Obama should blame the tea party, not the NRA, for his gun-control defeat

So Lee, Cruz, and Paul — and their staffs — set out to work on those Republicans who were less than firm. Almost the entire GOP conference was pretty strong in opposing the Democrats’ more Draconian gun control proposals — such as an assault weapons ban — but the conservative rump didn’t want any new regulations on gun ownership by law-abiding citizens. Cruz, along with almost every other Republican, signed on to an alternative bill by Sen. Charles Grassley, which mostly beefed up the current federal database behind background checks.

Anything more ambitious was a nonstarter in the eyes of Cruz, Paul and Lee. Specifically, they rejected the proposal by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to create a mandatory universal background check. Toomey-Manchin was the only real chance Obama had of passing a gun control bill. If that went down, gun control went down.

According to conservative staffers, Gun Owners of America was the most active outside group in early efforts to block all gun control efforts including Toomey-Manchin. As GOA and conservative senators worked to close GOP ranks, the NRA came in to seal the deal.

So, the Obama account is wrong in part because it portrays the NRA as calling all the shots within the GOP on guns. But it seems it was Cruz, Lee and Paul who drew the line, and then the NRA came in to hold that line.