Appearing on Monday's Andrea Mitchell Reports on MSNBC, Time magazine editor-at-large Mark Halperin confessed a broad media consensus to curtail gun rights: "If you walk the halls of most major news organizations or of the OEOB at the White House or West Wing, I think you'd find overwhelming sentiment that there should be stricter gun control laws in the United States." [Listen to the audio [1]]
After admitting the press and the Obama administration were on the same page on the issue, Halperin lamented: "...the intensity, in terms of guns as a voting issue, is much more on the side of people who don't want additional gun control legislation....[President Obama] knows it's a loser politically and it will not pass and it does not represent the will of most of the American people."
Here is a portion of the July 23 exchange:
1:20PM ET
(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: Jay Carney was asked about this, Mark Halperin,
yesterday, and he directed reporters to an op-ed that the President
wrote in the Arizona Daily Star in 2011 after the Tucson shooting and
says that, "He believes that it is possible to protect Second Amendment
rights of the American people but ensure we are not allowing weapons
into the hands of individuals who should not, by existing law, obtain
those weapons." The key phrase there, "by existing law." Copout?
MARK
HALPERIN: Andrea, I think there's – I think there's some realities of
this in terms of politics. If you walk the halls of most major news
organizations or of the OEOB at the White House or West Wing, I think
you'd find overwhelming sentiment that there should be stricter gun
control laws in the United States.
And for people who want that, like Mayor Bloomberg, they say, "Well,
it's the NRA and the power of the NRA." That's part of it. But it's also
the poll that – the reality of what's reflected in the poll that Chris
[Cillizza] cited, it's stronger than just the numbers Chris cited
though, because the intensity, in terms of guns as a voting issue, is
much more on the side of people who don't want additional gun control
legislation.
The people who want more, argue for it, they have press conferences,
they try to say it's about crime and not about the Second Amendment, but
they've made no progress and it's manifested, most clearly, by
President Obama, you know, being passionate and reaching out and talking
about the victims, which is first and foremost on all of our minds now,
but not be willing to put any legislative muscle behind it because he
knows it's a loser politically and it will not pass and it does not
represent the will of most of the American people.
(...)