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Members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America wait to enter the office of Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) at Russell Senate Office Building on April 17, 2013 in Washington, DC. The group held a ‘Stroller Jam’ event to call on senators to vote to strengthen gun regulations.

There may be no one senator spotlighted so intensely about her vote against background checks for gun-buyers as New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte.

Fifty percent of New Hampshire voters surveyed by Public Policy Polling after the vote said they would be less likely to support her in a future election, compared with 23 percent who called it a positive.

This is a Republican who won her seat in 2010 by a 23-percentage point margin.

Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions is running ads against Ayotte and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The anti-Ayotte ads encourages listeners to call her and let her know “how disappointed they are by her decision to “go Washington” instead of remaining loyal to her constituents.

There is one group happy about Ayotte’s vote — she was one of four Democrats who voted on principal against the expansion of background checks in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada voted no to preserve the right to seek reconsideration as a member of the prevailing side. It failed on a vote of 54-46, with 60 votes needed for Senate approval.

That’s the National Rifle Association, airing a radio ad in the Granite State:

“Washington is full of politicians out of touch with the problems of our lives. While we worry about keeping our kids safe, too many of them worry about keeping their own power. But Senator Kelly Ayotte is focused on meaningful bipartisan solutions to our nation’s problems.”

“That’s because Kelly Ayotte is not just a senator, she’s also a mom who cares about protecting our kids. She knows that they only way to protect our children from tragedies like Sandy Hook is to fix our broken mental health system. That’s why Kelly Ayotte brought Republicans and Democrats together on a bipartisan solution and it’s why Kelly had the courage to oppose misguided gun control laws that would not have prevented Sandy Hook.

“Kelly Ayotte is focused on prosecuting law breakers and fixing our broken mental health system. Call her at 202-224-3121 and thank her for focusing on protecting our kids and our New Hampshire values. Paid for by the New Hampshire men and women of the National Rifle Association.”

Original post is Kelly Ayotte Gets Her Gun Ads by Political Capital.

Photograph by Matt Hinshaw/The Daily Courier via AP Photo

Sen. Jeff Flake meets with the public on March 28, 2013 in Prescott, Arizona.

Now it gets personal.

The failure of gun-control legislation in the Senate will come with as many political repercussions as the passage of a bill would have generated.

Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut married to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona lawmaker seriously wounded in a 2011 Tucson shooting that claimed six lives, has some words on Twitter today for Sen. Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who opposed a measure expanding background checks for gunbuyers. That bill died Wednesday on a 54-46 vote. It needed 60.

Sen. John McCain, Arizona’s other Republican senator, voted for the bill. He was one of only four Republicans who did.

@jeffflake heard u say on FOX “I think all of us want to keep guns out of the hand of criminals & those with mental illness. We can do it.”

— Mark Kelly (@ShuttleCDRKelly) April 18, 2013

@jeffflake I’m confused, friend. You had that chance yesterday. Want to rethink and join me and Gabby in making Arizona safer?

— Mark Kelly (@ShuttleCDRKelly) April 18, 2013

This was Flake’s explanation:

I will oppose the Manchin-Toomey Amendment. Here’s why: facebook.com/JeffFlake1?ref…

— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) April 16, 2013

Original post is Kelly to Flake: Had Your Chance by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Shooting victim and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and her husband Mark Kelly at the U.S. Capitol April 16, 2013.

Updated at 2:50 pm EDT

Six years ago today, 32 people were gunned down on the campus of Virginia Tech, notes former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was seriously wounded in a 2011 outdoor shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that also killed a federal judge and five others, as she makes the rounds of the U.S. Capitol today pressing for action in the aftermath of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators.

Six years ago we lost too many lives at Virginia Tech shooting. I’m working hard to prevent more tragic deaths from gun violence. join me.

— Gabrielle Giffords (@GabbyGiffords) April 16, 2013

As Senate Democratic leaders struggle to find the 60 votes needed to approve amendments to the gun safety bill they are trying to take to the floor this week, Giffords was meeting today with Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has joined with Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania in sponsoring an amendment to require more stringent background checks of gun buyers.

Giffords also was meeting today with the Democratic caucus — two of whom, Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and Mark Begich of Alaska, voted last week to prevent the gun bill from advancing. Sixteen Republicans joined most of the Democrats and two independents in voting to advance the bill, but few of those appear ready to support the Manchin-Toomey amendment.

Last week, parents and other relatives of the Newtown victims pressed Congress for action — and the Senate voted to advance the bill. Today, Giffords is here, once again asking for a vote.

Glad @sentoomey and @sen_joemanchin are moving forward on backgroundchecks. Americans don’t want political games, they want progress.

— Gabrielle Giffords (@GabbyGiffords) April 10, 2013

Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said today he hoped that “powerful” speeches to the Senate Democratic caucus by Manchin and Giffords’  husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, would help get more Democratic votes for the background-check provision. “A lot of people are struggling at this point,” he said, noting supporters need nine or 10 Republicans to get the 60-vote super-majority needed.

Heidi Przybyla and Jim Rowley contributed to this report from the Capitol. See their full report here.

Original post is Giffords: Six Years After Virginia Tech, Presses for Newtown Action by Political Capital.

Photograph by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, D-W.Va., left, and Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., arrive at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, on April 10, 2013, to announce that they have reached a bipartisan deal on expanding background checks to more gun buyers.

Read it, say Sens. Pat Toomney and Joe Manchin:

The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act.

In the art of bill title as political statement, this one’s a classic.

They put their bill online last night.

 Manchin even autographed his copy of the bill.

That’s the name of the 50-page legislation that a Republican from Pennsyvlania and Democrat from West Virginia are offering in the Senate, which has voted 68-31 to advance the measure toward debate — with some of those voting for it saying they’re only supporting debate, not the bill itself.

Toomey and Manchin are portraying their measure not as gun control, but rather “common sense.”

Comes word from NBC News this morning that supporters already are putting “robo-calls” to work for the senators — appealing to voters in suburban Philadelphia and in West Virginia to support a common-sense measure. The voice on the phone from Americans for Responsible Solutions: Mark Kelly, retired astronaut and husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was gravely wounded during a gunman’s attack at a public event. And as the Senate moves forward with the legislation next week, Giffords plans to be there to push for it.

The senators have public opinion on their side: Polls showing 9-1 support for expanded background checks of gun-buyers. And they have the National Rifle Association to contend with, claiming that this is a step toward a national gun registry.

This from Toomey:

“Bottom Line: The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act would require states and the federal government to send all necessary records on criminals and the violently mentally ill to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The bill extends the existing background check system to gun shows and online sales.

The bill explicitly bans the federal government from creating a national firearms registry, and imposes serious criminal penalties (a felony with up to 15 years in prison) on any person who misuses or illegally retains firearms records.”

And from Manchin:

“Senator Toomey and I are confident that if people take the time to read the details of this important legislation, there will be nationwide support.”

Original post is Toomey, Manchin: Read Second Amendment Rights Protection Act by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Retired NASA astronaut and Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, right, and his wife, shooting victim and former Rep. Gabby Giffords arrive for a Senate Judiciary Committee followed by Chairman Patrick Leahy and ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley before hearing about gun control on Capitol Hill on Jan. 30, 2013.

“The time is now.”

The words of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was grievously wounded in a gunman’s attack in Tucson in2011, appearing today at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“You must act,” Giffords told the Senate committee, holding its first hearing on the issue of curbing gun violence since the latest massacre that shook the nation, the shootings of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, last month.

“Be bold, be courageous,” Giffords told the committee. “Americans are counting on you.”

Her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, shared a picture of the couple before the committee and posted these notes on n Twitter:

@gabbygiffords delivered remarks in congress today for the first time in over two years. We’ve come a long, long way. #Giffords

— Mark Kelly (@ShuttleCDRKelly) January 30, 2013

My courageous wife @gabbygiffordsabout to give opening statement at gun hearing. twitter.com/ShuttleCDRKell…

— Mark Kelly (@ShuttleCDRKelly) January 30, 2013

“Americans are looking to us for solutions and action,” said Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

There should be no question, Leahy said, about expanding the instant background checks required for gun-buyers.

He also said this, at a hearing that will include testimony the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre.

“The Second Amendment is secure and will remain secure.”

Original post is Giffords on Gun Control: ‘Time is Now’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) speaks during a press conference responding to comments made earlier in the day by the National Rifle Association on Dec. 21, 2012 in Washington.

As many congressional Republicans and the National Rifle Association oppose efforts to enact new gun legislation following the shootings of 20 elementary school students and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, they know that public outrage often diminishes as memories of the incident fades.

“One of the most common observations about these mass atrocities is public opinion peaks and it seems to subside as time passes,” says Sen.  Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. “The momentum must be sustained. That is a major challenge.”

Blumenthal said in an interview that continued pressure from families who have lost loved ones in mass killings; and the new political action committee formed by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, herself a shooting survivor, will help keep the pressure on for a legislative response following Newtown.

“Different families will be ready at different times,” Blumenthal said. “Some of them are ready now. Others will be in time. They all will be very very important.”

Original post is Blumenthal Says Gun-Control Momentum Must Be Sustained by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jason Rearick/The News-Times via AP Photo

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, center, holds hands with her husband, Mark Kelly, while exiting Town Hall at Fairfield Hills Campus in Newtown, Conn. after meeting with Newtown officials on Jan. 4, 2013. Giffords also met with families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.

Steve and Amber Mostyn, wealthy Texas trial attorneys, said today that they are giving $1 million to help start the gun-control advocacy group formed by former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly.

Steve Mostyn, one of the top contributors to a super political action committee that helped President Barack Obama’s re-election effort, is listed as treasurer of Giffords’s new super-PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions. Mostyn said the group will have a nonprofit wing, which will be used to conduct a public education campaign.

Mostyn said the super-PAC will counter the political contributions of the National Rifle Association, which is how he’s pitching it to other big Democratic donors.

“It’s time to stop the NRA from bullying common sense out of the discussion,” he said in an interview. “There are more options than just ‘guns or no guns.”’

Mostyn, 41 and a Houston resident, says he owns many guns and has a shooting range on his ranch in west Texas.

A long-time donor to Democratic causes and candidates in Texas, Steve Mostyn increased his federal giving in the 2012 elections. He contributed $4 million to Priorities USA Action, a super-PAC founded by former aides to Obama. His wife, Amber Mostyn, gave more than $1 million to House Majority PAC, a super-PAC that helped Democratic congressional candidates.

“We put about $5 million into super-PACs, and I understand their ability to get things done,” he said. He has contacted other donors from Priorities and House Majority about Americans for Responsible Solutions and has had a “a great response,” he said, declining to name other specific donors.

Mostyn said he believes the super-PAC will be able to compete with the NRA’s political giving. Federal Election Commission records show that the NRA’s Political Victory Fund spent $16 million in the two years leading to the Nov. 6 election. An NRA nonprofit affiliate, the Institute for Legislative Action, made another $7.5 million in independent expenditures such as direct mail and ads, to help NRA-friendly candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, based in Washington.

Giffords, a Democrat, was wounded in a 2011 shooting in Tucson that killed six others.

“Achieving reform to reduce gun violence and prevent mass shootings will mean matching gun lobbyists in their reach and resources,” Giffords and Kelly wrote in a USA Today opinion piece published yesterday, the second anniversary of the Arizona shooting.

Kelly called Mostyn, whom he’d met years ago when the astronaut was based in Houston, shortly after the Dec. 14 killings in Newtown, Connecticut, Mostyn said. The gunman, who shot his mother to death before killing 26 people, mostly 6-year-olds, at a nearby elementary school, committed suicide.

“He said he and Gabby felt it was time for them to do something more than just talking,” Mostyn said.

The Newtown massacre also prompted Obama to tap Vice President Joe Biden to study gun-control and mental health issues. Biden invited the NRA to meet with administration officials this week.

Original post is Giffords Gun-Control Packs Texan Cash: Trial Lawyers in for $1 Million by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ida Mae Astute/ABC via Getty Images

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically injured two years ago when a gunman opened fired in Tucson, Arizona, and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly talk to Diane Sawyer about the need for changes in gun control laws and greater awareness of mental health issues on Jan. 5, 2013 in New York City.

Two years after the Tucson, Arizona, shootings that critically injured former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, she and her husband are adding their voices to a movement for gun control.

Big-city mayors are marking the anniversary with a TV ad tailored for the Washington market and communities that have suffered mass shootings featuring the mother of a 9-year-old girl killed in the Tucson shootings.

“Enough,” Giffords says in an interview on  ABC”s “World News with Diane Sawyer” airing tonight.

“After the shooting in Tucson, there was talk about addressing some of these issues, [and] again after [a movie theater massacre in] Aurora,” Colorado, her husband Mark Kelly, the astronaut, says in an interview also following the Dec. 14 killings of 20 young schoolchildren and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut. “I’m hopeful that this time is different, and I think it is. Twenty first-graders’ being murdered in their classrooms is a very personal thing for everybody.”

Gifffords and Kelly visited Newtown to meet with families of the victims.

The “first couple that we spoke to, the dad took out his cell phone and showed us a picture of his daughter and I just about lost it, just by looking at the picture,” Kelly says in the interview, excerpts released by ABC. “It was just very tough and it brought back a lot of memories about what that was like for us some two years ago.”

Giffords and Kelly are proposing “common sense” changes through “Americans for Responsible Solutions.”  They propose a comprehensive background check for the private sale of firearms and controls on large magazines of ammunition.

Jared Loughner, the accused shooter in Tucson, used a magazine with 33 rounds. Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter who also  killed his mother and himself, used numerous 30-round magazines in a Bushmaster AR-15.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns today released a new TV ad featuring Roxanna Green, mother of Christina-Taylor Green, the 9-year-old killed in Tucson. It opens with a scene from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. In the ad, Green demands that elected officials in Washington take immediate action to curb gun violence in America.

“I have one question for our political leaders,” Green says in the ad. “When will you find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby?  Whose child has to die next?”

The ad is airing on Washington, DC, cable through Jan. 14, the group says, and in markets where there have been mass shootings:  Tucson, Waco, Texas, Roanoke, Denver, Binghamton, N.Y., and Milwaukee.

“How many more children must die before Washington does something to end our gun violence problem?” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-chair of the mayors’ group and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, says in a statement accompanying the ad’s release.

“Roxanna Green knows all too well the pain of losing a loved one gun violence – sadly, there are parents and siblings and friends who learn this every day in our country,” says co-chair Thomas Menino, mayor of Boston. “It’s time for Washington to act to reduce gun violence — for the 33 Americans that are killed every day and for all of our children.”

President Barack Obama has charged Vice President Joe Biden with assembling an agenda for legislative action following the Newtown shootings, asking for those goals by the end of this month.

The National Rifle Association has proposed stationing an armed guard at every school.

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, urging Congress after the Newtown shootings  “to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation.”

“I bought a gun at Walmart recently and I went through a background check,” Kelly says in the ABC interview. “”Why can’t we just do that and make it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to get guns?”

Giffords has undergone a long and arduous recovery aided by physical therapy, speech therapy and yoga. She has been able to ride a horse and is preparing for a tandem bicycle ride with her husband, a space shuttle pilot. She plans to apply the same resolve toward the mission of gun control, Kelly says. “Gabby works very hard in her rehab,” he says. “Now we intend to work very hard on this new project.”

Original post is Tucson Two Years Later, Newtown: `Whose Child Has to Die Next?’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

A man places a plush doll at a makeshift memorial for Sandy Hook shooting victims on Dec. 19, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut.

If there’s been a notable shift in Washington’s rhetoric about gun control since Newtown, public opinion has moved only modestly.

Following the shooting of 20 children and six educators at a primary school in Connecticut last week, American opinion about guns breaks s little differently in the Pew Research Center’s surveys: 49 percent say it’s more important to control gun ownership, while 42 percent say it’s more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns.

This is the first time since President Barack Obama took office that more Americans prioritize gun control than the right to own guns, according to Pew President Andrew Kohut. “However,” Kohut notes, “support for gun control remains lower than before Obama took office. In April 2008, 58 percent said it was more important to control gun ownership; just 37 percent prioritized protecting gun rights.

Following a shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater last summer, 47 percent said it was more important to control gun ownership, while 46 percent said it was more important to protect gun rights.

Opinion is divided over whether to ban semi-automatic guns – 44 percent favor such a ban, Pew has found, while 49 percent oppose it. Far more favor banning bullets designed to explode or penetrate bullet-proof vests (56 percent) and high capacity ammunition clips (53 percent). A ban on all handguns is widely opposed: 67 percent oppose it.

The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism also has found in the social networking media “far more discussion of gun policy following this event than after the 2011 Tucson shooting” of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. “In the social media conversation, calls for stricter gun control measures exceed defenses of current gun laws by more than two-to-one. <> Dec. 20, 2012.

Original post is Gun Control: Support Modestly Up Since Newtown Shootings by Political Capital.

Photograph by Yang Lei/Xinhua News Agency/eyevine/Redux

FBI agent covers the broken window of the apartment of James Holmes, the suspect who opened fire in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

The gun-slaying of 12 people in Aurora, Colorado, has barely moved the needle on public opinion about gun control in America.

Forty-seven percent of those surveyed by the Pew Research Center say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 46 percent say it is is more important to protect the rights of Americans to own guns.

That is “virtually unchanged” from the 45 percent who put gun regulation over gun control in an April survey, when 49 percent sided with gun rights.

“Other recent major episodes of gun violence, such as the 2011 Tucson shooting (of former Representative Gabrielle Giffords) and the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, also had little effect on public opinion about gun laws,” writes Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

Two thirds of those surveyed say shootings like the midnight attack in a movie theater in Aurora are just the isolated acts of troubled individuals. Just one quarter of those surveyed say shootings like this reflect broader problems in American society.

 The latest survey of 1,100 adults was conducted July 26-29. It has a 3.6 percent margin of error.

Original post is Post-Colorado Shooting: Gun Control Sentiment no Stronger Than Before by Political Capital.