Senator Tom Coburn cooperated with Senator Manchin (and Schumer) for a while on “expanded” (universal) background checks before he pulled out of the negotiations for whatever reason. He was simply indignant when Senator Reid later pushed him around.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Thursday blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as a “failure” and said the Democratic leader broke his promise to allow him an amendment on last month’s gun control bill.
“Harry Reid is a nice guy. I like him. But I think he has been a failure as a majority leader for the Senate in terms of keeping the history of the Senate and the progress of the Senate in line with what it was intended to be by our founders,” Coburn said.
The Oklahoma Republican was appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to explain why he had attempted to attach an amendment to a water resources and infrastructure bill that would have allowed gun owners to carry firearms into recreational areas.
“They were very good to allow me an amendment, and the reason they did is because Harry [Reid] denied me an amendment on the gun bill on one that would have passed and solved the problem, which he promised to give me,” Coburn said.
“He has been dishonest with me, not truthful, not kept his word,” Coburn continued. “He’s played games, you know? We’ve done our own damage to that in response to it. So what we have is people pointing fingers at each other.”
Coburn’s amendment to the water and infrastructure bill would have allowed states to decide whether visitors to areas controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — including many of the nation’s campsites and trails — would be allowed to carry weapons. The amendment failed Wednesday in a 56-43 vote, four short of the 60 necessary to proceed.
More specifically, Coburn’s proposal would have opened up lands heretofore prohibited from weapons as well as begun to make DHS accountable for it’s ammunition orders.
The Senate has rejected an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act that would have repealed a ban on carrying guns on land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The amendment, by Sen. Tom Coburn, was defeated 56-43, falling four votes shy of the 60 needed to defeat a Democratic-led filibuster. Coburn withdrew a second amendment that would require annual reports from federal agencies on ammunition and gun purchases and firearm thefts.
Democrats said it could “threaten critical facilities like dams and flood control projects.” So in addition to .22 LR shots potentially adversely affecting the nation’s energy grid, we now have rifle or handgun shots that can take out a dam. The power of small projectiles is storied and amazing, to be sure.
The real lesson in all of this isn’t the amendment, which was sure to fail, or the moronic Democrat response to it, but that Coburn offered it. He is feeling heat from his cooperation with the totalitarians on gun control, and he’s trying to shore up his pro-gun credentials.
It won’t work. Gun owners never forgive, and never forget. Like wicked men chasing after whores, the politicians in Washington chase after the next feel-good measure rather than act on principle. But when you sleep with the enemy you contract their diseases. Coburn is damaged goods.
As for guns on federal land (specifically, guns in national parks), my FOIA request proves that the predicted apocalypse of gun crime after weapons were made legal didn’t obtain. To the surprise of the Brady campaign, gun owners are responsible people.
