In a state where 257,000 people have a hunting license and more than 153,500 have a concealed weapons permit, gun activists said gun control and the right to bear arms will be at the forefront of the upcoming U.S. Senate race.
U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor’s 2014 Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, 36, said he will focus attention on Pryor’s 9-year-old vote to ban some assault weapons.
On a muggy central Arkansas morning last week, Pryor, 50, toured the Remington Arms facility in Lonoke after helping to break ground on a new facility. Pryor, a Little Rock Democrat, was scheduled to attend a gun-safety event in Texarkana on Saturday.
“It is just coincidence,” Pryor said of the two weapons-related stops.
After the tour, Pryor pulled his hunting and fishing licenses from his wallet as he spoke with reporters about duck hunting with his son. He said he feels that Arkansans know where he stands on gun issues.
“I’m a legit hunter, love to hunt, love to fish,” he said. “I know that people in Arkansas are passionate about it. I am too, so it is a good fit.”
Last spring a group targeting gun violence criticized his vote against legislation sponsored by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that would have increased background checks on certain firearm purchases. (Cotton says he would’ve voted the same way.) Mayors Against Illegal Guns, led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said it spent $350,000 to target Pryor in television ads that ran in Arkansas earlier this year.
John Feinblatt, Bloomberg’s chief policy adviser, said the group still hopes Pryor will change his mind but has not decided if it will play a role in Arkansas’ Senate race.
But backlash against that vote isn’t the one Pryor should be worried about, Cotton told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette after a campaign rally in Hot Springs Village on Thursday.
Instead, he pointed to Pryor’s support for extending a ban on assault weapons in 2004. The legislation failed by a large margin and the ban on assault weapons was lifted. Pryor voted to add the assault weapon language to the bill and for the final legislation.
“Very convenient for him to vote against the Manchin-Toomey amendment when he is considered America’s most vulnerable senator,” Cotton said. “His true colors were shown in 2004.”
Pryor didn’t have a Republican opponent in 2008, so he didn’t face partisan heat over the issue in the last campaign. That’ll change in 2014, said Cotton, a Dardanelle resident who represents the 4th congressional district.
“Plenty of Arkansans still remember it and they point it out routinely to me, and I’ll be reminding every Arkansan who doesn’t remember,” he said.
He did just that during his speech to Hot Springs Village residents.
“He has to answer for his vote to take your guns away,” Cotton said.
Pryor spokesman Amy Schlesing said Pryor cast that vote because Arkansas law enforcement supported the legislation.
“He talked with them and voted with how Arkansas was leaning at the time, especially with law enforcement,” she said.
About three dozen of the state’s municipal police chiefs sent letters to Pryor urging support for the legislation, according to a March 2004 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article.
Schlesing pointed to dozens of pro-gun votes Pryor has made since being elected in 2002.
“Sen. Pryor has a long record of voting with Arkansas and not along party lines,” she said. “Sen. Pryor has always been an avid supporter of Second Amendment rights.”
Initially Friday, Arkansas Carry board member Nicholas Stehle, 30, of Benton said gun control issues wouldn’t play a large role in the election. Arkansas Carry is a nonprofit that wants laws to be changed so weapons can be openly carried without a permit.
“People don’t trust him but he’s been there on the votes when it counts,” Stehle said by phone.
Minutes later he called back, and said he’d forgotten the assault weapons ban. Stehle said people may not remember the assault weapons vote, but he expects gun groups to remind Arkansans of it.
“I would expect this to wind up on somebody’s radar pretty quickly. This one’s going to be a big deal.” Stehle said. “I think it’s going to hurt him pretty significantly.”
Stehle said the Manchin-Toomey legislation included some of the same gun restrictions that were in the 2004 assault weapon ban legislation.
“The obvious difference was in ’04 he wasn’t concerned about re-election,” Stehle said. “That definitely changes the discussion.”
Schlesing said the restrictions in the Manchin-Toomey bill went beyond those found in the 2004 legislation.
The Manchin-Toomey bill would have required federal criminal background checks for firearms purchased online or at gun shows. Noncommercial person-to-person firearms sales wouldn’t be covered by the bill.
“That bill this spring was much broader than the 2004 bill and it didn’t address the root of the issue, enforcing the laws on the books, mental health,” she said.
National Shooting Sports Foundation Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence Keane said his group was pleased that Pryor no longer supports the ban.
“We definitely noticed that the Senator changed his position from 9-10 years ago to voting against it now,” Keane said. “His votes supported the interests of our members, firearm industry members and gun owners.”
The Newtown, Conn.-based foundation spent about $100,000 in June to run radio advertisements thanking Pryor for his 2013 vote. The group also sponsored the gun safety event in Texarkana on Saturday that Pryor was scheduled to attend.
Keane said the group hasn’t decided about 2014 endorsements.
Pryor said he doesn’t know that this Congress will revisit the issue of gun control.
“I don’t really see how anything has changed on that. That is a matter that is probably closed for this session of Congress,” Pryor said. “I think that issue is behind us.”
The National Rifle Association also ran ads in Arkansas defending Pryor’s vote, but hasn’t endorsed a candidate in the race. In December the group released how it grades members of Congress. Pryor received a C-. Cotton received an A.
The NRA opposed the 2004 assault weapons ban. Calls to an NRA spokesman were not returned Friday.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/12/2013