a relevant morning show.

Daily Kos, where it's often referred to that way.

Cantor. Naturally, he had to bring the democrats in and warn that this will happen to them. Morning Jokester!

nobody gives a sh*t. He just won't shut up about it. And he's nauseatingly self rightious about it.

I did like that he had Joy Reid on today. I like her. She's refreshing...

Never mind that Joe's revisionism aside, the political atmosphere compared to today was just as poison during the time Joe did his "service" (the Clinton "hit-list" accusations were tolerated by the GOP then just like "birtherism" is now). The thing I find intolerable about Joe's rosy nostalgia is his portrayal of himself as being a player during that time when all accounts were that he was basically the equivalent of Michele Bachmann in terms of actual accomplishments.

Harry Reid decided that protecting Dems running for reelection in pro-gun states was more important. Without getting into the entire "Harry Reid is not a true liberal" issue, gun control politics in Congress is a lot more complicated than left vs right.

anyone on MJ had said. Their actual claims were that the reason nothing happened was that Dems all wanted gun control and Repubs all wanted to blame society and media.

I'm probably in the 99th % of leftward Americans, and I'd be fine with a deal that traded, say, universal background checks for a first amendment carve-out that banned video games in which you use guns, grenades, etc, to kill other humans.

and prevents her and others from introducing an AWB and other gun control proposals guaranteed to do nothing more than ignite a political firestorm.

It is time to embrace what is possible and get at least something passed.

Somehow, in their minds, the people who are in favor of gun control are just as much to blame as the people who are opposed to gun control for the lack of adequate gun laws.

we usually point out feel good measures that don't actually address the problems. Or point out that certain proposals are blatantly unconstitutional and therefore impossible. Or in many cases, their proposals completely ignore American cultural and political reality. Or that by focusing exclusively on guns instead of people, they ignore other solutions that would work and are easier to implement.

Most often though, we point out that pro-gun advocates sabotage their own cause by their lack of self discipline - they call gun owners "gun humpers", pre-murderers and supporters of killing children and then wonder why we don't flock to support them.

you want to craft the bill yourselves.

Why the hell haven't you??

as well as many other gun safety laws. For example, I support all proposed gun controls proposals with the exception of an AWB and registration. For many controllers, that is not good enough.

would gain a lot of respect for a group of "responsible gun owners" who organized and lobbied for such laws.

We have yet to see any such thing.

What we do see is groups of "responsible gun owners" organizing to advance their "rights" (example: Georgia's Guns Everywhere bill) and to block anything and everything that might make a baby step in the direction that we'd like to go.
We see - in DU's very own RBKA forum - a lot of denigration of groups like Americans For Responsible Solutions,
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, MOMS Demand Action and others.

We wonder, since these "rights" are so important to you, why you are not first in line to seek solution.

"For many controllers, that is not good enough." Why the hell should that stop you??

additionally, in the real world, I spend my spare time and money on other causes, specifically substance abuse. I understand the real threat to my kid's future.

when legislation is on the table? Or do you just post on forums?

Because I am active in the state Democratic party organization, I meet my Senators and Representatives several times a year. I told them to support gun control legislation with the exception of an AWB and registration.

There are a lot of liberal activists who own guns. And many are here in the "gungeon." Most have and continue to support UBC, and my congressman (whom I've voted and Worked for in various campaigns over 40 yrs) foolishly supports a Feinsteinish AWB. No one has a monopoly on activism, and no one gets to interrogate DUers on who passes the sweat test; if DU was HALF as activist as it says it is, we would have by now taken over the Party!

just trying to understand.

not gun-related. I'm not the spry late 60s activist I once was, but at 66, I try to put what little $ I have where my mouth is, and put some time into petitions & sweat equity.

They are satisfied with the status quo, including all the mass shootings, but they don't want to admit it, so they want to pretend that it is really the Democrats and not the teabaggers who are to blame.

it makes one wonder what you really want out of this discussion. Until you add compromise to your vocabulary, stop whining because you can't get all you want.

I guessing somewhere in the 90% to 100% range. It's pretty odd. I've yet to see you point a finger of blame at the Republicans who actually voted against the law. It's always those mean Democrats who call Republicans names who are at fault.

disagreeing with you on gun control is defending Republicans. And people wonder why the gun control movement is a smoking wreck.

It's convenient, in case anyone here is still wondering where your political allegiances lie.

It's truly bizarre that you can't bring yourself to blame the people who voted against the bill for it's failure. The indoctrination is pretty strong.

why did Harry Reid agree to 60 votes for passage of each measure? Why did Dem Senators vote against many of the proposals? Why did Dem Senators help Repukes nearly pass national CCW reciprocity that was stopped only by procedural rules?

I don't think you have actually studied the details of what actually happened that day. Think about it - the Senate met to vote on control and the only thing that would have passed was national CCW reciprocity.

On edit:

Because of the GOP. What's odd is that you keep bending over backwards to blame Dems and avoid blaming Republicans.

they could have passed UBCs and called it a day. Instead they handed the repukes a major political victory. The Dems are to blame - they controlled the process in the Senate. And they fucked it up.

That would be far too logical...

so explain to me how from a position of strength it got so fucked up?

20% of Dem Senators voted against an AWB. How was that possible?

But the main problem, obviously, is the GOP, a fact which you can't bring yourself to acknowledge.

so any rational plan has to factor that in. Do you think there was a rational plan or was it all for show to placate the public until things calmed down?

They gave it a shot, but the political reality is that the GOP can block anything they want. The blame lies with the GOP.

with a simple majority vote in the Senate after Sandy Hook, we would have had the following result:

1. Universal Background Checks - passed 55-45

2. National CCW reciprocity - passed 57 -43


The following would have not been passed:

1. AWB
2. Magazine Limits

The blame lies with Republicans and conservative Dems. But somehow you want to blame liberals, which makes zero sense.

they could have had UBCs in exchange for CCW reciprocity and everyone would have been happy. Instead they decided to dredge up everyone's pet gun control measure and fucked everything up beyond compare.

It was a major political miscalculation - surely they could have foreseen the results and have been smarted in how they introduced legislation. The president and house leaders completely misread Harry Reid's priorities.

do you really think there was a chance of passing those laws? Would you have asked Harry if it was possible before trying? If he said no, would you have pressed on or would you have tried to salvage something out of the situation?

What is the point of have control of the Senate when you can't use that power wisely?

but it could have been properly managed to salvage something. They could have had UBCs.

something you are going to have to come to grips with if you plan to make any progress. Solutions grounded in political and cultural reality are the ones that will succeed. Hopefully one day you will make that connection.

I understand that you are happy about that, but most liberals I know think the party has gone too far right, and is already making too many concessions to the GOP. That seems to be where our difference of opinion lies.

marriage equality, gender equality, pro-union - apart from guns I doubt there are very few things we disagree on. Unfortunately your fixation on guns blinds you to any potential of working with Dems like me to find potential solutions. Oh well.

If you actually care about those other issues, you should realize that it's the same coalition of Republicans and conservative Dems that are standing in the way of progress across the board. Unions are getting hammered even harder than gun control, and by the same people.

something that for some reason you cannot handle in a mature and rational manner.

But that's ok. I come here for hard edge discussion, and while somewhat immature and petty, your replies do provide that.

Oh, and LOL at the personal jabs.

whenever its about them its both sides fault. No matter the subject he always has to interject the when he was running garbage. This is not the same country there are more people but no one never acknowledges this when they spout this bull.