FOD 2013.04.29

The recent defeat in the Senate of ill-conceived gun control legislation has poor barry scratching his head.

“How can something have 90% support and not happen?” asked President Barack Obama on the day the Senate failed to pass even a modest reform of the nation’s gun laws.

The answer to his rhetorical question is simple: it can’t. A Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll showed on Wednesday that the public is far less enraged about the Senate’s failure to pass new gun laws than, say, Joe Scarborough. The poll found that only ... 47 percent were disappointed that the Senate did not pass any new laws ... 39 percent, however, expressed either relief or happiness over the failure to pass new gun laws. Furthermore, a plurality of self-identified independents expressed satisfaction with the fact that no new gun laws were passed.

So how can we explain this? One obvious possibility is that the polls that delivered the 90% figure were flawed - a distinct possibility of polls conducted to further the agenda of a liberal mainstream media.

Another, more meaningful, explanation is that Americans aren't as stupid as the liberal politicians and their media lackeys think they are.

... when it comes to a perceived need for gun control versus the right to own guns, as interpreted by courts in the context of the Second Amendment, Americans seem split on the issue.

About 50 percent of people, in an average of three polls, were concerned that gun-control legislation would take weapons away from them, or believed protection from gun violence was a lesser concern than protecting their Second Amendment rights.

A third explanation is that people are getting tired of obama - tired of his paternal attitude, tired of his smugness and aloofness, and tired of his "the sky is falling" schtick.

Barack Obama is a lame-duck president. Nobody listens to what he says anymore, nobody is interested in winning his approval and nobody much cares if he thinks they have “let the country down”. This is typical for a second-term president who has lost all their leverage because they’re no longer running for office and everybody is patiently waiting for the day when he quits the White House. But Obama's difficult personality has doubled the size of the challenge. Gloating in victory, adolescent in defeat – the Prez doesn’t make it easy to work with him. Why should conservative senators give him a legislative victory after he has spent four years painting them as knuckle-dragging rednecks who hate women and the poor?

Whatever your position on gun control, yesterday’s events are a damning indictment of Obama’s presidency – a flash of style, lots of soaring rhetoric and, when the votes are actually counted, little show for any of it. America has four more years of this lame-duck president telling them that it has let him down. If only he could tear up the Constitution and rule by diktat he might save himself a little disappointment. Alas, American democracy is a stickler for rules.

In truth, the answer is probably a combination of all three. But I sure like the sound of that last one.