Hindsight from The New Gun Week August 20, 1999
Politics, Principles and Frank Capra Films
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
There is a letter to the editor in the Readers' Forum on Page 4 of this issue from Tim Andrews, president of the New York state-based Shooters Committee on Political Education (SCOPE Inc.), that deals with the political dilemma facing American gunowners at the next election.
Andrews focuses on the question of whether one should support Sen. Bob Smith (I-NH), or any other third party candidate, for president in 2000 on the basis of principle or vote for the GOP candidate on the basis of pragmatism.
Smith had been pursuing the GOP nomination for president while conducting a spirited defense of the right to keep and bear arms in the US Senate. This summer, following an on-again, off-again flirtation with restrictive gun legislation by the Republican leadership in the Senate, Smith resigned from the Republican Party. In doing so, he castigated leaders of his former party for their failure to stick with principles on several key issues, with particular emphasis on the Second Amendment.Smith's speech on the Senate floor was broadcast on C-SPAN and has been reproduced on several Websites, and is available from his Senate office (The Hon. Bob Smith, US Senate, Washington, DC 20510).
After the Senate passed a Juvenile Justice bill with a number of onerous anti-gun amendments and the House passed a different bill without most of those amendments, Smith moved to block unanimous consent for consideration of the bill by a joint Senate-House conference committee. He also announced plans to block votes on the measure by threatening a filibuster and a series of motions that would tie-up the Senate.
Movie Drama
The drama of the situation was reminiscent of old Frank Capra movies, particularly "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," about principled people who bucked the Washington system and won.Capra's films are marked by a passion for the constitutional system and his themes pitting the little guys with principles against machine politicians. In "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," made in the late 1930s, Jimmy Stewart plays a honest and decent young man who is sent to Capitol Hill, and filibusters to block passage of a bill designed to enrich the fat cats of the establishment, including the slimy senior senator from his state, played by Claude Raines.
In the Capra movie, Stewart's Mr. Smith, the people and principles win out over politics and a media that is spin-meistered to support the establishment. But 60 years later, the Mr. Smith from New Hampshire did not win.
He was forced to face a cloture vote, which requires approval by a supermajority of 60 senators, and lost 77-22, with Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) not voting.
Capra would have been disappointed, if not totally disillusioned. Washington isn't very much like his movies, even though people like Bob Smith still hope it is.
The vote was taken at 9:46 a.m. on the morning of July 28. Immediately after the vote, the Senate leadership called up the House bill and appointed five members of a conference (compromise) committee, all five of whom had voted against delaying consideration of the Juvenile Justice bill and more gun control. (See Nancy Norell's report on Pages 1 and 2 of this issue.) A few days later, the House GOP leadership appointed a flock of conferees representing both parties.
Conferees Meet
And on Aug. 5, the conference committee met briefly. The Republicans decided to put off further meetings until after Congress returned from an August vacation on Sept. 7. They wanted staff to develop points of compromise during their absence.The Democrats, still flogging the corpses of the victims of Littleton-with added emphasis from the more recent shootings in Atlanta and Pelham, AL, pushed for continuing the meetings through the recess. They stuck to an earlier theme which was that the children would be returning to school at Columbine High School without Congress having passed the gun laws the Dems supported. The proponents of these new gun control measures have never explained how they would have prevented the school shootings or any other aberrant criminal behavior.
But the Democrats moved to continue. In the end, the Republicans won the vote. The meeting lasted only two hours.
What will happen in September is still very much in the air. The Juvenile Justice bills contain more than just anti-gun proposals. They include other items that concern many civil liberties organizations. Depending on what the staff negotiators develop and the conference committee reports out in September, there may be a very mixed bag of opposition. Of course, it's usually a case of whose ox is being gored, but there are enough oxen in the Juvenile Justice bill that the conference report may produce a whole new fight next month.
Staff Influence
Congressional staffs didn't have big roles in Capra movies, but they do in real life Washington. While lawmakers are the ones who actually cast the votes, staffers are the ones who prep them for those votes, advise them, and-to a great extent-pursue their own agendas.Which, by the way, is one reason why term limits is a bad idea. The way things are done in Washington these days, the staffers would become even more powerful, especially with their temporary bosses focusing on the next political office they can legally seek.
But that's a digression from the subject at hand.
Smith demonstrated principles and is cheered by many gun rights activists. But unlike the Capra films, principles often take a back-of-the-bus seat when modern politicians are being driven by polls, the media and expediency.
The anti-gunners who control the presidential pulpit, the media and so many of the columnists and pundits who shape public opinion have been exploiting the latest crimes to push their own agenda. They want a lot and see this as an opportunity to get a lot of their agenda, which paves the way for even more in the near future.
The gun show package is only part of the game; the anti-gunners have always wanted to eliminate gun shows, but they see them now as a road to a larger agenda. Establishing total control over private gun sales and developing a national registration system as a prelude to future confiscation of selected or all guns are even bigger goals close to the gun-grabbers' hands.
This whole issue is still very hot. We might all wish that the entire Juvenile Justice bill gets dumped in the trash can-both bill from both houses of Congress. But that seems very unlikely right now.
In the meanwhile, when we ponder what's happening on Capitol Hill and what's likely to happen in next year's presidential and congressional elections, we should remember the candidates who demonstrated principles.
They are the ones who sided with Smith on the cloture vote. The others may have voted the way they did for various reasons, but the 22 who voted against cloture demonstrated rare courage.
Curiously, the 21 other senators who voted with Smith against cloture were all Republicans. They are:
Wayne Allard (CO); Sam Brownback (KS); Jim Bunning (KY); Conrad Burns (MT); Ben Nighthorse Campbell (CO); Paul Coverdell (GA); Larry Craig (ID); Michael Crapo (ID); Michael Enzi (WY); Phil Gramm (TX); Rod Grams (MN); Charles Grassley (IA); Jesse Helms (NC); Tim Hutchinson (AR); Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX); James Inhofe (OK); Jon Kyl (AZ); Don Nickles (OK); Rick Santorum (PA); Richard Shelby (AL), and Craig Thomas (WY).
They should all be remembered.
The New Gun Week is published three times a month by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) on the 1st, 10th, and 20th. Hindsight is a commentary written by SAF President and Gun Week Executive Editor Joseph P. Tartaro. This commentary may be reprinted so long as credit is given to the author and the publication. For more information or to subscribe, write Gun Week, PO Box 488, Buffalo, NY 14209, or call 716-885-6408 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, or inquire on Compuserve to John Krull, Production manager-JohnSAF@Compuserve.com or gunweeksaf@broadviewnet.netAlso, check out the New Gun Week at http://www.GunWeek.com