Asked about new gun control measures during a visit to Nantucket, Joe Biden said that “the idea that we still allow the purchase of semi-automatic weapons in this country today is sick. It is just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None.” He went on to say that there will be a new effort to ban assault weapons, even during the lame duck session of Congress prior to the new term beginning in January, depending on what he hears about potential vote counts.
I’m sure that it helps to drive fundraising immediately after these events, and it’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t toe the line to win a Democratic primary contest outside of a handful of House and state legislative districts.
But, outside of their traditional strongholds, I think it harms them in general elections, especially when you consider how many single-issue voters there are with respect to gun policy. Softening their position on banning “semiautomatic weapons,” especially since that term would also include the handguns that are in exceedingly common use for self-protection, even in ban states, might have swayed enough voters to get them over the hump in the Senate races that they lost closely in places like Wisconsin and North Carolina, and might have secured enough votes for Warnock in Georgia to avoid a runoff. One might also note that Obama did not push hard for gun control in his 2008 campaign and won a number of states that have since flipped to the red column including Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, and Florida.
Considering that there is no reasonable chance of overcoming a Senate filibuster, Biden would have to push to eliminate it in order to pass a ban, and I’m not convinced that Democrats would have even 50 votes for it in the Senate, considering Manchin’s and Tester’s position on the issue (Tester even touts his opposition to AWB legislation on his website) and that both are up for reelection in 2024 in states that are overwhelmingly pro-gun.
I simply don’t see it happening. And, while I would support pushing to eliminate the filibuster in order to codify legal abortion, I also believe that there is a big difference in terms of optics when it comes to pursuing the nuclear option in order to protect people’s rights versus doing it in order to strip them away.
When one considers these factors, and the overwhelming likelihood that a federal ban would not pass Constitutional muster under the current prevailing legal doctrine and would likely accelerate the abolition of state-level bans, pushing hard for this seems like a massive own-goal from a political standpoint.
Does it even win campaigns, though?
I’m sure that it helps to drive fundraising immediately after these events, and it’s very difficult for someone who doesn’t toe the line to win a Democratic primary contest outside of a handful of House and state legislative districts.
But, outside of their traditional strongholds, I think it harms them in general elections, especially when you consider how many single-issue voters there are with respect to gun policy. Softening their position on banning “semiautomatic weapons,” especially since that term would also include the handguns that are in exceedingly common use for self-protection, even in ban states, might have swayed enough voters to get them over the hump in the Senate races that they lost closely in places like Wisconsin and North Carolina, and might have secured enough votes for Warnock in Georgia to avoid a runoff. One might also note that Obama did not push hard for gun control in his 2008 campaign and won a number of states that have since flipped to the red column including Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, and Florida.
Considering that there is no reasonable chance of overcoming a Senate filibuster, Biden would have to push to eliminate it in order to pass a ban, and I’m not convinced that Democrats would have even 50 votes for it in the Senate, considering Manchin’s and Tester’s position on the issue (Tester even touts his opposition to AWB legislation on his website) and that both are up for reelection in 2024 in states that are overwhelmingly pro-gun.
I simply don’t see it happening. And, while I would support pushing to eliminate the filibuster in order to codify legal abortion, I also believe that there is a big difference in terms of optics when it comes to pursuing the nuclear option in order to protect people’s rights versus doing it in order to strip them away.
When one considers these factors, and the overwhelming likelihood that a federal ban would not pass Constitutional muster under the current prevailing legal doctrine and would likely accelerate the abolition of state-level bans, pushing hard for this seems like a massive own-goal from a political standpoint.