Dianne Feinstein doesn’t have the Democrat votes to pass the assault weapons ban…..yet

Earlier this week Dianne Feinstein introduced a draconian “assault weapons” ban which would also include a ban on most handguns as well as some rifles and shotguns.

There is some good news if this article is correct however; she may not have enough Democrat votes to pass the legislation:

A proposed ban on sales of assault weapons would be defeated in the U.S. Senate today unless some members changed their current views, based on a Bloomberg review of recent lawmaker statements and interviews. At least six of the 55 senators who caucus with Democrats have recently expressed skepticism or outright opposition to a ban, the review found. That means Democrats wouldn’t have a simple 51-vote majority to pass the measure, let alone the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster to bring it to a floor vote.

However I am skeptical of the Democrats who are currently ‘no’ votes and their true intentions because I think the Obamacare debate taught us a valuable lesson; these votes can be–and probably will be–bought.

There was the now infamous “Cornhusker Kickback” but the list goes on and on as can be seen here and here. All of these Democrats were said to be ‘no’ votes but in reality they were simply withholding their ‘yes’ votes until they received various payments in return for toeing the party line.

I think these supposed ‘no’ votes are simply ‘yes’ votes in the waiting, they simply haven’t been offered anything in return for their ‘yes’ votes yet. Make no mistake about it; these Democrats know that Dianne Feinstein and Barack Obama need their votes and they are holding out so they can get the best deal possible and then they will switch their votes and pass this legislation.