guns

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) was one of only four Democratic Senators to vote to kill expanded background checks for gun purchases, even though 79 percent of the people in his state support this measure.

On Friday, late night talk show host David Letterman named Baucus “Stooge Of The Night” for this vote against background checks. Watch it:

videoWant to help us fight for gun reforms?Ai??Click here to pitch in a few dollars to run a Montana TV ad holding Max Baucus accountable for voting against background checks.

About 30 people attended a rally held by Moms Demand Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has aired ads attacking McConnell prior to the 2014 elections, when he will run for a sixth term. They stood in a light rain outside the Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse and Customhouse, where McConnell’s office is located, carrying signs that said things like “Background Checks Save Lives” and “82% of Kentuckians Demand Common Sense Gun Laws.”

Today,Ai??Kentucky moms and gun owners from Moms Demand Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee held a press conference in support of gun reforms outside of the office of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

The groups presented 1,200 local petition signatures in favor of expanded background checks, a reform that 82 percent of Kentuckians support.

Kentucky gun owner, mom, and Progressive Change Campaign Committee member Pam Gersh was one of those who spoke at the press conference.

“I was born here and have lived here all my life. When I was 18 years old, Mitch McConnell, running his first campaign for the Senate shook my hand outside of my place of work. Today, 30 years later, Mitch McConnell will not shake my hand (or the hands of any of the other people here today),” explained Gersh. “He wonai??i??t let us enter his office as a group, only three at a time. He wonai??i??t meet with us. Mitch McConnell is out of touch, literally andAi??figuratively, with the people of Kentucky on many issues.”

“I want Mitch McConnell to represent the people who voted him into office. Mitch McConnell, vote on behalf of everyday Kentuckians – gun owners and mothers like myself – and vote for background checks,” she concluded. “If he doesnai??i??t want to look us in the eye and shake our hands and listen to us, then he doesnai??i??t deserve our vote.”

UPDATE: More photos from the event (thanks to Nancy Jakubiak)

UPDATE II: A local news station covered the event. “It doesn’t have anything to do with politics, it has everything to do with saving lives,” Pam Gersh said to the local reporter. Watch it:

Want to help us fight for …

Protesters in Louisville are criticizing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for voting against a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales. A group of about 30 people, mostly women, held signs in front of McConnell’s Louisville offices on Monday afternoon. They dropped off a petition with 1,200 signatures that demanded the senator support “sensible gun reform.” McConnell voted against the bill last month, and it eventually failed to get a 60-vote majority needed to advance. The group included members from Moms Demand Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman was one of the 46 senators who defied the will of over 84 percent of the people of his state by voting to kill expanded background checks for gun purchases.

Jerri Jackson, a mother from Springfield, Ohio whose son was killed in the Aurora massacre, has tried to set up a meeting with Portman since his vote against background checks. She notes that the killer in that shooting, James Holmes, had mental health issues that were flagged by university staff which may have blocked him from gun purchases under a background check system.

But Portman’s office has failed to set up a meeting with Jackson since then, saying that the senator did not have time. “I would like for him to at least sit down and talk to me,” she told the Associated Press. “To hear my story and hear the heartbreak of a mother who lost her son in the prime of his life. How guns have played a part in our lives, but it is what ended his life. We need to do something about it.”

Recall that since Portman’s vote against background checks, his approval rating has fallen by eighteen percent — as have the approval ratings of several other senators:

UPDATE: Recall that the NRA has spent $1.35 million keeping Portman in office since 2000.

Weai??i??re running newspaper ads in the states of the four Senate Democrats who helped kill expanded background checks. Click here to pitch in $3 to run them.

In Montana, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal policy group, has sponsored a series of TV commercials attacking Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D) for his “no” vote on Manchin-Toomey. And the Brady group has launched a texting campaign that puts voters directly in touch with their elected officials on Capitol Hill.

Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political group that typically supports Democrats, spent $50,000 to air a TV ad in Montana and Washington asking Baucus to reconsider his position on background checks. “Now that you’re retiring, please put Montana first,” a woman says at the close of the spot. That group touted Baucus’ statement Thursday as “huge,” though the senator makes clear that he would reconsider his position “based on the feedback he gathers from the people of Montana.” Progressive Change has also spent $100,000 on full-page ads in the hometown newspapers of Democrats Baucus, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Begich and Pryor are running in 2014.

Max Baucus returned to Montana to find a full ad attack waged against him by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC). The group is running a new TV ad, shown below, and bought full-page ads in 20 Montana newspapers grilling him on his gun vote.

Gun control advocates plan to make the “no” votes on background checks cast by Heitkamp, Begich and Pryor politically costly. They want to change the mental calculations of politicians so that voting against gun control will amount to political suicide. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, for example, has announced plans to run newspaper ads in each of their states, including Figure 2, in North Dakota.

With members of Congress back in their home states for recess this week, activists pushing for tougher gun laws are hitting two senators with new appeals on television, asking them to change their votes.

A liberal group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Wednesday that it was spending $50,000 on a television ad in Montana to pressure Max Baucus, the stateai??i??s retiring Democratic senator, to support an enhanced background check system for gun buyers.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, or PCCC, a political action committee, will launch a new television ad on Wednesday to up the pressure on Baucus to support gun control legislation that would expand background checks to include gun shows and online sales.

This morning the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) has launched a new TV ad pressuring Max Baucus to support background checks for gun sales, something over 79% of Montanans support according to the post recent Montana-specific poll.

Earlier this month, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) went to bat for the NRA by being only one of four Democratic senators to vote to kill expanded background checks for gun purchases.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is responding to Baucus’s move by launching a new ad featuring Montana gun owner and grandmother Claire Kelly, who herself was a victim of a home invasion and says that gun ownership can protect Americans. Kelly warns, however, against guns being in the wrong hands, which is why background checks are needed.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow covered the ad on her show tonight. Watch Maddow’s coverage:

Click here to pitch in a few dollars to run the ad in Montana.

Rachel Maddow previewed the PCCC’s latest ad featuring a Montana gun owner taking on Max Baucus and asking him to support background checks.

Despite overwhelming support by the public, expanded background checks for gun purchases went down during their first vote in the U.S. Senate. The proposal has also been defeated in a number of state legislatures. Most blame the power of the gun lobby, represented by the National Rifle Association.

A group of activists in Washington state — where the proposal died in the legislature — plans to bypass lawmakers altogether by putting the proposal on the ballot. TheAi??Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility will today launch a drive to get 300,000 signatures to place universal background checks for gun purchases on the ballot in November 2014. Watch a local news report on the ballot drive:

After last week’s failed gun-control vote in the Senate, in which a handful of moderate Democrats defected from their party, a coalition of progressive groups is warning those at-risk incumbents to start avoiding votes that make them look too conservative. If not, these liberal activists say their support, enthusiasm, and contributions will dwindle—or, in a worst case for Democrats, they’ll mount a potentially damaging primary challenge… “No matter what, people want to feel good about a person they’re volunteering for or donating to,” said Adam Green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “So even Democratic voters who hold their nose to vote for an out-of-touch Democratic incumbent might be less likely to volunteer or donate, which could make a huge difference in a close election.”

Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a six-figure ad buy against each of the four Democrats who voted against background checks — Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Max Baucus of Montana.

A group called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is taking out full-page ads in local newspapers targeting Begich, Pryor, Baucus and Heitkamp and will make television spots next week, said Adam Green, its co-founder.

Last week’s defeat of expanded background checks served as a reminder of special interest influence in Congress, and as we noted, Senators who voted against background checks received 8 times as much money from the gun lobby.

Here’s another piece of the puzzle as to why background checks went down. The Center for Public Integrity notes that the National Rifle Association spent a huge amount lobbying Congress in the first quarter of 2012, spending “at least $800,000 lobbying the federal government during theAi??first quarter ai??i?? moreAi??than any year covering theAi??same period, according to federal records..”

We’re running newspaper ads in the states of the four Senate Democrats who helped kill expanded background checks. Click here to pitch in $3 to run them.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee announced on Friday a new ad attacking Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for his vote against background checks.

The ad is the first of four in a $100,000 campaign targeting the Democratic senators who voted against the Manchin-Toomey amendment to expand background checks for firearm purchases. The other Democrats opposing the legislation were Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.).

That didn’t take long. A progressive group released the first ad in a $100,000 campaign against the four Democratic senators who voted against a proposal to expand background checks for firearms sales. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is targeting Sen. Max Baucus this Sunday in seven papers across his state of Montana — the Billings Gazette, Butte Montana Standard, Helena Independent Record, Missoulian, Bozeman Chronicle, Kalispell Daily Interlake and Hamilton Ravalli Republic.

A liberal group on Friday took aim at Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, launching the first in a series of ads targeting Democratic senators who voted against expanded background checks on gun purchases.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) is running full-page ads in seven newspapers throughout Montana. The ad includes the signatures of 75 gun owners across Montana who are protesting Baucus’ vote.

Serves them right? Several liberal groups are lining up to shame the Senate Democrats who voted against a bipartisan compromise to expand background checks for gun purchases—something nearly nine in 10 Americans support. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) said it plans to run approximately $100,000 in print advertisements against Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska. Of the four, all of whom preside in gun-friendly states, Begich, Pryor and Baucus all face re-election next year.

The failure of the Manchin-Toomey legislation yesterday to expand background checks for gun purchases has been blamed on a variety of factors. But one key detail is the fact that the gun lobby — consisting of the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and other groups funded by the gun industry — was a major fundraiser for Senators that opposed the reform bill.

The Center for Responsive Politics laid out donors to senators who both supported and opposed Manchin-Toomey, and found that lawmakers who opposed it received nearly eight times as much funding from the gun lobby. Meanwhile, it found that only $5,000 came from pro-reform groups (to the “yes” side):

Click here to sign our petition in support of background checks for gun purchases.

Ai??Click here to join our Take Back Democracy campaign to help kick money out of politics.

Last night, four pro-NRA Senate Democrats joined most Senate Republicans in killing the Manchin-Toomey proposal to expand background checks for gun purchases. This defeat came despite the fact that 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks.

This morning, civil rights hero and Georgia Congressman John Lewis (D) took to the floor to condemn the Senate for its failure:

LEWIS: Mr. Speaker, what happened on the floor of the other body yesterday, is a shame and a disgrace. Leaders of this country must be headlights and not taillights. Leaders must lead. More than 90% of American people say they want us to put strong background checks in place before someone buys a gun in this country. This is not about preserving Second Amendment rights. It is about saving lives. How many more little babies, how many more little children, how many more American citizens must die of gun violence? How many more funerals must we attend before we act? The blood of the innocent is crying out to us. Where is our courage? What happened to our heart? When will we have the guts to do What is right? We need to pass a strong gun bill and pass it now. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Watch it:

Click here to sign our petition in support of background checks for gun purchases.