For Gun Bill Born in Tragedy, a Tangled Path to Defeat
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, NYT
WASHINGTON — Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona was in an empty hallway in the Capitol on Tuesday when he bumped into Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic member of Congress from his home state who was critically wounded in a mass shooting. Both froze in anticipation of the painful minute about to unfold.
Ms. Giffords, who had been fiercely promoting a background check bill for gun buyers, knew that Mr. Flake, a Republican and an old friend, had announced on his Facebook page the night before that he would not support the bill. So Ms. Giffords, who still struggles to speak because of the damage that a bullet did to her brain, grabbed Mr. Flake’s arm and tried — furiously and with difficulty — to say that she had needed his vote. The best she could get out was the word “need.”
Mr. Flake looked at the ground. “I said I was sorry,” Mr. Flake recalled Thursday, looking despondent. “I didn’t know what else to say. It’s very hard.”
In the end, Mr. Flake’s rebuff of Ms. Giffords and his decision to vote with many of his Senate colleagues against the gun measure helped doom a search among a small group of Republicans and Democrats to find consensus around gun regulations. Their efforts were largely trounced by the intense lobbying of gun rights groups, which declined to support a modest initiative to expand criminal background checks for gun buyers.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona was in an empty hallway in the Capitol on Tuesday when he bumped into Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic member of Congress from his home state who was critically wounded in a mass shooting. Both froze in anticipation of the painful minute about to unfold.
Ms. Giffords, who had been fiercely promoting a background check bill for gun buyers, knew that Mr. Flake, a Republican and an old friend, had announced on his Facebook page the night before that he would not support the bill. So Ms. Giffords, who still struggles to speak because of the damage that a bullet did to her brain, grabbed Mr. Flake’s arm and tried — furiously and with difficulty — to say that she had needed his vote. The best she could get out was the word “need.”
Mr. Flake looked at the ground. “I said I was sorry,” Mr. Flake recalled Thursday, looking despondent. “I didn’t know what else to say. It’s very hard.”
In the end, Mr. Flake’s rebuff of Ms. Giffords and his decision to vote with many of his Senate colleagues against the gun measure helped doom a search among a small group of Republicans and Democrats to find consensus around gun regulations. Their efforts were largely trounced by the intense lobbying of gun rights groups, which declined to support a modest initiative to expand criminal background checks for gun buyers.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home