Stick to Your Guns, Senator by Dave Kopel on National Review Online

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence publicly lobbied Governor Paterson not to appoint Gillibrand to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat. The New York City media, including of course the Times, have been throwing a hissy fit about her skepticism towards additional gun control.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, of Long Island, the doyenne of anti-gun advocates in the House, vows to challenge Gillibrand in the 2010 primary. A Quinnipiac poll of New York Democrats found that 34 percent said they would support McCarthy and 24 percent Gillibrand, with 39 percent undecided. Should Gillibrand announce that she has changed her mind about gun control?

In urging Gillibrand to “stick to her guns,” Kopel offers this “instructive” example:

In the spring of 1996, Frisa voted, along with a large majority of the House, to repeal the 1994 ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Though the anti-gun lobby took pains to characterize “assault weapons” as fully automatic machine guns — ones that fire continuously when you hold down the trigger — they are in fact semi-automatic, firing one shot per trigger pull, like many hunting rifles. The only difference between an “assault rifle” and a semi-automatic hunting rifle is that the former has two or more disapproved cosmetic features, which include a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor, and a grenade launcher. These features may sound off-putting, but they’re virtually useless to a criminal.

This vote outraged Carolyn McCarthy, a nurse whose husband was one of six people murdered in December 1993 by a black racist on a Long Island Railroad commuter train. The killer had purchased his handgun in California, after passing the state’s background check and after the 15-day waiting period required by state law. McCarthy announced that she would challenge Frisa, and Frisa crumbled. He declared that he had voted to repeal the existing ban only because he actually favored an even more comprehensive ban, and he introduced his own prohibition bill.

Voters could see that McCarthy had a sincere and consistent position on gun control, while Frisa changed his position based on transparent political calculation. Frisa’s flip-flop undoubtedly made voters wonder which of his other supposed convictions he would abandon when it became politically useful. McCarthy crushed him in the general election by 58 to 41 percent.

I think Kopel is trying to ram a camel through the eye of a needle in offering Frisa as a reason for Gillibrand to ignore McCarthy’s threat. If anything, it would seem to indicate (along with the aforementioned poll, which certainly doesn’t show overwhelming support for Gillibrand’s stance) that McCarthy’s threat is something to be reckoned with. It seems more than likely to me that Frisa was crushed not for wavering, but because his pro-gun position was crushingly unpopular. In New York, at least.

Submit to Stumbled Upon!