All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

A decade ago, the calculus was simple: Those who wanted greater gun control aligned with the Democrats. And those who wanted fewer restrictions on guns turned to the Republicans.

No longer.

Though an amendment to mandate that states recognize concealed weapons permits issued by other states, effectively allowing people to carry concealed weapons across state lines, narrowly failed on Wednesday, it garnered 58 votes in the Democrat-dominated Senate. (It needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.)

On Tuesday, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg called the amendment, sponsored by South Dakota Republican John Thune, "about as anti-police, pro-gun trafficker piece of legislation that has ever come before the United States Senate."

Among those who backed the amendment was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who was joined by Southern and Midwestern Democrats in voting yes. Other Democrats who backed the amendment included Virginia Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner, Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. The New York Times has a full breakdown here.

In fact, it fell to two Republicans, George Voinovich of Ohio and Dick Lugar of Indiana, to effectively prevent the amendment from passing.

Despite the fact that Democrats control both the executive branch and Congress, supporters of gun control have had few opportunities to celebrate this year. The Senate moved to weaken the District of Columbia's strong gun laws (though the House stalled the legislation, which was attached to the D.C. Voting Rights bill) and Congress voted to allow individuals to carry guns in national parks.

"It's been a very difficult period," Peter Hamm, of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, told Hotsheet. "It's been frustrating that in the first six months of a Democratic administration with a Democratic Congress, that Congress hasn't seen fit to go in the right direction on the gun issue."

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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg led a conference call Tuesday afternoon in which he railed against an amendment sponsored by Republican Sen. John Thune that would allow people issued concealed weapons permits to carry those concealed weapons in any state in the union.

If the amendment passes, Bloomberg said, "states will have no ability to set their own gun laws – whatever they think is appropriate in regards to carrying concealed weapons."

He said that because states like New York would be forced to recognize concealed weapons permits from states with less stringent requirements to obtain permits, "the lowest common denominator would become the de facto common denominator."

He went on to call the amendment "anti-police" and "pro-gun trafficker" and said the practical effect would be to "put your life and your families lives are at stake."

The New York City mayor complained about efforts to attach the amendment to the defense appropriations bill in what he called a "time honored trick" to get it through the Senate. He said backers of the bill are "using our young men and women who are serving oversees" as pawns "to take away our safety from local criminals."

Bloomberg is among them more than 450 mayors who signed a full-page ad in USA today opposing the amendment, which Sen. Charles Schumer and families of the Virginia Tech shooting victims spoke out against Monday.

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By CBS News Correspondent Bob Fuss.

New legislation currently winding its way through Congress is forcing Democratic leaders to face the serious problem the party has when it comes to guns.

At the heart of the matter is the question of packing heat in Yellowstone.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to attach an amendment to unrelated credit card legislation allowing people to carry guns in National Parks, something more liberal House Democratic leaders are determined to yank out of the bill.

A similar thing happened with the DC Voting Rights Bill passed earlier this year by the House and Senate. The measure, a priority of Democratic leaders and President Obama, would give voters in the District of Columbia a voting member of Congress for the first time since the federal district was created more than 200 years ago.

The Senate attached a provision to the bill wiping out virtually all local gun laws in the District. Outraged leaders in a city long plagued by violent crime were put in the position of having to give up the right to pass their own gun laws in exchange for voting rights in Congress.

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Yesterday brought word that Jiverly Wong, who last week killed 13 people and himself at a Binghamton, N.Y. immigrant community center, mailed a letter to a Syracuse television station before committing the murders.

The letter revealed a man who appeared to have lost touch with reality. In broken English, he complained that an undercover policemen had been spying on him 24 hours a day, using "the technique of ultramodern and camera for burn the chemical in my house."

Wong said the mystery policeman acted to adjust the fan in his home, "connect the music into my ear," and "made me unbreathable." He added that the officer would break into his room, "three time touch me when I was sleeping," and would try to get into car accidents with him. (The New York Times has posted the whole letter here.)

This apparently delusional man was a self-avowed gun enthusiast; according to the Times, he had been licensed to carry guns since 1996. Wong had two handguns on him, along with body armor, when he went on his deadly rampage.

Not surprisingly, his actions have once again fanned the debate over gun control in this country. Vice President Joe Biden, reacting to the news, said "it's time that we gotta figure a way to deal with this senseless, senseless violence."

The argument between gun control advocates and gun rights advocates often devolve into histrionics, but at the most basic level, the discussion comes down to a debate over to what degree we should, in the interest of public safety, curtail one particular kind of civil liberty – the right to keep and use guns.

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Attorney General Eric Holder was busy announcing the capture of more than 50 alleged members of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel yesterday when he unwittingly stepped into a larger debate about gun control.

Responding to a reporter's question on weapons' regulations, Holder said, "Well, as President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons. I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."

Holder refused to speculate when legislation would move forward.
"There are obviously a number of things that are -- that have been taking up a substantial amount of [Obama's] time, and so, I'm not sure exactly what the sequencing will be," he said.

Gun rights groups seized on the comments.

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