the not-so-sweet 16

In one of the United States' most lopsided gun votes in the nation's recent history, there was broad, bi-partisan support for a recent pro-gun bill in the Senate. 

Of the entire senate, a measly 16 Senators voted against Senator Vitter's legislation to prohibit the usage of taxpayer funds from the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill to be used for the purpose of confiscating lawfully owned guns in the event of an emergency, such as what occurred in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. 

They were all democrats: 

Akaka (D-HI)
Boxer (D-CA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Reed (D-RI)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)

Of all times to confiscate weapons, though they are all bad, the period directly after a disaster with widespread lawlessness when self-defense is most crucial, is most certainly one of the worst to choose.  These 16 democrats stuck with their anti-gun, anti-2nd amendment convictions and voted against this legislation. 

All OTHER 28 democrats in the senate, joined by every one of the 55 republicans voted for this common sense legislation. 

"Of course the dems consider the public to be immature.  It's typical leftism.  The left thinks your average person doesn't know how to take care of himself, his family, his property, or his finances.  Thus, they seek to control and regulate these things through use of the government. "
This is complex shit,  and it is here that behaviorist psychology becomes important. Now, organisms are stimulated and shaped by the environment. They seek to change it (response) and the response from the environment dictates if the organism tries again. It is not fit for a dictionary but the gist is that people are containers for almost everything and they act accordingly. Free will is thus an illusion. Now, the left and the right both want people to escape negative influences so that they act in a positive, constructive manner. The issue is that they can't decide what is good for an individual and what type of emitted responses are good for society. The left recognizes that people are very much subject to the environment, but instead of getting to the core of the problems they try to put focus on symbols and emitted behaviors (gun ownership) instead of trying to give people ideals and virtues to stand for. The right adheres to heavily to the idea of the self-made man and therefore ignores that individual self-fulfillment causes positive and negative effects in the surroundings. They believe ideals and virtues prevent selfish strivings from leading to negative behavior but they see people as completely responsible if they fail to follow the virtues. Philosophically, I can't agree with either but I do believe neither supernatural doctrines or the idea of social justice are factors that can be allowed in America anymore. The libertarians try to stand above the bickering and vitriol by lamenting and pitying everybody else.