigation. Since none of these views are held outside the U.S. (except, perhaps, in military dictatorships), and since the NRA is funded by the gun industry, one can't help but suspect that all of their propaganda and scare tactics are aimed at protecting and boosting the sale of guns and ammunition and not in protecting the rights of the majority of Americans who don't own or carry guns and don't want themselves or their children to get shot.
The car and gun comparison isn't really valid. Before you can drive your car, you take driver's ed, you take a test, you get a license, the car is registered and you buy insurance. And the biggest difference....the purpose of a gun is to kill things. Although people are killed by cars, it's not the reason for their existence. What else are guns for than TO KILL THINGS?? Surely not protection....ask the law enforcement guy in Texas who was so worried about his safety that he carried his weapon when he walked his dog. Oh, I forgot....you can't. He was shot to death.
DUMB COUNTRY: So why are we disarming Iraq and Afghanistan and rogue states worldwide and trying to do the same to Iran and NK while we are making it easily accessible for Americans to have WMDs? And now our congress is telling its citizens to arm ourselves because when it comes to domestic terrorism, you're on your own. Land of the DUMB and home of the DUMBER!
wait...I thought this was so important that is deserves an immediate "up or down" vote. "All of them are common-sense," Obama said. "All of them deserve a vote." now they DON'T deserve a vote because the vote did not go the way you want??
MAKE UP SOME MORE LIES like 90% and 40%
you couldn't get 90% of Americans to agree that the sky is BLUE, never mind thinking that 90% of Americans want their second amendment rights INFRINGED by asking 900 people in a skewed poll......
More than 100 scientists from universities in the United States lobbied Vice President Joe Biden, asking him to allow the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to once again fund research into the public health impacts of guns.
The scientists signed a letter to Biden last week, urging him to consider making "direct investments in unbiased, scientific research and data infrastructure" related to firearm safety.
The CDC isn't allowed to pursue many kinds of gun research due to the lobbying strength of the National Rifle Association.
As a result of the National Rifle Association's lobbying efforts, governmental research into gun mortality has shrunk by 96 percent since the mid-1990s, according to Reuters.
Prior to 1996, the Center for Disease Control funded research into the causes of firearm-related deaths. After a series of articles finding that increased prevalence of guns lead to increased incidents of gun violence, Republicans sought to remove all federal funding for research into gun deaths.
In 1996, Republican Rep. Jay Dickey removed $2.6 million from the CDC budget — the precise amount the CDC spent on gun research in 1995 — at a time when the center was conducting more studies into gun-related deaths as a "public health phenomenon," according to The New York Times. The NRA and some pro-gun Congressmen perceived this as more of an attack.
Here's an excerpt of a 1997 article in Reason about the fight to kill gun science:
Since 1985 the CDC has funded scores of firearm studies, all reaching conclusions that favor stricter gun control. But CDC officials insist they are not pursuing an anti-gun agenda. In a 1996 interview with the Times-Picayune, CDC spokeswoman Mary Fenley adamantly denied that the agency is "trying to eliminate guns."
At the behest of the NRA, Congressional Republicans successfully removed all federal funding to the Center for Disease Control that would have gone into researching the effect of guns and the root causes of gun violence.
That funding was eventually reinstated, but has been decreasing since, and the CDC re-designated the money to conduct research on traumatic brain injuries.
The current law reads: “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.”
Because of the NRA's successful campaign to eliminate the scientific research into the public health effect of firearms, very few researchers specialize in the field anymore, University of California, Davis, professor Garen Wintemute told Reuters. He said there isn't enough money to sustain research.
Since there is a lack of funding for independent research, the gun debate has been lacking in unimpeachable statistics that could effect a change in the status quo.
As it stands, the main available statistics regarding the gun debate are raw gun homicide and suicide stats collected through the FBI, international data and data from groups with a direct stake in the gun debate — for instance, pro-gun stats from the NRA and pro-gun control stats from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence.
The scientists writing the letter to Biden wrote that, effectively, the NRA has successfully hamstrung a credible gun control conversation. When the only statistics available are imperfect, it becomes that much easier to disregard them.
From Business Insider
Misleading media-biased and politician biased fact reporting as usual...90% approval may be on background check expansion in some manner specifically, but bill covers much more than that! When you factor in all the other stuff crammed in the bill and its intrusion of rights of law-abiding citizens, the appearance of a federal gun registry, and the banning of guns that merely "look" military like, the support drops dramatically PARTICULARLY TO THE HUGE # OF LEGAL GUN OWNERS it impacts...That and most reasonable people know full well that this will have little or no real impact to criminals getting guns.
Obama got what he wanted...
...Republicans acting petulant and under the influence of the imperious curse from the NRA on record...
...now the real attack begins...
They know that anyone that did not vote in favor of the Bill! That Blood is on their hands!
gun deaths exceed auto deaths in US in 2011
I think we should maintain a "COWARDS OF CONGRESS" list, since they are not giving the American public what they want. Maybe we will get some photos of them with their pants wet – from fear of the NRA.
At least further victim creation failed this time around.
"We deserve a vote!"
"We deserve a vote!"
(bill gets voted down)
"We didn't want a vote!"
"We didn't want a vote!"
I came to this country looking for democracy. I was wrong. This country is run by rich lobbist. Their voice is the only voice heard not the voice of the 83% of the US people. Is that a democracy?
Not to make light of this, but read Bryan's comment in a Dolph Lungen Rockey 4 Russian accent:
"America is a weak country full of selfish people."
@ghostriter....I don't think very many people are disputing that, but the majority DO NOT support a registry AND ban, and this bill included a ban hence why it did not pass and should not pass!!! If it was JUST back ground checks I think it should have and would have passed!
Individuals on the right are easy control. Tell them a lie and they believe it. I just hope we come to ourselves and do something anying to control gun violence.
Didn't Reid vote nay on the recent gun legislation? Talk about having your cake and eating it, too. He has a good rating with the NRA and wouldn't want to lose that, now would he?
This man Harry Reid is good for nothing. No voice no action. Go and take care of your family if not your wife. You are good for nothing. We do not need.
I am not a gun owner. I believe this bill was simply window dressing and does absolutely nothing
to reduce gun crimes. The politicians lack the courage to address the root of the problems, they
simply want to ram legislation through the Congress to make it appear that they are doing something
about the complex issues facing Americans. It's kind of like spending money, anyone can do it!
We need to start electing quality talent to represent us in the U.S. Congress. Today, we have a bunch
of fools who think the American electorate is stupid.
my God given right to live in safety from gun violence trumps your bs paper-right to own a gun. Boys who keep screaming about the tryanny of the US government and prying the guns from their cold dead hands don't trust their neighbors, don't believe in their communities and don't beleive in America. I am tired of being held hostage to these creeps who don't have any faith in our society. Go live on a rock somewhere, really love it or leave it.
The 90% are too busy working to post here. They also have no interest in engaging with the trolls that love to post in CNN. You know those who present made up facts, false facts from misleading websites and those that scream, swear and throw temper tantrums at anyone who disagrees with them in their postings. Paid to post? Most likely yes....
.... So comments under CNN articles are very often one sided with good reason :))...The rest of the world considers the trolls that dominant these conversations to be "unworthy" of their time and rightly so.............