In lieu of gun control, Mike Enzi has the answer.

“There is no doubt that we need to do more to curb the senseless acts of violence that continue to occur in this country,” Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), an opponent of the underlining gun bill, said. “One of the things we need are parents, parents to be more careful and more repetitive at telling their kids that it is not right to kill people. It’s not even right to bully them. And it’s definitely not right for them to kill themselves. Until we can get that message across to our kids, I hope that we don’t rely on a few votes by this body to make everybody feel comfortable that all the problem is taken care of.”

Worst “More We Know” public service announcement ever.

Getting into the supposed politics of that last gun control bill.

Sen. Joe Machin (D-WV) told the Wall Street Journal that enough senators could be persuaded to revive and pass the gun background check measure defeated yesterday. He claimed that 70 lawmakers would have supported his amendment with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) if the NRA hadn’t warned lawmakers that it would include their votes in its influential rankings.

Said Machin: “If they hadn’t scored it, we’d have gotten 70 votes. They made a big mistake.

The theory of this is that this bill will come back up and it will be tougher.  Frankly, though, I align with the gun control “sour grapes” contigency of “just as well this didn’t pass”, but for different reasons.  Whether or not something pops up that is more meaningful — we’re trapped in a noxious political cycle where the Senate map is unfriendly for Democrats in 2014 and stuck at the “other issues” pop up — I would rather have no bill come out and no pretense that something just happened than a bill come through with the illusion that something just happened — when it didn’t.

The bigger issue on the Senate bill defeat is how it is recorded — a whopping defeat — by a measure of 54 to 46.  54 voting for it.  46 against it.  As in… the majority voted for a bill that is defined as a whopping defeat.  (I see a snarky comment along the lines of “Ha ha!  Obama said all he wanted was a vote.  He got one.”  No, the bill kind of didn’t get a vote.)

And for the record, the Republicans switching to yes and the Democrats switching to no…

Collins, Maine.  Kirk, Illinois.  McCain, Arizona.  Toomey, Pennsylvania.
Baucus, Montana.  Begich, Alaska.  Heitkamp, North Dakota.   Pryor, Arkansas.

And so it is…
When reporters asked Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) why he voted against an amendment to expand gun background checks on Wednesday, he replied, “Montana.”

Hm.

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