Ayotte tries to undo bad effects of gun vote

With the help of State Senator and former professional magician Jeb Bradley, Sen. Kelly Ayotte has been trying to make the problems created by her vote against background checks magically disappear.

That will be quite a trick. Surveys by UNH and New England College, respectively,
showed that 94 percent and 88 percent of New Hampshire residents favor
background checks. Yet, Ayotte voted against them. As a result, her approval
ratings initially dropped 15 points in a Public Policy Poll, in the process going "upside down" with only 44 percent approving of her job performance and 46 percent disapproving.

Shazam! Ayotte  subsequently conducted a full-blown smoke and mirrors campaign to undo the damaging effect of her vote. She was scheduled to conduct three town hall meetings. However, knowing the current cranky mood of the voters, Ayotte wasn't exactly encouraging a large turnout. According to the New York Times (4/30/13), "Though her office organized a series of town meetings across the state this week, it barely publicized them. On the way out of the meeting here (Warren, NH), she ignored reporters' questions."

The Times' continues, "It was 45 minutes into Senator Kelly Ayotte's town hall-style meeting here on Tuesday and the local Republican official screening question topics had allowed just one query on gun control. A few in the crowd of about 150 started to get agitated. . . In an effort to settle the room down, Ms.
Ayotte turned to Erica Lafferty, whose mother was one of the 27 people who were killed in the shootings in Newtown, Conn."

"Ms. Lafferty, 27, asked the senator about (her) previous remark that background checks could burden gun stores. 'I'm just wondering,'  she said, her back stiffening, 'why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the halls of her elementary school isn't as important?'"

 Things didn't get any better for Ayotte later that day at a Town meeting in Tilton, NH. The moderator shouted "Let the Senator finish please," as gun safety advocates shouted from the crowd and waved signs that read "demand an end to gun violence."  It was here that former magician and current State Sen. Bradley allowed only one question on background checks and publicly admitted that he purposely screened out the rest. (Abracadabra, embarrassing questions go away!)

Bradley later said, "There were many, many questions on guns
supporting her position, and there were some against . . ."

Now, that's really interesting. The forms completed by those at the meeting who
wanted to ask a question requested only their names and the topics of the issues
for which they wanted answers. Nothing else. Yet, Bradley somehow knew much more than just the topic of the question. He knew, for example, how many questions supported background checks and how many were against it. Being a magician, I guess Bradley must have psychic powers. Or he didn't tell the truth.

The third town meeting was held in Fitzwilliam, NH. Gilles Rousseau, the father of
Lauren Rousseau who died of multiple gunshot wounds protecting children  at Sandy Hook Elementary School attended. Rousseau carried a teddy bear, a picture of his daughter, and her death certificate. He attempted to ask a question about background checks, but was ignored.

It was at the Fitzwilliam meeting that Ayotte attempted yet another way to explain away her vote against background checks. She said that she voted against background checks because she feared they would create a national gun registry. Either Ayotte isn't very well informed or she was playing fast and loose with the truth. The Manchin-Toomey bill in three different places explicitly bans the federal government from creating a gun registry and considers any attempt to do so a felony crime punishable by 15 years in prison.

Having fared poorly at making her unpopular background check vote disappear (expecto patronum!) at town hall meetings, Ayotte attempted to do so by waving a magic wand in newspaper editorials. In an editorial appearing in both the Concord Monitor (5/6/2013) and the Portsmouth Herald (5/5/2013), Ayotte wrote, "Despite what the false attack ads say, I helped introduce and voted for the Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act, which improves the existing background check system . . ."

The Monitor(5/12/2013)  would have none of that.  "The attempted misdirection
continued with Ayotte's attempt to explain her vote and rebut her critics in a
column that appeared in the Monitor and elsewhere Tuesday. In it Ayotte explains that she voted for improved background checks before voting against them.  But the Republican-backed bill Ayotte did support would do nothing to expand background checks at gun shows and it would have weakened gun laws as much as strengthened them. That's why it had the backing of the National Rifle Association."

So Ayotte has been reduced to one last hope to escape her infamous background check vote. If she sprinkles fairy dust on the public,  people  may grow sleepy and over time forget her vote. Actually, the noise created by the sound of guns killing 30,000 Americans annually is likely to keep us awake and focused.