By Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton

Today gun control bills failed on a vote of 54 to 46 with 60 votes needed to pass. Once again those who pioneered the vision of a super majority for certain votes in the Senate have shown their wisdom.

Why did the bills fail in a bipartisan vote? In a nutshell, they were just bad bills.

The Feinstein bill was drafted years ago and is targeted squarely at innocent citizens and not criminals. Of course Senator Feinstein had made it clear that disarming citizens was her intent. No one was surprised that her bill failed.

The Manchin-Toomey bill had many flaws. The most politically damaging was that it was drafted on Senator Manchin’s boat in secret. The American people are weary of ginormous bills that do not go through the regular hearings and mark-up process. Such a lack of transparency is inexcusable in a representative republic. After the Obamacare debacle, the American people were not willing to trust another bill drafted in such a way.

Manchin-Toomey had language that lead to data-mining of gun owners. The ACLU opposed the bill on privacy grounds and the language put into the bill to prevent the information collected to make a back door gun registry lacked teeth and did not deserve to be taken seriously. Some evidence suggests that the Obama Administration is already illegally using data-mining methods to make a secret gun owner registry:

ATF Seeks ‘Massive’ Database of Personal Info: ‘Assets, Relatives, Associates and More’

Missouri Democrat political appointees illegally hand over all CCW information of citizens in the state to the Social Security Administration and the ATF and lied about it until caught – LINK

Manchin-Toomey was overly complex making technical compliance by civilians difficult:

Senate Universal Background Check Bill Designed To Land You In Prison

In short, bills that are a bureaucratic nightmare for innocent citizens get lawmakers tossed out of office.

If the Democratic Leadership in the Senate and in the Administration weren’t so driven to decrease the power and stature of the National Rifle Association the American people could have gotten a common sense bill that is worthy of support, but as is too often the case the recent school shooting created a “crisis” that was used to try to push a political agenda rather than a common sense one.

The NRA is powerful because it has millions upon millions of members and because the NRA stays on the side of the law and our history. The NRA reached out to the Obama Administration and the Senate leadership to craft a bill that would tighten up the current background check system and remedy the lack of enforcement of those laws, but the Democrats simply were not interested.

President Obama’s angry speech after the vote was yet another empty display of political histrionics that is all too common in today’s neo-orwellian political world.  Some of the reaction on Twitter was as follows:

The Tyranny of Exquisitely Apt Adjectives. – Jonah Goldberg

Laws are supposed to exist for the benefit, protection & security of our citizens–not to help those who violate them. – Laura Ingraham

Obama’s concern #4thechildren is touching. Where is that concern 4thekids under Kermit Gosnell’s care? – Yours Truly

Obama is carrying on as if he is the only one who cares #4thechildren. Really does anyone fall for such bombastic rhetoric any more? – Yours Truly