The man clearly has a gift for understatement.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who has an ‘A’ rating from the National Rifle Association (NRA), said he’s "frustrated" with the group, accusing them of a misinformation campaign in regard to the bipartisan background checks bill he authored with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.).

The West Virginia Democrat said the group was trying to scare gun owners and said the slippery slope argument the gun lobby pushed was disingenuous.

“I’m frustrated with any organization that basically is saying things – and what they’re doing is they’re rattling the cage, if you will, saying, well if [Congress does] this they’re going to do this. It’s a first step,” Manchin said on "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday.

Frustrated?

In addition to flat-out lying about Manchin's bill, the new president of the NRA likes to refer to the Civil War as the "War of Northern Aggression," has referred to President Obama as a "fake president," and openly contemplates armed rebellion against the US government.

Hey Joe: the time to be "frustrated" with this nutbar organization is long over. The only reasonable thing to do at this point is resign.

Your move, Senator.

Kelly Ayotte had her first experience with a hostile town hall meeting yesterday when she was confronted by gun regulation advocates who are angry about her vote against the Manchin-Toomey background check legislation. As you can see from the video, the NRA was well-represented too.

But Ayotte's guests included Erica Lafferty, daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung. Lafferty has not been shy about confronting Senators who opposed what is the very barest minimum needed to get some control over how weapons fall into the hands of people who shouldn't have them.

NBC News:

Among them was Erica Lafferty, whose mother, Dawn Hochsprung, was the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School and was killed in the Dec. 14 shooting. Lafferty began by thanking Ayotte for meeting with her a few weeks earlier, in Washington, immediately after the gun vote.

"You had mentioned that day you voted, owners of gun stores that the expanded background checks would harm. I am just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the halls of her elementary school isn't more important than that," Lafferty said.

Ayotte responded: "Erica, I, certainly let me just say - I'm obviously so sorry."

"And, um, I think that ultimately when we look at what happened in Sandy Hook, I understand that's what drove this whole discussion -- all of us want to make sure that doesn't happen again," Ayotte said.

Wow, that's a pretty lame answer to a pointed and relevant question. Ayotte went on to make some kind of homage to how we have laws on the books, blah blah blah, but Lafferty clearly left unsatisfied.

However, that didn't stop things from staying lively throughout the rest of the town hall.

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Kelly Ayotte just learned who she works for, and it's not the NRA. According to recent polls, Ayotte's approval rating has tumbled following her vote against the Manchin-Toomey bill for near-universal background checks. Rightly so.

Ayotte's plunge underscores the changing politics around gun control and gun safety. In years past, lawmakers worried that a vote for gun control would bring the anger of the National Rifle Association. In the new reality, votes against gun control also carry a political risk, as the Ayotte poll indicates.

A full three-quarters of New Hampshire voters support such background checks, along with 56 percent of Republicans, according to Public Policy Polling. A WMUR Granite State Poll taken in January and February found that more than 9 in 10 state residents supported implementing background checks at gun shows.

It's not entirely clear yet how opposition to background checks will play out at the polls, but there are signs Ayotte’s vote may have taken a toll.

In October, the last time that PPP surveyed voters about Ayotte, she had a 48-35 approval rating. She has now tumbled underwater, with 46 percent disapproving and 44 percent approving. The 11-point surge in disapproval threatens Ayotte's 2016 reelection, when she could face popular Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan. Ayotte won her 2010 race by 23 points, but in a hypothetical matchup against Hassan trails 46-44.

Forty-five percent of independents in the state disapproved of Ayotte, up 13 points since October. Half of voters said her vote on background checks made them less inclined to vote for her, with only a quarter saying it made them more likely to support her.

Ayotte threw her lot in with the wrong people. Instead of representing her constituents, she chose the NRA, and her chickens will come home to roost. This is exactly what the president called for when he said the voters will have to be the ones to decide this issue. They will, and Ayotte won't be the only casualty.

You know it's going to be bad when the clip opens up with the claim that "liberals love guns. They just don't want [conservatives] to have guns." I just wasn't sure how bad until I watched the whole clip.

RightWingWatch:

After co-host ‘Chief’ Steve Davis said that the left doesn’t want anyone who doesn’t work for the government to have guns and “they don’t care how many of us get killed, blown up, assaulted, murdered or whatever as long as they can control us by taking away our guns,” Solomon maintained that liberals are even okay with other liberals getting murdered: “It’s not just how many conservatives or Republicans [die] because these people that were killed and maimed and devastated and traumatized were overwhelmingly their people, they don’t care, they are like the Chinese who don’t care if they have a million casualties because they got a billion backups.”

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After cowardly Senators caved to the NRA and voted to defeat the Manchin-Toomey amendment to the gun safety bill allowing for near-universal background checks, a visibly angry President Obama took to his bully pulpit and spoke plainly about his disappointment and anger at the Senate.

Key moments:

But instead of supporting this compromise, the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. They claimed that it would create some sort of “big brother” gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite. This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry. Plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn’t matter.

But the fact is most of these senators could not offer any good reason why we wouldn’t want to make it harder for criminals and those with severe mental illnesses to buy a gun. There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn’t do this. It came down to politics -- the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections. They worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment.

And obviously, a lot of Republicans had that fear, but Democrats had that fear, too. And so they caved to the pressure, and they started looking for an excuse -- any excuse -- to vote “no.”

One common argument I heard was that this legislation wouldn’t prevent all future massacres. And that’s true. As I said from the start, no single piece of legislation can stop every act of violence and evil. We learned that tragically just two days ago. But if action by Congress could have saved one person, one child, a few hundred, a few thousand -- if it could have prevented those people from losing their lives to gun violence in the future while preserving our Second Amendment rights, we had an obligation to try.

And this legislation met that test. And too many senators failed theirs.

I've heard some say that blocking this step would be a victory. And my question is, a victory for who? A victory for what? All that happened today was the preservation of the loophole that lets dangerous criminals buy guns without a background check. That didn’t make our kids safer. Victory for not doing something that 90 percent of Americans, 80 percent of Republicans, the vast majority of your constituents wanted to get done? It begs the question, who are we here to represent?

Then he laid down the gauntlet:

So to change Washington, you, the American people, are going to have to sustain some passion about this. And when necessary, you’ve got to send the right people to Washington. And that requires strength, and it requires persistence.

It just grinds me that the wingnuts in the NRA have enough power to cow Senators into voting against what the majority of people in this country want.

Here are the names of the Democrats voting no, excluding Harry Reid, who voted no to keep the bill alive: Pryor, Begich, Baucus, and Heitkamp. Republicans who voted yes: McCain, Toomey, Collins, and Kirk. Shame on the NRA-owned Democrats and props to the Republicans who stepped up.

That was just the background check piece. Here's what happened on the assault weapons ban:

An amendment, put forth by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), to re-establish a federal ban on certain assault weapons was defeated by a vote of 40-60. A near-united Republican conference voted against the measure, with just one GOP senator, Mark Kirk (Ill.), voting in its favor.

As the President said, this is just Round One.

Just after news broke of the explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof sent out this tweet:

The reaction was swift and severe. Ultimately, he "took it back", saying it was a "low blow."

But was it really a low blow? The ATF has long been a target of the right wing servants of the NRA. From their hysteria over "Fast and Furious" to Senate Republicans blocking any nominee to be director, the ATF is an agency the NRA very, very much wants to destroy.

Last week, 98 contractors in the gun division of the ATFwere laid off in West Virginia as a result of the sequester. That number could climb to 160 if Congress cannot resolve the budget problems.

This isn't an exercise in opportunism. Everyone should be concerned that an agency with primary responsibility for regulating the flow of guns and explosives in this country is being gutted with every budget resolution passed.

President Obama's current nominee, B. Todd Jones, is currently working as a US Attorney in the District of Minnesota while also serving as acting director of the ATF. One might surmise that there is no real motive for anyone concerned with national security to block such a nomination. The only ones who stand to benefit are the NRA.

Back in the beginning of this month, the Daily Beast reported:

For the last quarter century, the NRA’s lobbyists have been working the shadowy corners of the congressional budgeting and appropriations process to insert “riders”—restrictions on how federal funds can be spend—that target the enforcement powers of the federal government.

Media Matters also warned about their efforts:

The NRA also routinely blocks efforts to appoint a permanent ATF director. According to a report by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, there has not been a full-fledged ATF director since 2006, when Congress, at the behest of the NRA, changed federal law to require ATF directors to be confirmed by the Senate. Since 2006, the post has been held by a series of acting and interim directors.

As the Brady Center notes, "without a leader, ATF's ability to stop gun trafficking by corrupt gun dealers is significantly curtailed. As a body without a head, ATF lacks a leader who can decide on strategic plans and broad strategies, who can marshal the agency's resources to achieve its objectives, and who can fight to obtain the resources it needs." In 2010, President Obama nominated ATF Denver division director Andrew Traver for the position of ATF director, but because of NRA opposition, Traver remains unconfirmed.

I don't know if the lack of funding and a director would have made a difference in Boston yesterday, but an effectively staffed and funded agency would have had more of an ability to focus on prevention rather than reacting after the fact. By weakening them, the overall message is that the one agency responsible for tracking and investigating firearms, including explosives, is leaderless and toothless, thanks to the right wing, in service to the NRA.

I wonder if they'd feel the same way if foreign nationals are found to be responsible for these explosions. They seem to be willing to blame Muslim extremists, but unwilling to actually fund the agencies necessary to investigate them for fear that the militias will somehow be persecuted.

Daughter of slain Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung went after the filibustering Senators, calling them on the phone first and then on Twitter when they didn't respond, in order to shame them into dropping their filibuster and allowing a vote.

MSNBC:

The principal’s daughter took to social media to call out the 14 Republican senators who are threatening to filibuster the first major gun control legislation since the assault weapons ban was introduced in 1993.

On Tuesday, Erica Lafferty tweeted a photo of her sister kissing their mother, Dawn Hochsprung’s, cheek on the day of her wedding to every Republican senator who threatened to filibuster the gun control vote.

Hey, @mcconnellpress, here is a pic of my mom & sister on her wedding day. I don't get that at my wedding in July twitter.com/E_Laffs2/statu…

— Erica Lafferty (@E_Laffs2) April 9, 2013

Ouch. If only Mitch McConnell had a heart, or wasn't shameless.

Reportedly, Senator Ted Cruz did take a moment to call her:

One senator, Ted Cruz of Texas, agreed to call her back. So she called others out for not calling her back.

"I'll never see my mom again because she was gunned down in Sandy Hook. I don't deserve to be heard?" she tweeted to members of Congress.

A newsletter posted on the website for Sen. Cruz says he "has pledged to use any procedural means necessary to ensure Congress does not pass any laws infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens."

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Yesterday, many pundits were saying that any chance for a deal was dead, but this news is a major break in the logjam. (Personally, I think even the Senate's most craven cowards - of which there are many -- had a problem looking those Sandy Hill parents in the eye and saying "No.") And even Paul Ryan said today he'll "strongly consider" the compromise, which will be presented at an 11 a.m. EST press conference:

A bipartisan duo of senators with A ratings from the National Rifle Associated have reached a deal to expand background checks to private gun purchases that occur in commercial settings.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) will announce the details of the plan during a press conference Wednesday morning. Currently, only federally licensed gun dealers are required to conduct background screenings.

Under the Manchin-Toomey agreement, background checks will occur for sales conducted at gun shows, online, and through public advertisements with full record keeping, which advocates see as essential for enforcement and tracing crime guns. Friend-to-friend and family sales will be exempt from the requirement.

And while the plan stops short of the far more expansive background check provision offered by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — that measure would have extended background checks to all gun sales outside of close family transfers — the new agreement builds momentum for reform and may come as a blow to the 14 conservatives who have pledged to block debate of any new gun regulations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on Tuesday and the first procedural vote on the motion to commit is scheduled for Thursday. Today, groups representing gun safety advocates and victims and survivors of gun violence announced that they will read the names of the 3,300 people who has been killed by guns since the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut until the Senate agrees to debate and vote on the package.

Greg Sargent interviewed Johns Hopkins Center for Gun and Policy Research Director Daniel Webster and asked him whether background checks would reduce gun-related crimes, and also about the NRA's contention that criminals won't obey the background check laws, but will still get guns. Here's an excerpt:

Criminals won’t obey any background check laws. So why would expanding the current law do any good?

The logic of this argument is flawed. It could be used to dismiss the utility of virtually any law because criminals will disobey it. The illogical exemption of private gun sales from background checks is the very reason that criminals don’t currently have to obey existing background check laws.

State laws prohibiting high-risk groups — perpetrators of domestic violence, violent misdemeanants and the severely mentally ill — from possessing firearms have been shown to reduce violence. [1, 2] One of my studies found that a number of state laws prohibiting individuals under a domestic violence restraining order from owning guns produced an overall 19 percent reduction in intimate partner homicides. [3]

Meanwhile, my research has shown that state universal background checks — along with other state laws designed to increase gun seller and purchaser accountability — significantly reduce the number of guns diverted to the illegal market, where the above high risk groups often get their guns [4, 5].

At the same time, the success of these state gun laws in reducing the diversion of guns to criminals is undermined by gaps in federal laws which facilitate interstate gun trafficking from states with the weakest gun laws to those with the strongest gun laws. [6, 7] For example, we found that states without universal background check laws had 30 percent higher levels of exporting across state lines guns that were later recovered from criminals. [5]

There are three strong arguments for universal background checks right there. Reduction of intimate partner homicides, reduction of guns diverted to the illegal market, and reduction of guns sent to states where criminals are more likely to purchase them.

This interview is a great set of arguments for why universal background checks should be a slam-dunk. But they're not. CNN reports that the key players in the Senate negotiation are Tom Coburn and Joe Manchin.

Coburn evidently does not object to background checks but doesn't want a record of them, which is the next stupidest argument. Purchasing a car requires that it be registered, and that registration is part of a larger list of cars registered in the state. Somehow the world has continued to turn despite having to let the state know you drive a car and paying an annual fee for the privilege of doing so. So too will it turn if gun buyers have to undergo a background check and the record of that background check is maintained.

What Congress really needs to learn is how to make the NRA irrelevant to this debate. They gave up their right to influence this legislation the day Wayne LaPierre started spewing insane conspiracy theories about how the government was going to come and get their guns if they had to be even slightly accountable for them.

Chris Hayes updated the current campaign for responsible gun laws (especially background checks) on All In Wednesday night, too. Watch, because he is right on the mark:

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Pat Robertson, Pope of the Televangelists, is joining with the crackpot theories of Alex Jones that warns Americans the feds are out to get us, just like he did during his Clinton 'black helicopter' days.

Robertson: Long trains full of armored vehicles, personnel carriers with armor, what are they for, the army going into battle against the enemy? They're used by Homeland Security against us,” Robertson ominously warned. “Imagine what Homeland Security is doing is just awful and we’re going to talk about how much ammunition they’re stockpiling: who are they going to shoot, us?

David Edwards:

The same theories have also been picked up in recent weeks by the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network.

And on Thursday, Robertson weighed in on the side of the conspiracy theorists, calling it “like something out of science fiction: long trains of full or armored vehicles, personnel carriers with armor.”

And then of course we have to debunk these fictitious reports since it is possible that it could enter the mainstream.

The conspiracy about secretive ammo stockpiling is completely unfounded.

According to the Associated Press, the ammunition is used in trainings for “tens of thousands of federal law enforcement officers” and for the use of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.As Media Matters pointed out, DHS does own light armored vehicles for emergencies and raids on drug cartels, and the recent purchases of such vehicles were actually for the U.S. Marine Corps.

In fact, the conspiracy theory is so baseless that even the NRA has debunked it.

So now we have the religious right joining forces with Alex Jones and the militiamen of America to propagate lies so bad that Joel Surnow wouldn't even touch it. Oh, damn. I hope I haven't given him an idea for a new "24" movie.