[pygame] checking mouse button state

["Jake b" <ninmonkeys@xxxxxxxxx>]

I want to do a simple:

        if LeftMouseDown(): fire()

But it is failing. Right now both ways I try, it only says the button is down if the mouse is moving. If I stay at the same x,y coord, it says the button not pressed(but it is).

# code:
events = pygame.event.get()
for event in events:
    
    # 1) this block doesn't seem to work right unless moving mouse:
    (b1,b2,b3) = pygame.mouse.get_pressed()
    if b1:                
        self.player.fire()
        print 'down'
    
    #else, tried: 2) 
    if self.mouse.down:# or True:        
        self.player.fire()
        print 'down'
    
    if event.type == MOUSEMOTION: pass
    elif event.type == MOUSEBUTTONDOWN: self.mouse.down = True
    elif event.type == MOUSEBUTTONUP: self.mouse.down = False

    
I'm surprised at method #2 failing, since I never change the value of mouse.down anywhere else in the code, except those two lines above.
-- 
Jake