We’ve got eleven Democrats retiring from Congress this year: four from the Senate and seven from the House. While gun owners will hardly miss Carolyn McCarthy or Henry Waxman, we’re also losing a few allies. For all the facile claims that the Republicans support the 2nd Amendment and the Democrats don’t, this may be of interest.
Tom Harkin of Iowa and Carl Levin of Michigan both co-sponsored the Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device Act and have F ratings from the NRA, as does Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. On the other hand, consider Max Baucus, who holds a B rating. Despite some weirdness about “smart guns,” he voted against the Manchin-Toomey amendment. You may recall that Manchin and Toomey are both Republicans, not Democrats.
In the house, we bid adieu to McCarthy and Waxman, who were of course rated F by the NRA. Also leaving are Jim Moran of Virginia and George Miller of California, both of whom sponsored the magazine ban (I am not writing that out twice!) when it was in the House. Both have F ratings from the NRA.
But we also lose Jim Matheson of Utah, who has a B+ rating and broke ranks with his party by voting to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt over the Fast & Furious debacle. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina holds an A rating, and Bill Owens of New York holds an A+ from the PVF.
So there we are. The Red/Blue dichotomy isn’t as clear and simple as many would claim, and we do ourselves a disservice by assuming it is.
2 thoughts on “Always with the Democrats”
Thanks for the snyopis. The problem, in my opinion, lies in whether or not people are willing to become single issue voters over gun rights.
Single-issue voting comes with its own set of problems. Both Georgia senators and several representatives have good records on the 2nd Amendment, but their stance on other liberties ranges from apathetic to horrific.