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.