Wonkbook: Gun control shows how Washington really works

[cali]

“If our democracy’s working the way it’s supposed to,” President Obama said in West Hartford, CT, “and 90 percent of the American people agree on something, in the wake of a tragedy, you’d think this would not be a heavy lift.”

Gun control has emerged as an unusually clarifying test case for how Congress really works. On one side of the ledger is most everything that we think moves Congress: Public opinion, a national tragedy, the president’s bully pulpit, elite opinion. On the other side is everything we wish didn’t move Congress: a powerful but increasingly controversial interest group and, arguably, the minority’s natural incentive to foil the majority’s agenda.

Guess which side is winning?

<snip>

But this is just a way of restating the same problem: If public opinion remains this uninformed despite overwhelming media coverage of the issue, the president’s aggressive use of the bully pulpit, and the focusing power of a national tragedy, then that suggests public opinion can’t effectively be leveraged even in extremely favorable circumstances. These results don’t explain the fluke status of gun control. They explain why majority support is a reliably weak predictor of congressional action.

<snip>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/09/wonkbook-gun-control-shows-how-washington-really-works/

[pipoman]

1. Constitutionality is the biggest factor in what can

and what cannot happen...regardless of public opinion...the way it has always been..

[geek tragedy]

2. Mr. Korematsu would beg to differ. nt

[Cali_Democrat]

3. America is pretty much ungovernable at this point

Greatest country my ass.

Others just point and laugh at our dysfunction.

We're a laughingstock courtesy of the GOP and the gun nuts.