Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a wildcard in the current debate over gun violence, National Rifle Association President David Keene told reporters Thursday.
Reid has been praised by the NRA in the past, but Keene said he wasn’t sure if the top Senate Democrat would be on the NRA’s side of things as gun violence legislation moves through Congress after Newtown. He said partisan pressures are pushing against Reid’s pro-gun nature.
“He’s under incredible pressuure right now because he’s got as any member of Congress or senator does he’s got his own beliefs. He’s got the views and the demands of his constiuents on the one hand and the pressure he faces from party leaders and his president on the other,” Keene said at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “So where Harry Reid ends up in this debate is anybody’s guess and I think that’s one of the guessing games that’s going on around Washington now.”
Asked to make his own guess on where Reid stands, Keene demurred.
“From his public statements, he wants these things discussed in depth,” Keene said. “He’s said most recently that members ought to read what’s being proposed and ought to make up their own minds.”
Keene said he and Reid have not talked during the current debate over guns.
