CHICAGO TRIBUNE12 Hours Ago

NRA Celebrates Gun Control Defeat as Tension Builds for Senators (Houston)

by Julie Bykowicz

HOUSTON — Weeks after the Senate defeated a proposed expansion of background checks on gun purchases, the annual conference of the National Rifle Association here has a celebratory atmosphere.

"I was so proud of the American public, and the NRA, for putting enough pressure on our politicians," Neil Solt of Cypress said Thursday while waiting to have his World War II heirloom guns appraised at a pre-convention event.

Yet as the festivities begin, gun-control advocates are swarming town halls, organizing petitions and buying local ads to pressure senators from Alaska to New Hampshire to reconsider the measure that failed by six votes on April 17. They also are descending on Houston to protest outside the NRA event.

"I was so proud of the American public, and the NRA, for putting enough pressure on our politicians"

In Washington on Thursday, the efforts inspired by the Dec. 14 slaughter of 20 children at an elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., appeared to be gaining some ground.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who voted against the measure and then announced he will retire, said in a statement that he would "evaluate" any new gun-control attempts. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who wrote the defeated background-check measure with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., told reporters April 23 that he is trying to craft such a compromise.

A new batch of polls, including some released Thursday, show that senators who favored expanding background checks are enjoying a bump in popularity. Toomey's approval rating has climbed to 48 percent in a poll conducted April 19-24 by Quinnipiac University, up from 43 percent in March.

Those findings were in contrast to other recent polls showing a decline in support for those voting against the bill. An April 29 survey by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic- leaning group, found that the approval rating for Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, had fallen to 46 percent from 54 percent in February.

The NRA and other pro-gun ownership groups are countering, running ads of thanks in the states of their Senate supporters. The approximately 70,000 activists expected to attend the Houston convention are likely to hear calls for action from at least four Republican prospective presidential candidates: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

The test ahead for gun-control advocates is whether they can sustain momentum and convert their fervor into political wins, either by resurrecting and passing a gun-control bill this year — a rare occurrence on an issue that generates passion on both sides, or by ousting its opponents next year at the ballot box.

Supporters of tougher background checks are borrowing tactics from the anti-tax tea party groups that were galvanized to action in 2009 by opposition to President Obama's health-care law and helped restore Republicans to control of the U.S. House in 2010.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns protested Thursday outside of Republican Sen. Jeff Flake's office in Phoenix, Ariz. A PPP poll released this week showed the freshman senator's approval rating stood at 32 percent, compared with 52 percent who disapprove.

In a posting on his Facebook page, Flake said: "Nothing like waking up to a poll saying you're the nation's least popular senator. Given the public's dim view of Congress in general, that probably puts me somewhere just below pond scum.

"Now, notwithstanding the polling firm's leftist bent, I would assume that my poll numbers have indeed taken a southerly turn since my vote against the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal. It was a popular amendment, and I voted against it," Flake wrote, adding a link to a local story explaining the amendment's complexities.

Earlier this week, Erica Lafferty, the daughter of the principal killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School, confronted Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., the only senator from the Northeast to oppose the measure.

She recalled Ayotte's stated concern that the background checks would be a burden on gun owners and sellers.

"I'm just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the hall of her elementary school isn't as important as that?" Lafferty asked the senator, before storming out of the April 30 town hall.

Lafferty is expected to be in Houston on Friday, where gun- control advocates plan to read the names of shooting victims outside the NRA conference during the next three days.

The Manchin-Toomey amendment would have required background checks for anyone purchasing a firearm at a gun show or over the Internet. It needed 60 votes; it received 54. Thirteen senators who voted against the proposal are up for re-election in 2014. Ayotte's term expires in 2017.

In addition to agitating at town halls, gun-control advocates have purchased television and radio ads to criticize senators who voted against background checks.

Americans for Responsible Solutions, a political group helmed by shooting victim and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., debuted radio ads targeting Ayotte and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Want to see more from Chicago Tribune? See the rest of their great content in Zite.