I find the demonization of Senator Kelly Ayotte's (R-NH) vote against the Manchin-Toomey bill to be based upon willful ignorance or blind obedience to the Progressive narrative that anyone who is not for gun control is automatically all for killing children and arming mentally ill killers.
Reading the piece linked above and the comments shows the complete lack of understanding of the content of the bill. All the Ayotte-haters know is that she voted against a piece of legislation that President Obama was for. They didn't care that the bill wouldn't do anything to prevent another Newtown or Aurora or that it wouldn't prevent someone who is truly mentally ill and a danger to themselves or others from being able to purchase a firearm. The present background check law does nothing to prevent it either, but it's not the fault of the law itself. Rather it's far more difficult to have someone declared mentally unfit and/or a danger to themselves of others. Without that ability the background check, both present and proposed, have no teeth and are unenforceable. There have been a number of cases where a doctor makes a declaration that someone is unfit, but without the evidence or examination to prove their case, meaning that particular provision has been abused and someone who was perfectly fit to own and use guns was prevented from doing so.
The claim has been made the 90% of Americans agree that background checks should be made and support the expansion of background checks. The polls this 'fact' is pulled from asked the question in such a way that it was vague, too general, and mentioned nothing about the actual provisions of the Manchin-Toomey bill. If it had, there's no way the poll would have shown that 90% figure. Because the question was too general, the results were meaningless.
That Ayotte voted against something that was really nothing more than a feel-good “Do Something!” piece of legislation shows that she understood the issue perfectly and wasn't willing to vote for it knowing it would accomplish little good and do a lot of harm. For that she deserves praise, not condemnation.
