The Most Surreal Photo

It happened yesterday. 

(Source: https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/03/01/mobapp-sen-dianne-feinstein-giddy-trump-gun-bill.cnn)

On February 28, 2018, Presi-dent Trump hosted a televised bi-partisan meeting to discuss gun control legislation in response to yet another mass shooting, this one at a high school in Parkland, Florida. As CNN described it, Senator Feinstein "erupted with glee" at the President's seeming embrace of a variety of gun control measures.  Banning bumpstocks. Expanding background checks. Taking guns away <gasp!> from people who are seemingly dangerous and/or suffer from a mental illness. This about-face from a POTUS who was elected with great support from gun-rights groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA). 

Unsurprising-ly, gun rights groups have pushed back. NRA spokes-person Dana Loesch announced that the NRA "doesn't back any ban" on semi-automatic firearms. The Gun Owners of America just today (3/1/18) issued a Current Action Alert that "Yesterday was a horrible day for the Second Amendment"; called the President the "Gun-Grabber-in Chief"; and called on its members to "call the President immediately", listing a phone number. 

But it was the photo of the President next to a gleeful Senator Feinstein - showing him documents, POTUS nodding in agreement - that really struck me. I suspect I'm not alone in this.

How much do gun rights groups and members hate Dianne Feinstein? A lot. In fact, in visiting a story posted at Breitbart.com about Trump's February 28th gun control  meeting, I found this ad (shown above) with a picture of the Senator holding a rifle alongside the question, "Oppose gun control?" On its blog, the Gun Owners of America has a post entitled "Hypocrisy... I name thee Feinstein."

In yesterday's meeting, President Trump chided Republican Senator Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) for being "afraid of the NRA". Toomey was a co-sponsor, along with Democrat Joe Manchin (West Virginia), of the Manchin-Toomey amendment, written in 2013 in consultation with the NRA on the request of President Obama in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. The Manchin-Toomey amendment ultimately failed to pass in the Senate, coming up several votes short. And yet President Trump has breathed new life into it. Who'd have thought?

Back to the President's comment about legislators being afraid of the NRA - yes, they are. We all know this, and so does the gun lobby. (Remember Senator Marco Rubio ducking & dodging a Parkland student's question about not taking any more NRA money? Three words: painful to watch.) After the Manchin-Toomey bill's defeat in 2013, Senator Manchin stopped talking about the bill or gun control. Back in 2015 I reached out to him via Facebook about the bill, in connection to a book I was writing (Guns on the Internet; due out from Taylor-Francis/Rouledge in fall 2018). He never responded. I suppose that makes sense. The NRA took out an ad against him, "Tell Manchin to Stand with West Virginia". "Manchin is working with President Obama and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg. Concerned? You should be. Tell Senator Manchin to honor his commitment to the Second Amendment", the ad's narrator intones. And who can forget a decade earlier, gun rights advocate Charleton Heston taking aim (pun intended) at Presidential candidate Al Gore at a NRA convention for his (Gore's) gun control stance. "For everyone within the sound of my voice, to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore: FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS" [rifle raised above his head]. The convention crowd subsequently erupted in applause.

As some have asked, will Trump be the POTUS who - ironically - disrupts the legislators-gun lobby relationship, and brings about gun control measures? Something his much-hated-by-the-gun-lobby predecessor couldn't claim by the end of his eight years?

Well... let's see what tomorrow brings. I'd say it's 50-50 that tomorrow POTUS is back to pushing for arming teachers.