The National Rifle Association logo is placed on the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 1, 2013, in Houston. Photographer: Johnny Hanson/Houston Chronicle/AP Photo
Weeks after the U.S. Senate defeated a proposed expansion of background checks on gun purchases, the annual conference of the National Rifle Association in Houston has a celebratory atmosphere.
Bloomberg News
Weeks after the U.S. Senate defeated a proposed expansion of background checks on gun purchases, the annual conference of the National Rifle Association in Houston has a celebratory atmosphere.
Bloomberg News
“I was so proud of the American public, and the NRA, for putting enough pressure on our politicians,” Neil Solt of Cypress, Texas, said yesterday while waiting to have his World War II heirloom guns appraised at a pre-convention event.
Yet as the festivities begin, gun-control advocates are swarming town halls, organizing petitions and buying local ads to pressure senators from Alaska to New Hampshire to reconsider the measure that failed by six votes on April 17. They also are descending on Houston to protest outside the NRA event.
In Washington yesterday, the efforts inspired by the Dec. 14 slaughter of 20 children at an elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut appeared to be gaining some ground.
Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana, who voted against the measure and then announced he will retire, said in a statement that he would “evaluate” any new gun-control attempts. Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who wrote the defeated background-check measure with Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, told reporters April 23 that he is trying to craft such a compromise.
A new batch of polls, including some released yesterday, show that senators who favored expanding background checks are enjoying a bump in popularity. The approval rating for Toomey has climbed to 48 percent in a poll conducted April 19-24 by Quinnipiac University (78104MF) up from 43 percent in March.
Public Backlash
Those findings were in contrast to other recent polls showing a decline in support for those voting against the bill. An April 29 survey by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic- leaning group, found that Republican Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s approval rating had fallen to 46 percent from 54 percent in February.
The NRA and other pro-gun ownership groups are countering, running ads of thanks in the states of their Senate supporters. The approximately 70,000 activists expected to attend the Houston convention are likely to hear calls for action from at least four Republican prospective presidential candidates: Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and Texas Governor Rick Perry.
The test ahead for gun-control advocates is whether they can sustain momentum and convert their fervor into political wins, either by resurrecting and passing a gun-control bill this year -- a rare occurrence on an issue that generates passion on both sides, or by ousting its opponents next year at the ballot box.
Tea-Party Model
Supporters of tougher background checks are borrowing tactics from the anti-tax Tea Party groups that were galvanized to action in 2009 by opposition to President Barack Obama’s health-care law and helped restore Republicans to control of the U.S. House in 2010.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns protested outside of Republican Senator Jeff Flake’s Phoenix office yesterday. A PPP poll released this week showed the freshman senator’s approval rating stood at 32 percent, compared with 52 percent who disapprove.
In a posting on his Facebook page, Flake said: “Nothing like waking up to a poll saying you’re the nation’s least popular senator. Given the public’s dim view of Congress in general, that probably puts me somewhere just below pond scum.”
“Now, notwithstanding the polling firm’s leftist bent, I would assume that my poll numbers have indeed taken a southerly turn since my vote against the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal. It was a popular amendment, and I voted against it,” Flake wrote, adding a link to a local story explaining the amendment’s complexities.
Confronting Ayotte
Earlier this week, Erica Lafferty, the daughter of the principal killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, confronted Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican and the only senator from the Northeast to oppose the measure.
She recalled Ayotte’s stated concern that the background checks would be a burden on gun owners and sellers.
“I’m just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the hall of her elementary school isn’t as important as that?” Lafferty asked the senator, before storming out of the April 30 town hall.
Lafferty is expected to be in Houston today, where gun- control advocates plan to read the names of shooting victims outside the NRA conference during the next three days.
The Manchin-Toomey amendment would have required background checks for anyone purchasing a firearm at a gun show or over the Internet. It needed 60 votes; it received 54. Thirteen senators who voted against the proposal are up for re-election in 2014. Ayotte’s term expires in 2017.
Television Ads
In addition to agitating at town halls, gun-control advocates have purchased television and radio ads to criticize senators who voted against background checks.
Americans for Responsible Solutions, a political group helmed by shooting victim and former U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, debuted radio ads targeting Ayotte and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.
“We watched. We listened. We felt it. Newtown,” an announcer says. “But Senator McConnell won’t listen to us.”
Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- the best-funded outside group pressing for gun control -- also released an ad aimed at Ayotte. The group is led by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
‘Protecting’ Kids
The NRA is running ads in New Hampshire to support Ayotte, and some at her town halls hoisted signs saying they are with her. The ad thanks Ayotte for her vote and praising her for “protecting our kids” because she wants to shore up the mental-health system rather than tightening gun controls.
Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political group that typically supports Democrats, spent $50,000 to air a TV ad in Montana and Washington asking Baucus to reconsider his position on background checks.
“Now that you’re retiring, please put Montana first,” a woman says at the close of the spot.
That group touted Baucus’ statement yesterday as “huge,” though the senator makes clear that he would reconsider his position “based on the feedback he gathers from the people of Montana.”
Progressive Change has also spent $100,000 on full-page ads in the hometown newspapers of Baucus, Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, Alaska Senator Mark Begich and North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp. All are Democrats, and Begich and Pryor are running in 2014.
Pushing Back
Gun activists are preparing to push back.
In Houston, hundreds of NRA supporters, many dressed in Second Amendment and flag-themed apparel, walked through hallways where the group’s “stand and fight” motto is plastered on banners and souvenirs. Glenn Beck headlines a rally by that name here May 4.
Bud Clark of Magnolia, Texas, predicted more tries at expanding background checks would be fruitless.
“What we already have is enough, and we are not going to change our minds about that,” he said as he awaited an evaluation of a 1918 German Luger pistol.
To contact the reporter on this story: Julie Bykowicz in Houston at jbykowicz@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21@bloomberg.net
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