Posted on 02/27/2007 11:33:50 PM PST by NormsRevenge
A little-noticed oddity of the 2008 presidential election field is that the three leading candidates for the Republican nomination have, at one time or another, gone to war with the NRA and its allies on the gun issue.
After six years of thumb-twiddling boredom – the issue has been off the radar in elections and in Congress – the gun lobby must have been a bit shocked when they realized what they faced: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, all once proud champions of sensible gun laws, are the odds-on favorites to carry the GOP banner.
Consider their histories:
McCain was the lead sponsor of federal legislation to close the gun show loophole. In 2000, he appeared in television ads in Colorado urging voters to pass a ballot initiative closing the loophole there.
Romney signed a state ban on assault weapons into law as Governor of Massachusetts. And as the Boston Globe has reported, he said during a debate in 2002 that he supported his state’s tough gun laws and vowed that he would not “chip away at them” because they “protect us and provide for our safety”
Giuliani aggressively went after illegal gun traffickers when he was mayor, and he filed a lawsuit against a bunch of major gun manufactures and dealers. He’s on record supporting tougher gun laws, including the assault weapons ban.
Now, the gun lobby is not subtle in responding to perceived threats. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre gave a speech six months after 9-11 comparing our old organization, Americans for Gun Safety, to al Qaeda and our founder to Osama bin Laden. LaPierre concluded, not without some hyperbole, that we were “a far greater threat to your freedom than any foreign force”.
So it’s no surprise that the NRA responded to this problem with overwhelming firepower.
First, they attacked John McCain, slathering his caricature on their magazine covers and calling him “one of the premier flag-carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment.” McCain buckled like he was gut-shot – he has stopped talking about guns (despite the fact that the gun show loophole remains open in most states), and he just brought on James Jay Baker, once the NRA’s lead man in Washington, as a strategist for his “kitchen cabinet.”
Then they took on Mitt Romney. After getting peppered with criticism for his gun positions, Romney, who does not own a gun, now calls himself a “proud” NRA member. He even toured a gun show with the NRA’s chief lobbyist Chris Cox, (the guy who took over for McCain’s kitchen-mate Baker).
Most recently, they trained their sights on Rudy Giuliani. In a press release this week, an NRA ally called the National Shooting Sports Federation warned: “Giuliani No Friend to Gun Owners.”
How Giuliani will respond is not yet clear – as the NSSF notes, there are conflicting signals out of his camp about where he stands today on guns.
But if Rudy Giuliani is anything, he’s tough. We hope that he treats these thugs the way he treated them back when he was cleaning up New York one turnstile-jumper at a time.
Our advice to Rudy: tell the NRA and its minions that you will not be cowed, and stick to your guns: you are a strong supporter of the rights of law-abiding citizens to own firearms. But rights come with responsibilities. And anyone who isn’t responsible about owning, selling, or using their guns should lose those rights.
What's his stand on pea shooters?
I can't comment, the lawsuit and all...
;) /s
including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Newsweek and on the NBC Evening News, The Today Show, Good Morning America, NPR and dozens of other outlets.
They are proud of THAT!!???
Jeeze, unless they were ATTACKING me, I'd NOT be proud of being in those outlets!
The 2nd Ammendment is a pretty good litmus test for where a man stands on the Constitution, and on the notions of limited government, the sovereign citizen, and all of that.
McCain is, besides being crazy, guilty of a pretty concentrated attack on the 1st Ammendment and I see no reason to believe the 2nd would be safe on his watch. But we'll never have to find out. McCain is only a contender in the minds of the newsies, and they haven't a clue about this or anything else. Oh, and in his own mind, but thats pretty irrelevant.
Romney is not a bad guy, he's a moderate, which to me means weak in the knees. I don't dislike him, but we're at war. I want someone a little tougher.
Giuliani is a Lieberman Republican, in my view. I like him, he gets it on the war, he's tough enough to lead us at war, and he's wrong on just about everything else. I'll vote for him if he's the nominee, and I'll do whatever I can to make sure he's not the nominee.
Here's to driving this grabber batty.
Well, he's much more likely to listen to his fellow gun-grabbers' advice than to mine, which is to drop the idea of running for POTUS and go back to making money for giving crappy speeches.
No real Republican would really vote for any of these three, would they?
They would if they were the nominee against any democrat in the final election.
Real Republicans don't let Clintons back in the White House
Just dayum.
The difference is the speed that the Constitution is destroyed. I remember the Clinton gun and magazine bans. I don't remember any significant anti-gunowner bill being passed the last 6 years.
he gets it on the war, he's tough enough to lead us at war, and he's wrong on just about everything else. I'll vote for him if he's the nominee, and I'll do whatever I can to make sure he's not the nominee.
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ditto, especially the primary part.
The Third Way movement and backers are a unique critter.. I wish more folks would do a little research on their own.. and make up their own minds about folks who seek a centristy middle of the road path and plead for both sides to join with them.
It's nothing more than socialism lite or that's how they would wish to portray it, but it's end game is the same as the full-blown version.
That America is getting sucked up by it and its proponents does not bode well for this nation and free peoples everywhere.
Non partisian for progressives. WHAT??????????? This group Americians for gun safety has about a 75 members. It is funded by mogal who owns Monster.com and other lefties. Beware.
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