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congress to act again or the legislation would expire. In 2004, the University of Pennsylvania National Annenberg Election Survey found that 68 percent of those polled wanted the Assault Weapons Ban renewed. President Bush supported the renewal legislation and announced that if presented to him, he would sign the bill. Senator John Kerry, then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, returned to Washington to vote in favor of the renewal. The NRA’s goal, on the other hand, was simply to prevent congressional action on the issue.

The Transportation and Housing Appropriations Bill
included an amendment to allow individuals to check
firearms in their luggage on Amtrak trains.

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Because of the sunset provision, inaction would drown the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB). In the face of public opinion and evidence of decreased violent crime, the NRA convinced the then House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to not schedule a time for the House of Representatives to vote on the renewal. They never did, and on September 19, 2004, the federal Assault Weapons Ban expired.

The NRA’s strategy of focusing on seemingly small and discrete measures that would have a large cumulative effect is fully evident this legislative season. As Congress pushed forward new credit card regulations, the NRA’s congressional allies offered an amendment to the bill that would allow loaded guns in national parks. By itself, this amendment would simply make a Bush-era policy the law. A few weeks later, NRA allies again offered an amendment to an unrelated bill, this time the D.C. Voting Rights Act, which would give residents of the nation’s capital representation in Congress. During recent debate on this legislation, Senator John Ensign attached a provision that would override all D.C. local gun laws and replace them with new federal standards that are substantially weaker than the current set of locally specific regulations. The Ensign provisions would effectively legalize semi-automatic weapons in D.C. and remove handgun registration requirements. During a House hearing the previous year, representatives of the Secret Service and the metropolitan police force expressed deep concern about the impact of this legislation. To date, the addition of the gun amendment has stopped all progress on the D.C. Voting Rights Bill. Again during the debate in the Senate on the Transportation and Housing Appropriations Bill, an amendment

was approved to allow individuals to check firearms in their luggage on Amtrak trains. While these provisions would have a significant public policy effect, more important is the impact they would have on setting new precedents; the total impact would be exponential.

Undoubtedly, the NRA is the most powerful force on gun issues. However, there are some preliminary signs that the tides may again begin to turn. The most recent NRA-backed provision, sponsored by Senator John Thune, which would have required all states to respect gun permits issued by other states, was defeated in the Senate. Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a new gun-safety advocacy organization, takes a different tack than the NRA. This is a “grasstops” organization made up of local elected leaders. Led by Michael Bloomberg of New York and other big city mayors, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has grown rapidly in the past several years.

In addition to this new grasstops effort, this year several religious organizations have been working to reduce gun violence. Attorney General Eric Holder and Senator Diane Feinstein, the original sponsor of the Assault Weapons Ban, have indicated their interest in reinstating this measure. Gun-safety advocates, however, may want to take a page from the NRA and use this opportunity to push for meaningful, but strategic and incremental, advances. Each small victory will build momentum and a sense of inevitability for the next fight. This would reverse the tide and create the opportunity to restore common sense measures like the assault weapons ban.

Discussion

Bringing together myriad voices and experiences provides Sh’ma readers with an opportunity in a few very full pages to explore a topic of Jewish interest from a variety of perspectives. To facilitate a fuller discussion of these ideas, we offer the following questions: