"The president raged. The mayor of New York frothed. Joe Biden cried. But at the end of the day, common sense prevailed. The Senate killed the effort to unreasonably expand background checks for buyers of guns.
 
"The measure is not quite graveyard dead; it can be brought up again, but prospects for that are remote. The vote was a bone-jarring setback for the gun-control lobby, and a decisive victory for the National Rifle Association (NRA), which led the fight to protect the rights of all. It was most of all a resounding victory for the plain and simple language of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, 'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'"

"The Senate will vote Wednesday afternoon on what could be the biggest changes in U.S. gun laws in nearly 20 years. 
 
"Senators will take up the proposal from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) to expand background checks on firearm purchases and close the so-called gun show loophole. The bipartisan plan is likely the strongest gun control bill that can pass this Congress, although it’s far weaker than the White House and many Democrats hoped for. ... 

"Voting on the Manchin-Toomey proposal is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., and both opponents and supporters say the margin is razor thin at this point."

"Once again, innocent American citizens going about their business on American soil have been targeted for attack. On a Marathon Monday in spring, Boston joined the grim roll of American cities and sites bloodied by terror: New York, Washington, Oklahoma City, Shanksville, Ft. Hood and so on. And it’s not over, given that the numbers of dead and wounded continue to mount.  

"The question on every American mind yesterday was the obvious one: Who? 

"Looking back at how wrong speculation has proved before in attacks from the DC sniper to the Times Square bomber, it’s worth waiting for the facts to come in. Better to place our confidence in the men and women in our law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. So long as they are allowed to do their jobs, we have no doubt that they will find out the truth of these attacks."

"Some advocates of comprehensive immigration legislation view extended hearings and debate as a tactic intended to stir up opposition among people they regard as bigoted. 
 
"But it's not necessarily bigoted to oppose a bill that includes some element of forgiveness for those who have broken the law. It's a legitimate view that deserves a hearing and a chance to prevail. ... 

"Our current immigration laws have not been serving us well, and not in just one respect. 
 
"I understand the desire of politicians to push something through while the time seems opportune. But it's worth taking extra care with a law that could shape the nation for years to come."

"When it is finally unveiled next week, the immigration reform proposal crafted by the Senate's bipartisan Gang of Eight will be long -- possibly 1,500 pages -- and complex, and it will call for far-reaching changes in important areas of American life. One would think the leadership of the Senate might want to talk about it.
 
"Not so. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a longtime supporter of immigration reform, has vowed to push the bill through his committee 'with all deliberate speed.' ... The committee will hold just one more hearing on the bill, Leahy declared. ...

"The move to hurry the bill into law is a terrible development, given the public's lack of trust in the government's ability, and willingness, to handle the immigration issue. A number of recent polls show that majorities of Americans favor legalization and a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in this country. But they favor those outcomes only if the government secures the border and shuts off the flow of illegal immigration into the U.S. And they don't trust the government to do that."

"All the actual evidence -- mountains of it, in peer-reviewed studies by highly respected economists and criminologists and endlessly retested -- shows that limits on magazine capacity, background checks and assault weapons bans will accomplish nothing. Only one policy has been shown to dramatically reduce multiple public shootings: concealed-carry laws.  

"Unfortunately, there are no similar studies on the effect of involuntary commitment laws for the mentally deranged because no such laws exist anymore and therefore can't be tested. But we do know that the number of mass public shootings has ballooned since crazy people were thrown out of mental institutions in the 1970s.  

"For most of the 20th century, from 1900 to 1970, there was an average of four mass public shootings per decade. Throughout the '70s, as the loony bins were being emptied, the average number of mass shootings suddenly shot up to 13. In the 3.3 decades since 1980, after all the mental institutions had been turned into condos, mass shootings skyrocketed to 36 on average per decade.  

"Mass shootings don't correlate with gun ownership; they correlate with not locking up schizophrenics."

"[Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid moved Tuesday night to start debate over a gun control package that is a wish list for gun control advocates. Reid filed a cloture motion that sets up a Thursday vote to end a GOP filibuster of the motion to proceed to that gun bill. In order to gather 60 votes, Reid and other senior Democrats believe they can hold on to their own nervous members from red states, while picking up 10 or so Republicans. ... 

"Reid said that if the bill doesn’t get 60 votes to move to the floor, he would then move to hold votes on individual bills for several gun proposals, including the assault weapons ban, background checks and limits on high-capacity magazines."

"The grocer’s daughter from Grantham became freedom’s Iron Lady at a time when too many were soft and equivocating. She is sadly gone now, but her intrepid will, her time-tested ideals, her unfailing trust in what is right and just, and her legacy, as solid as iron, will live on forever."

"If grade-schoolers were more worldly wise, a decent playground insult these days could be: 'He's slower than the Obama recovery.' Or maybe, 'Your mamma's uglier than the last jobs report.' ...   

"The labor participation rate is 63.3 percent, the lowest it has been since 1979. The year after that was the year the nation rejected Jimmy Carter in a landslide for a President named Reagan, who offered a way out of the malaise. Yet today we accept high unemployment and snail's-pace growth in part because Reagan's party continues to be outmaneuvered by a President constitutionally incapable of governing, but born to campaign. 

"This is not the Bush economy. It is, as Obama said it would be by now, the Obama economy. And it is a dreadful one. Under him, it is likely to remain that way for years to come."

"Securing the border would be the most popular element of any immigration reform deal, according to a new poll. 
 
"Eight-in-ten Americans support hiked-up border security and 72 percent support more Visas for high-skilled immigrants, the ABC News/Washington Post poll on Wednesday found. Fifty-seven percent support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, a number in line with other recent polling on the subject."