This afternoon The Hill's Alexander Bolton and Jonathan Easley opened their story  "Reid guts Senate gun control bill," with the Nevada Democrat's admission that Sen. Dianne Feinstein's assault weapons ban has at most 40 votes, while 51 are needed for passage and 60 to end cloture. Democrats, you may recall, control 55 seats in the upper chamber of Congress, including the two held by left-leaning independents. This admission shows just how unwilling red-state Democrats are to sign on to an assault weapons ban, especially one that most certainly go down in flames in the Republican-controlled House.

But in reporting the same development, the AP's Alan Fram waited until the fifth paragraph to get to the cold, hard truth that Senate Democrats are gun-shy on pushing a new weapons ban: