What is becoming increasingly clear is that any gun legislation that passes the Senate, if anything does, will be completely watered down. And then the House will get to work on it. At what point does one ask if it may be better drawing a line in the sand, getting people to vote for the record, and fighting for a better day and a better bill?
There will be no ban on military style assault weapons, and no ban on high-capacity magazines. There will be no universal background checks either (so much for Sen. Chuck Schumer's sweet spot). And if reports are correct, even the fabled Toomey-Manchin amendment and is being further weakened in this desperate bid for 60 votes.
For the sake of argument, let us first be optimists and assume that we get something passed. It will probably be weaker than the weakened version of Toomey-Manchin. It will be riddled with loopholes, and piled upon by some NRA-backed goodies. It would be what you would call a s***-sandwich.
But some will say something is better and nothing. I most certainly agree wholeheartedly that we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good. In the health care debate, when many on the left wanted President Obama to go all in on the public option, I think he was pragmatic to go all in on the strongest bill that would pass. I supported it then, despite the stinking deal with Big-Pharma, as I do now. I believe that the health care system we have now is most certainly better and fairer than what existed, and lives will be saved. And it can always be built upon. But I also respect those who feel that things could have been different if the President had pushed harder and sooner. Possible, though it was unlikely Joe Lieberman would come around on the public option no matter what the President did or said. And without Joe, there was no bill.
So I am perfectly fine with incremental gains in a long fight. But here, I am on the other side of the argument, it seems.
Would the gun legislation be a net gain? Certainly there will be more background checks, and the more the better. But for anyone with half a brain, the avenue of obtaining a weapon legally without a background check is still open, and widely open at that. This is not some father-to-son transfers that we are exempting. We are exempting 'friends', which is a loophole so big you can drive a truck through it. It practically renders the improvements useless.
Now, you may still think it is worth it, and I respect that. President Obama would most certainly love to have a big ceremony where he can sign something that he can call a compromise and a common sense solution, irrespective of what he is signing. Make no mistake, I believe he is truly committed to this issue, but he is nothing if not a realist. At this point in his second term, a major political defeat is something he needs to avoid. He badly needs something, anything, to show for his efforts on gun legislation.
You might be willing to play along, but we have not yet looked at the costs side of the ledger.
The NRA has already included provisions in the Toomey-Manchin bill that give some heartburn, and there are more, such as reciprocal concealed carry, that should be simply unacceptable to anybody fighting for gun control. If you have a concealed carry permit for Oklahoma, the state of Colorado should have the authority to deny you the same privilege if it so chooses. That amendment has a decent shot at passage, as do some half-baked mental health reporting measures being peddled by the inimitable Sen. Lindsey Graham and supported by some conservative Democrats, that actually make the problem worse, not better.
Wait, there is more. By passing this, which even Democrats know is barely a blip on the radar, the Republicans will get to say, a few years from now, “See we passed what you wanted, and nothing changed. That is because these measures do not work. This is all about taking away our liberty based on liberal ideology.”
It will undermine the entire push, and kill any further attempts to improve the laws, or at the very least make it much harder. At that point, you could argue all you want about the loopholes in the bill being considered, just as people did about the 1994 ban on assault weapons; it will be to no avail against the Republican cacophony. The 1994 ban was marginally effective, but clearly would have been more so if you could not work around the law by changing one simple feature on the gun. It just isn't a compelling case to make, if you cheered the passage of a bill, to then complain about it when the tables are turned.
And that is perhaps the most damaging aspect of the equation. To pass something so small that it will actually hurt the cause in the long term.
So, I submit, my friends, that the smart strategy is to wait, and not go for a very myopic tactical victory that actually sets the cause back. Get everybody on the record for the various proposals, start working with increased intensity. The moment will come when Republicans will want to get this off the table like they do immigration.
Think about where the LGBT movement was in 2005, just after John Kerry had lost Ohio and the Presidency in large part due to the ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. Think about 2006 and 2008, when even more ballot initiatives passed all over the country. But through work and perseverance, the movement is now winning. That moment can arrive on gun control, when people fall over themselves to embrace solid gun legislation. If we want it enough, and are willing to work for it.
So let's take a stand, stop trying to get something passed for the sake of it, and draw a line in the sand. Take the NRA's advice: stand and fight.