Photograph by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., waves as she ends her speech at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., on March 15, 2013.

Written with Jonathan Salant

Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire says opponents “can’t bully me into changing my vote” on background checks for gun buyers.

The opponents in this case, she says, are New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack Obama. The mayor, co-founder of Bloomberg LP, parent company of Bloomberg News, is among the mayors in Mayors Against Illegal Guns who announced a new TV ad this week targeting Ayotte for her vote against the background check bill that died in the Senate for lack of 60 votes.

In doing so, the mayors say, Ayotte voted against the 89 percent of New Hampshire voters who support the measure. Ayotte has been singled out more than any of the other Republican opponents of the measure because of where she lives, a swing state that is sympathetic to Democratic causes.

Ayotte says the legislation she opposed, which would require purchasers at gun shows and over the Internet to undergo the same criminal background checks as those buying weapons from licensed firearm dealers, would do “nothing to prevent a deranged individual from obtaining and misusing firearms to commit horrific tragedies like the one in Newtown.”

Original post is Ayotte in Crossfire: ‘Can’t Bully Me’ by Political Capital.

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Texas Governor Rick Perry speaks during the 2013 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 4, 2013 in Houston, Texas.

Rick Perry handles an assault weapon pretty well.

That was the video message of the introduction to Perry’s appearance at the National Rifle Association convention in Houston over the weekend. The Texas governor knocked down a few targets for his guests.

The political message was something else: “Welcome to Texas, ladies and gentlemen.”

Where the governor made a run for president in 2012, and might take aim on 2016 as well.

Original post is Rick Perry, Sure-Shot: ‘Welcome to Texas, Ladies and Gentlemen’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Attendees look at a display of tactical shotguns during the 2013 NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center on May 3, 2013 in Houston, Texas.

The National Rifle Association is meeting in Houston.

Which can only mean one thing. It’s showtime:

Colorado’s Magpul brought an intriguing vehicle to Houston. Note the hula girl dashboard accessory. #NRA twitter.com/bykowicz/statu…

— Julie Bykowicz (@bykowicz) May 3, 2013

Bloomberg’s Julie Bykowicz is there – as her story linked at left and tweets here show.

They’re not only celebrating the defeat of the gun bill in the Senate, they’re also discussing such issues as:

Discussion on hotel shuttle to Houston NRA convention: Is it legal to send ammo through FedEx or UPS? No one knew answer. #NRA

— Julie Bykowicz (@bykowicz) May 3, 2013

The sheriff is in town:

NRA adopts a law and order image at its Houston conference, which begins today. #nra twitter.com/bykowicz/statu…

— Julie Bykowicz (@bykowicz) May 3, 2013

Original post is NRA Convention: Roof-Mounted Microbus Cannon and More by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

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 Alex Wong/Getty Images

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) speaks at a news briefing after the Senate defeated a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks on firearms purchases and close the so-called gun show loophole.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the state where 20 elementary school students were gunned down in December, says that advocates of new gun legislation are not giving up after being unable to overcome a Republican-led filibuster to expand background checks of gun purchasers.

“The Senate said no to America. But America won’t take no for an answer,” Blumenthal said in an interview. “We’re coming back.”

He said supporters, including families of the victims in Newtown, Connecticut, are not going away. “As one of the families’ members said, `We’re not even close to being done.”’

With polls showing 90 percent of Americasn backing expanded background checks, supporters of background checks say that yesterday’s vote continues to show the power of the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association, despite losing most of the congressional races it spent money in last year.

Former Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said that opposition to background checks was motivated by a lot more than whether a senator would receive NRA support in the next election.

“Serious people asked a serious question: Does the solution fit the problem/” said Kyl, now at the lawyer-lobbying firm Covington & Burling LLP. Kyl did not seek re-election last year.

Original post is Blumenthal on Gun Laws: ‘America Won’t Take No for an Answer’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Timorthy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images

A man looks at a shotgun during the 8th Annual East Coast Fine Arms Show in Stamford, Connecticut.

Updated at 1:15 pm EDT

Credit Sens. Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey for doing what too few lawmakers of opposing parties do these days.

Talking.

The Democrat from West Virginia and Republican from Pennsylvania have just announced their agreement on a plan for improving background checks for gun-buyers. Manchin, a former West Virginia governor and A-rated member of the National Rifle Association, was among the first in his party to speak out about the need for new controls in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings.

Yet the background checks fall short of what even Manchin suggested was necessary: restrictions on assault-style weapons and mega-ammunition clips like the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle and 30-round magazines employed in the firing of 154 rounds at a Connecticut elementary school in December, killing 20 first-graders and six educators.

The Senate does not have the votes for such measures, though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he does have the 60 votes needed to squash any Republican filibuster when he seeks a vote tomorrow advancing the Senate’s gun bill to debate. Americans support tougher background checks by 9-1.

The Manchin-Toomey deal exempts the transfer of guns among family members, and states that there will be no national gun registry as a part of expanded background checks — expanding them for buyers at gun-shows, which account for nearly half of all transactions, and for gun-buyers shopping online.

The agreement will “prevent criminals and the mentally ill from getting firearms and harming people,” Manchin told reporters today, with Toomey at his side. Toomey added: “I don’t consider criminal background checks to be gun control — it’s just common sense.”

Twelve relatives of the 26 victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School are in Washington today to press Congress for action. Today, they saw a bipartisan announcement by a couple of NRA-A-rated lawmakers, and tomorrow they’ll see the start of a debate in the Senate about what Americans can do about all this.

It was said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today that Manchin and Toomey were seen talking last night at a surprise birthday party for host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida.

The families of Newtown hope that everyone keeps talking.

They plan to join Manchin and Toomey this afternoon in an appearance at Manchin’s Senate office. The families and senators are expected to have more to say about the bipartisan effort to close loopholes in the so-called Brady law — the background checks that were legislated after James Brady, press secretary to President Ronald Reagan, was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on the president.

Original post is Manchin, Toomey: ‘Common Sense’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Staff members sit behind a chart of guns during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill on January 30, 2013 in Washington, DC.

The National Rifle Association today released a plan calling for more armed personnel in schools — and pitching itself as a school safety trainer.

The gun-rights lobby, which claims five million members, is spending $1 million on what it calls the National School Shield, accordingt to former Arkansas Rep. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican paid consultant to the NRA and director of its schools project.

In the days after a gunman killed 20 schoolchildren and six educators at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre said schools should increase security measures, including arming teachers and hiring more school officers, while opposing federal legislation such as expanded background checks for gun-buyers and limits on certain weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines.

At today’s press conference in Washington, Hutchinson reiterated that sentiment.

Among the eight recommendations in a 225-page report Hutchinson delivered to the NRA: The group should serve as the nation’s premier advocate and trainer for school safety while the federal government should focus on doling out money to school districts that need it to improve safety.

“The NRA has the nationally recognized expertise to develop and implement the stringent training courses” recommended by Hutchinson’s team, the report says. Grants to help pay for new school officers and security measures such as  heavier doors and metal detectors could be administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the report suggests. It doesn’t recommend a specific dollar amount.

The NRA released a statement after the press conference saying its officials “need time to digest the full report” yet is confident that Hutchinson and his team’s recommendations “will go a long way to making America’s schools safer.”

Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office, called the NRA plan “radical.”

She called on Congress to “reject any proposal that militarizes our schools.”

Original post is NRA Training Your School Guards? by Political Capital.

Photograph by Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

President Barack Obama wipes tears as he speaks about the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Dec. 14, 2012, in the press briefing room of the White House. Photo by Charles Dharapak / AP

Consider the possibility that these two things are true:

– Nine in 10 Americans support the idea of more stringent background checks for gun buyers. The polls say so, and a share such as nine in 10 is so far beyond margins of error in polling that opinion on this appears clear.

– Better background checks won’t prevent people from picking up weapons of mass destruction and slaughtering 20 children in five minutes, as was done in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Criminals aren’t going to be checked,” the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre argued on “Meet the Press” last weekend. And Adam Lanza, who carried a military-styled assault rifle, other weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines into Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, wasn’t a known criminal until he had killed his mother, 20 first-graders, six educators and himself.

Authorities in affidavits filed in Connecticut this week reported that Lanza, 20, fired 154 rounds from his Bushmaster XM15-E2S semi-automatic rifle, and 10 magazines each capable of holding 30 bullets were found at the scene, many partly or fully emptied. At his home, where he had shot his sleeping mother in the head with the rifle, police found a holiday card from her with a check for him apparently for a semi-automatic pistol.

Yet almost four months since the shootings, polls show waning public support for tougher gun restrictions, and Congress shows less resolve for action with each passing week.

“Shame on us if we’ve forgotten,” President Barack Obama said at the White House yesterday.

What’s happened in the three and a half months since Newtown is that the debate over gun control in Washington has been condensed to the possibility of approving those background checks that most people still support and which the NRA warns will do no good.

So nothing will be done about assault weapons, or 30-bullet magazines, under this scenario, which of course is the NRA’s goal in representing not only the rights of gun-owners but also the business aims of gun manufacturers.  And by constricting the debate to what is potentially a feckless response to the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings, the gun lobby will chalk up another hard-fought victory.

It could also be true that real advocates of gun control should listen to the NRA on this one: Background checks for gun-buyers won’t stop another couple dozen children from dying in five minutes.

Removing weapons of mass destruction from the streets of America might.

Original post is Sandy Hook’s Legacy: Status Quo by Political Capital.

Photograph by George Frey/Bloomberg

A man holds a semi-automatic assault rifle for sale at the Rocky Mountain Gun Show in Sandy, Utah.

Vice President Joe Biden, who has suggested that anyone interested in assault weapons for home protection should go buy a shotgun instead, also sees no value in mega-clips for hunters.

“If you can’t get the deer in three shots, you shouldn’t be hunting,” Biden says. “You are an embarrassment.”

Biden, in an interview airing on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” holds out hope that public pressure will prevail as Congress demonstrates diminishing resolve for any sort of new gun regulation in the aftermath of the Newtown schoolhouse killings.

Addressing the Senate leadership’s rejection of a vote on an assault weapons ban, Biden says:  “y experience, having been the only guy that did this once before, along with Dianne Feinstein and others, is that this doesn’t necessarily happen in one fell swoop.”

“”We are going to continue to push for logical, gun safety regulations,” Biden tells NPR. “Eventually the will of the people is going to prevail and we’re going to keep at it.”

On the proposal for universal background checks for gun-buyers, facing daunting odds in the House, he says: “When the Brady legislation passed back in ’94…the NRA and a significant portion of the opposition were absolutely opposed to it.”

On the checks: “Two million felons have tried to buy a gun and, because of the background check, have been denied. And even with that there is probably a 40 percent loophole that exists in the law.”

On high-capacity ammunition magazines: “It in no way violates anyone’s constitutional right. What is the downside of saying, you can have clips with only 10 rounds in it? What does that violate? Hunting? Sportsmanship? If you need more than 10 rounds to hunt, and some argue they hunt with that many rounds, you shouldn’t be hunting. If you can’t get the deer in three shots, you shouldn’t be hunting. You are an embarrassment.”

On the gun lobby’s fear of gun registration: “You don’t need to register guns to have logical gun safety laws. This is not – there is a healthy gun culture in this country with regard to hunters. They husband their guns and their weapons. They lock them up, they use them responsibly, they pass them down to their children, like my dad. This is about keeping guns out of the hands of people who, constitutionally, the government is able to prohibit from owning those guns.”

Original post is Biden on Gun-Rules: ‘Will of the People’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, on March 15, 2013.

Wayne LaPierre, chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, drew enthusiastic applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference today when he took the stage after playing news clips of political pundits calling him “crazy.”

The longtime gun-rights lobbyist reiterated NRA stances to a friendly crowd, saying that “the real goal” of universal background check legislation moving through Congress is to develop a registry of gun owners that the government can make public and use to impose taxes.

LaPierre also said the NRA’s push for armed officers in all schools is being denounced by “powerful elites who will always have their own private security.”

“In their distorted view of the world , they’re smarter than we are,” he said. “They’re special. If we dare disagree, they’ll scorn us, they’ll demonize us and they’ll try to shut us up.”

He added: “We will not be silenced,” a line that moved audience members to their feet.

Original post is NRA’s LaPierre: ‘Will Not Be Silenced’ by Political Capital.