Not too long ago, I saw a news story about a Somali warlord accused of “taking up arms” against the government. He said, “I am an elder. I do not take up arms”.

I think our “elders” have nothing against guns as long as they can order the ones who take them up to be the ones who are in the line of fire.

Prior to passage of the federal assault weapons ban (signed by then President Clinton), the importation of certain types of assault weapons from overseas had been banned during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations. Such bans were ordered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) under the 1968 Gun Control Act, which grants the ATF the power to prevent the importation of guns which are not “particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.”

Under the Reagan Administration, the ATF blocked the importation of certain models of shotguns that were not suitable for sporting purposes. In 1989, during the George H.W. Bush Administration, the ATF expanded this list to permanently ban the importation of 43 types of semi-automatic assault rifles that were also determined not to have a sporting purpose.

Later, in 1998, during the Clinton Administration the ATF banned the importation of 58 additional foreign-made “copycat” assault weapons in order to close a loophole in the prior import ban.

This shows who the “liberals” are………

The 52-47 vote in 2004 was before the elections. You didnt state that.

I think it goes without saying that a hot-button issue like that gets voted on before an election and not in the lame duck session that follows. I’m not sure why that matters, anyway, unless you have evidence that any of the Senators would have changed their votes on account of the election.

The additions of pro gun seats in north and south carolina, florida, south dakota and louisiana gave the US senate 5 more votes to stop the awb.

That would be the 109th Congress, the one that is still in session now. I never doubted that today’s Congress is more pro-gun than the last; the question is whether or not the forthcoming one is. Based on these five states, and assuming Missouri really was the only state that went from solidly pro-gun to anything else, then I agree that the current numbers look a lot more favorable than I had previously thought. I suppose it is also possible that at least one or two squishy moderates might have voted to renew the AW ban out of sheer inertia, but would see little reason to pass a new one now.

Perhaps I owe Countertop a beer.

I agree that the minimum wage will probably go up. I don’t know how much detectable damage that will do to the economy, but my guess is, not much. Assuming, of course, that the increase itself is also not much. As for taxes, why go through the trouble of pushing a “tax hike” when you can accomplish the same simply by not renewing the tax cuts from Bush’s first term? That way, taxes go up automatically with little fanfare (since they didn’t “raise” taxes, they only opposed “cuts”), and the next President and Congress will have to take the heat.

My thoughts and response will be forthcoming on Monday.

Nicely said.

I’ve been trying to get this across to many people, unsuccessfully, for a while. Hope you have better luck.