Over at Triggerfinger is a concise summary of what happened in the Senate over the past five days regarding Senate bill 1805. It pretty much sums up what happened and why. I would like to add something, though.
Basically what we saw here was a case of the anti-gun-rights crowd in the Senate trying to have their cake *or* eat it. The ideal situation was that they do neither but, in this case, they got the least objectionable of the two. By corrupting the bill with the amendments that were tacked onto it, they put themselves in a win-win situation. If the bill fails, then efforts to bankrupt the gun industry via baseless lawsuits can continue. If the bill succeeds, they get their precious AWB extended and expanded, as well as other things. I think that's what they were truly hoping would happen because, so far, no lawsuit of the type that would have been prohibited has succeeded. They wanted something tangible rather than something that was only potential. In the end, we the people came out ahead. Once the bill was amended we were never going to get a pure victory. But we did get the better of the two possible outcomes.
Much credit must go to Senator Larry Craig of Idaho, the author of the bill, who fought so vigorously to protect what he crafted and who had the courage and integrity to call for its death when he saw how mangled it had become.
Much shame must go to those who voted for those heinous amendments and especially to those who authored and introduced them. Of particular note are Diane Feinstein and Charles Schumer. GeekWithA.45 sums it up rather well in this post.
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