Huffington Magazine Issue 43 | Page 53

THOMAS COOPER/GETTY IMAGES VOTE ON CONSCIENCE name on the bullseye — a not-sosubtle reminder to voters of his support for the assault weapons ban. Santorum narrowly defeated Wofford in the 1994 election. In the House, Speaker Tom Foley (D-Wash.) had become the public face of the assault weapons ban, having spent the summer of 1994 arguing its merits. Privately, he lobbied Clinton heavily to axe the provision, arguing that it would endanger many members. He was one of them. On Election Day, Foley would be the first speaker in more than a century to suffer defeat. HUFFINGTON 04.07.13 “The NRA was an unforgiving master: one strike and you’re out,” Clinton would write in his 2004 autobiography, My Life. It was from the stunning defeats of Brooks, Foley, Wofford and others that the legend of the NRA’s political muscle grew. When the assault weapons ban lapsed in 2004, Congress didn’t renew it, because there wasn’t enough desire to revisit the issue. The same basic calculus held true through the first term of the Obama administration, during which not a single piece of gun control legislation was considered. It is only now, in the wake of the shooting deaths of 20 first- An employee of Dave’s Guns holds a Colt AR-15, legal after the end of the assault weapons ban in 2004.