The Rapidly Diminishing Returns of Outrage at Guns

[DonViejo]

ELSPETH REEVE 11:29 AM ET

There was mass fury at the Senate for filibustering a weakened gun background checks bill that had been driven by the outrage that one man with an AR-15 could kill 20 schoolchildren. What's more interesting is whether all that rage will end up changing anything on its own. Those who were pessimistic that Congress would ever take up gun regulations were felt vindicated. The gun bill was doomed from day one, The New York Times' Jennifer Steinhauer wrote on Thursday, because red-state Democrats have calculated that "the political fury of opponents would not be offset by support from those who favor tighter controls." Has that calculation changed? And would it apply to Republicans?

Supporters of more gun control promise that it has. Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, the victim of an assassination attempt in 2011, wrote in The New York Times, "Speaking is physically difficult for me. But my feelings are clear: I'm furious… I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences." President Obama said, "you need to let your representatives in Congress know that you are disappointed, and that if they don’t act this time, you will remember come election time." The New York Daily News put together the photos of all the senators who voted to filibuster the bill, inviting readers to "Meet the cowards." "This fight has just begun," Joe Scarborough said on MSNBC Thursday. "The American people were insulted yesterday." The GOP, he said, "is moving toward extinction." Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns promised to air ads attacking the most vulnerable senators up who filibustered the bill and are up for reelection in 2014, as well as House Republicans in suburban districts. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's Facebook page posted an image (at right) gloating over the bill's death, the page was filled with thousands of angry comments promising to oust him.

Do they have the power to do that? One of the most interesting explanations for the bill's failure was reported by Politico's Glenn Thrush and Reid J. Epstein. The gun bill failed, their reporting suggests, because the post-election sweep of liberal issues has been too broad:

One senator told a White House official that it was “Guns, gays and immigration - it’s too much. I can be with you on one or two of them, but not all three.”

Full article:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/04/rapidly-diminishing-returns-outrage/64351/

[villager]

1. How *dare* be people be "outraged" at the heaped bodies of dead children on the floor!

How dare they be "outraged" at their shredded faces, bodies and limbs!

It's just too much outrage!

And you know, the NRA's outrage scares me more!

So hey, grieving parents and torn communities -- stop all that inconvenient outrage, before I have to belittle it in another completely clueless -- if not snarkily cruel -- headline!

[TwilightGardener]

2. If the Senate is only measuring and comparing levels of fury from constituents in order

to make decisions... I'd put forth that the saner, more reasonable citizens out there aren't usually the loudest screamers. Crazies tend to be few in number, but excessively loud. Therefore, the crazies win?

[bowens43]

3. the gun bill didnt fail. thewre was no vote.

[cali]

5. +1. James Fallows has an excellent piece out on just that point.

[BlueStreak]

4. "Guns, gays, and immigration"

What a load of crap that is. The Congress isn't asked to do a damn thing about gays. That is all happening at the state and judicial levels.

And nobody has done anything about immigration either.

This was the only issue of the three that any Senator has been asked to take a stand on.

[Pointy_n_sharp]

6. I would say the same thing about gun regulation..

Everyone focuses on the grand federal level but individual states have been the ones making the most laws, good or bad.