From the comments section from my earlier post on today's vote (PS: I'm sure everyone who wasnt there would love to see the video when you get a chance!):From the comments section from my earlier post on today's vote (PS: I'm sure everyone who wasnt there would love to see the video when you get a chance!):
Thought I would add my personal report, as I was there. And this time I brought my videocamera.
#1. Creigh Deeds did what he had to do. He knows he has to go through a democratic primary and if he had voted "no," he would have had a tough time getting through that. This was a smart move, and it was also the right thing to do.
That said, I think Creigh really was trying to seek some sort of compromise. His amendment to the bill answered all the complaints lodged against it. The Republicans were having none of that, of course; the complained and nitpicked their way through it ad nauseum.#2. To Stolle's complaints that nobody had had time to see the new language, Senator Marsh allowed 10 minutes for the committee to read and discuss. He also allowed one speaker from both side to address the amendment.
#3. Immediately, SENATOR EDWARDS came down from to confer with the representatives from the NRA and VCDL. As you may guess, these men were extremely unhappy. They were standing quite close to me--perhaps they didn't see me?--and I could hear a lot of what they said (when I download my video, I'll have to see if I got the conversation as well.) Edwards was pretty much advising them on what to say and what to object to.
MORE BELOW THE FOLD.
#4. People, please understand, it's not just that Edwards voted no. It's not just that he voted against the governor, the Va Tech Review Panel, the Va Tech families and against the wishes of the vast majority of people who send their kids to Virginia colleges and universities. He was in bed with the gun lobby the entire way. That man has his nose so far up that particular crack, it's amazing to me that he could dislodge it long enough to go vote.
#5. I wish you could have seen him on Monday. Wearing his Va Tech colors and smiling at the Va Tech students. And all the while, he was planning to vote NO. He had no interest in the compromise; he immediately set out to help the NRA and GOA and the VCDL and the rest of the gun lobby to derail this law.
#6. But I have another reason to single out Edwards for my anger. The Republicans voted party line. Cuccinelli--you will remember that on Monday he kept his head down and eyes averted as one of the Va Tech parents (from his district) pleaded with them to pass this bill. Cuccinelli doesn't need to fear the NRA. There is nothing the NRA can do to Cuccinelli. The Cooch voted party line, just as the rest of them did--even those who had voted for it in previous years--because they WOULD NOT hand the governor a victory. They would rather go through a hundred Va Techs than give the governor what he wants. Screw the parents, screw all of us--we are all just collateral damage in their ultimate goal of screwing the governor.
#7. And Edwards? Edwards was with the Republicans every step of the way. He is even more responsible than they and he is even more reprehensible. He handed the Republicans a Democratic defeat. As a democrat, that's the thing I really can never forgive him for. What the hell did we work so hard for last fall? To have traitors like Edwards spit in the governor's face?
The one thing I have that comes out loud and clear is the vote. Maybe it will be of some use someday to somebody.
Face it, Edwards isn't controlled by the NRA or any other gun rights group: he's controlled by his constituents. Calling Edwards a traitor indicates who it is that liberal (sorry, "progressive") elites really disdain: rural voters who refuse to buy into every piece of what is, at its core, an agenda advanced by elitists who are more than happy to court rural folks on economic issues when their interests align, but look down their noses at them when they part company on cultural issues.
On Monday, when the committee was hearing testimony and when hundreds of Va Tech students and families flooded the room, Edwards had no trouble pandering to those constuents, wearing his Va Tech colors like he really gave a rat's ass about any of the 28,000 students who live there in his district.
When Marsh announced the break during the voting on Wednesday, Edwards did not leave his seat to talk to his constituents; he immediately went to three representatives from the gun lobby, none of whom are constituents.
Is a background check really a "cultural issue?" I thought it was a public safety issue. Are rural voters really that steamed about a three-minute background check? Or is it more of the politics of hate and fear, something the right uses over and over to gain a hold on voters, just as they have used evangelicals for decades? Let's talk about the right's horror of the spectre of Huckabee actually winning the nomination and tell me who looks down their noses at whom.
It's a shame really, the GOP used to be the party of law and order starting with Goldwater, a respect for the law, a respect for law enforcement, a respect for public safety. Then the modern gun-rights movement emerged from the violence of the Civil Rights/Vietnam Era with the George Wallace and Reagan wings of the party in the '70s.
I -- a Northern Virginia liberal -- could say the same thing about cultural wars. After conceal-carry laws were loosened nationwide 10-15 years ago, the NRA and their sympathizers are pushing for conceal-carry in bars, conceal-carry in national parks, conceal-carry on college campuses, forcing businesses to allow guns on private property and so on. Somehow, the specter of vigilantism doesn't appeal to me.
Gun violence isn't a rural/urban, North/South issue but a national issue because no community is immune to gun violence. If guns made us safer, America would be the safest nation on earth.
See, e.g., Lake, Snell, Perry & Assc. poll, May 15-21, 2001: 92% of registered voters favor background checks for all handgun purchases. Margin of error +/- 3.1%. See also, ABC News/Washington Post poll, Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 1999: 90% support requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows. Margin of error +/- 3.
If it was important for Gov. Tim Kaine to close a loophole that permitted Cho to buy guns from licensed firearms dealers, why isn't it also important to make sure Cho couldn't also have bought weapons from an unlicensed gun seller at a gun show?And another thing, [Roanoke-area gun rights advocate Bobby] Woolwine added, "Had Virginia Tech not took it upon themselves to disarm all students perhaps the tragedy could have been held to a minimum."
I don't know, but the idea of more people on campus packing heat doesn't leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling.
By the same stretch of logic, the world would be safer if more countries possessed nuclear weapons. Does anyone believe that?