Gun owners criticize Senator Dan Coats

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Indiana Senator Dan Coats is under fire from Tea Party members who accuse him of failing to support the Second Amendment.

It’s because the Republican is working to find a compromise on gun control legislation in the wake of the Orlando shooting.

Sen. Coats is a supporter of the Second Amendment but, in his first tour in the Senate in the 1990’s, he voted for an assault weapons ban, a position he no longer supports.

That leads some in the guns rights community to question his current position.

“Senator Coats does not believe known or suspected terrorists should be able to purchase firearms,” according to his spokesman, Matt Lahr. “But he also believes that due process rights must be preserved in order to protect the fundamental Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens.”

Yet conservatives on Facebook are on the attack. “It’s down right treason,” declared one.

Another said Coats should “vote like the conservative he campaigns as.”

And yet another labeled the Indiana Republican an “establishment idiot.”

The Coats position is similar to that of Democrat Senator Joe Donnelly who spoke on the Senate floor during this week’s filibuster.

“I am a supporter of the Second Amendment,” he said. “I’m also someone who believes it’s reasonable for all of us to consider smart and responsible ways to reduce gun violence. Those things are not in opposition to each other.”

Donnelly said simply that somone on a terrorist watch list should not be permitted to buy a gun.

The Senate is expected to vote on Monday on a pair of amendments that take different approaches to banning gun sales to people on watch lists.

They are votes that likely will do little to quell the debate over gun control.