By JM Rieger and Niels Lesniewski

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid lashed out on the National Rifle Association on Thursday as he served notice Democrats would push gun violence amendments during the Senate vote-a-rama on a budget bill.”Now, there was a time in my legislative career that I tried to work with the National Rifle Association, but the NRA today is a far cry from [the] sportsmen’s organization that I once supported,” the Nevada Democrat said. “The NRA once called mandatory background checks ‘reasonable.’ That’s what they said. I’m not making this up.” Reid said on the Senate floor that the NRA and its leadership has “transformed into a quasi-militant wing of the Republican Party. They’re being pushed more and more into the camp of guns for everybody any time they want ’em,” also mentioning the emergence of a conservative firearms group known as the Gun Owners of America. The move to get the votes on gun policy amendments comes the day after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., that left 14 dead. Read more.