Target Practice - Republicans' blatant failure in handling public response to media pressure for increased gun control legislation

National Review, June 14, 1999 by Ramesh Ponnuru

But for a case study in Republican incompetence, one need only look at the mid-May gunfight in the Senate. The first mistake was majority leader Trent Lott's decision to schedule a juvenile-justice bill for consideration so soon after Littleton-a capitulation to Democrats who had threatened to tie gun controls to every other piece of legislation if he didn't-and to do so without specifying how long, and under what rules, it would be considered.

The next mistake came when Democrats made an issue of gun shows, where criminals were supposedly getting guns from private parties without going through background checks. Republicans offered an amendment to let anyone selling guns at a show, and not just professional dealers, perform background checks. Thus Republicans essentially conceded the Democrats' picture of gun shows-venues where shady figures can pass guns under the table to criminals and psychos-without offering a solution.

And (mistake #3) the Senate's schedule forced this amendment to be written and voted on quickly, before Republicans could discuss it at any meetings. Some senators misunderstood the content of the amendment, let alone the political context, when they voted both to pass it and to kill the Democratic proposal. The press coverage of the votes the next day was scathing, and Bill Clinton and Janet Reno made the most of it. Republicans looked unreasonable.

One would have thought the thing to do in this situation was to press the accelerator and leave the scene. It wasn't as though angry citizens were jamming the phone lines. But the bad press agitated Republicans Gordon Smith of Oregon and John McCain of Arizona, who took to the airwaves to denounce what they had done just the day before and to demand a new vote-mistake #4. ("Smith was practically crying," recalls a Senate staffer.) Republicans had to come up with their own proposal for mandatory background checks at gun shows. And they didn't even cave in credibly, since the amendment sponsor was Larry Craig, an NRA board member (#5).

The news stories the next day were even worse, and more prominent. The Washington Post said Republicans had reversed themselves because they were "stunned" by the "uproar" over their votes-and reported that Democrats rejected their new proposal as "still crammed with loopholes." Republicans now looked weak, unprincipled, incompetent, and out of touch, as well as extreme.

Democrats were of course emboldened. Their leaders' initial reaction to Littleton had been remarkably cautious-South Dakota senator Tom Daschle said gun control was not the answer, and Missouri representative Dick Gephardt did not push the issue-perhaps because their home states are socially conservative, perhaps because they remember how much gun control cost them in 1994. But if pro-gun voters were going to stay home in disgust at wayward Republicans, Democrats could exploit the issue without cost.

So Democrats spent another week denouncing supposed outrages such as the "pawn-shop loophole," which let customers get their own guns back without a background check. Next came the "flea-market loophole." When it became clear that Democrats were more interested in scoring points than in passing law, some Republicans wanted Lott to pull the juvenile- justice bill from the floor. He did not (#6), partly because judiciary committee chairman Orrin Hatch had worked on the bill for years and wanted it to pass. Smith and McCain successfully demanded that Republicans accede to the pawn-shop crackdown. But most Republicans, including those two, finally drew the line at a Democratic proposal aimed mainly at harassing gun shows-a proposal that passed amid the theater of Al Gore breaking a tie vote.