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!) Continued...