UPSET GUN OWNERS SET TO DUMP BUSH

Worldnetdaily ^ | April 17, 2003 | By Jon Dougherty

[Uncle Bill]

Upset Gun Owners Set To Dump Bush

Shooters angered with White House support for firearm ban

Worldnetdaily
By Jon Dougherty
April 17, 2003

Unhappy with President Bush's decision to support continuation of a controversial gun ban passed during the Clinton administration, many gun owners say they'll dump Bush in 2004 and vote for someone else if he signs new legislation extending the prohibition.

Angel Shamaya, founder and executive director of the KeepAndBearArms.com website, said in a single day some 4,300 people responded to a poll on the site asking if respondents would continue to support Bush if he renewed a ban on so-called "assault weapons," initially passed in 1994.

According to polling results by midday yesterday, that figure had climbed to near 4,900 people, with most – more than 93 percent – responding "no" to this question: "If Congress votes to re-authorize the 1994 Clinton/Feinstein federal so-called 'Assault Weapons' ban, gives the bill to President Bush and he signs it into law, would you still vote for him in his bid for re-election to the presidency in 2004?"

Less than 7 percent said they'd still support Bush if he aids in reauthorizing the legislation.

The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, among other things, banned the manufacture and importation of certain military-style semi-automatic rifles, dubbed "assault weapons" by bill supporters, while limiting magazine capacity to just 10 rounds. It is considered a crowning achievement for anti-gun groups, but to get more support, the bill's sponsors inserted a 10-year sunset provision, which takes effect in September 2004 – weeks before the general election.

Gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association were hoping the GOP-controlled Congress would allow the law to expire. The current Congress and administration are considered the most gun-rights friendly in a more than a decade, but Bush's comments last week threw that presumption into doubt. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told Knight-Ridder newspapers that the president "supports the current law, and he supports reauthorization of the current law."

"There is no such thing as gun control, only incremental gun prohibition," said Brian Puckett, co-founder of national gun-rights organization Citizens of America, of the ban itself. "Gun owners must grasp another political reality, which is: Allowing the government to get away with dictating the features of some guns sets the judicial, legislative and psychological precedent for allowing them to dictate the features of all guns."

"Our gun-rights organization, along with many others, took a stand for Bush in and after the 2000 election," Shamaya told WorldNetDaily. "From urging even Libertarians and third-party voters to support him to helping account for 'lost' military votes in case it came down to that, we fought to turn the Texas governor into a president. If supporting a semi-automatic rifle ban – the Feinstein/Clinton gun ban, no less – is how he intends to repay us, he's lost his marbles."

While the results of the KABA poll are non-scientific, they do provide a glimpse into the angst of gun owners. As WorldNetDaily reported, some lawmakers and gun-rights advocates are also upset with Bush's stance.

"I was surprised and disappointed to learn of the report of the president's support for continuing the ban on homeland-security rifles, aka semi-auto rifles," said Larry Pratt, executive director of Virginia-based Gun Owners of America, a group with 300,000 members nationwide.

"I am also puzzled. Why would George Bush want to help Democrats? The issue, when it was opposed by most Republicans, cost Democrats the House in 1994 and the White House in 2000," Pratt said. "Banning the homeland-security rifle is pure Washington, but anti-Constitution and anti-homeland security."

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, also decried the current ban and does not support the president's position to renew it.

Gun-rights supporters voiced their opinions to WorldNetDaily regarding Bush's decision.

"I will not vote for [Bush] if this ban is in place by Election Day," one WND reader said. "I am a Republican who will vote for a Democrat if I have to, if they fight against this bill. All of my conservative, gun-owning friends are exactly the same as me."

"Recently we saw on TV our soldiers handing out AK-47s to Iraqi volunteer cops," said another reader. "Our government handing out AK-47s to people they do not know, folks that have not passed an FBI background check … Yet our government would fall over backwards before even suggesting that Americans arm themselves. Quite hypocritical, I think."

"I've said long ago that 'we'd see' about Bush on guns when this opportunity finally came about," said another. "What a non-surprise. One could wrap a dill pickle in a Godiva Chocolate box and bow, but the contents remain the same. …"

Not all gun owners have criticized Bush's decision.

"He stated during the campaign he supported the law. I am pro-guns and pro-NRA, but I agree that Bush should support this assault-weapons ban," said one reader. "When in Washington you have to pick your fights carefully and this is not one worth expending political capital on."

Gun-rights activists were also upset by the president's stance because it comes at a time when a new series of lawsuits against gun makers is being launched by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and others.

One retailer/activist, Concealed Carry Inc., of Oak Brook, Ill., has even begun a campaign to "cooperate with the NAACP" and is refusing to sell firearms to blacks.

"I am going to use the broad authority granted me as a federally licensed gun dealer to prevent straw purchases by denying sales to African-Americans. To insure fairness, there will be no exceptions," said John Birch, president of Concealed Carry Inc. He said he'll continue to ban sales to African-Americans "until the NAACP asks us to, at which point we will be pleased to resume sales."

"We must let Bush and the Republican party know that if they don't support our rights we will either refuse to go to the polls or we will vote for a third party," Puckett said. "If you give them your vote even when they sell you out, they'll keep selling you out."

"President Bush created the so-called Homeland Security Department, yet he wants to continue a ban on homeland-security rifles and has done nothing to protect the sieve laughably called a border," Shamaya added. "Bush's support for a ban on semi-automatic rifles is a vote to leave patriots in this great nation with inferior defensive capabilities."

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BUSH WRONG ON FIREARMS

As I Predicted, George W. Bush Is Backing Bill Clinton's Gun Ban

[Uncle Bill]

You better tell Bush to wake up and smell the powder.

Indeed it was claimed by former President Bill Clinton that the lobbying efforts of the NRA and other pro-gun groups were directly responsible for the Democratic loss of the House of Representatives in the 2000 election and partially responsible for Al Gore's loss of the Presidency to George W. Bush.

In an interview with CBS News on December 18th 2001, "You've got to give it to them, they've done a good job. They've probably had more to do than anyone else in the fact that we didn't win the house this time. And they hurt Al Gore."

USA Today quipped, "Guns played a key role in Gore's loss of Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia, any one of which could have delivered him the presidency."
SOURCE: Armed Females of America - Pro-Gun Women On Full Auto

[Chirodoc]

OOps sorry, you beat me to it by a few minutes.

[Uncle Bill]

Bush's Support Of Extending The Assault Weapons Ban Should Come As No Surprise

[Uncle Bill]

Hi, no problem. Two is better than one. 8-)

[Diddle E. Squat]

And then Hillary will executive order a gun registration, followed by incremental bans.

Way to go, Mensa militia.

[Mortimer Snavely]

Wonderful choices we have here: heads, increasing government intrusion and gun control, tails, increasing government intrusion and gun control.

[Consort]

Indeed it was claimed by former President Bill Clinton that the lobbying efforts of the NRA and other pro-gun groups were directly responsible for the Democratic loss of the House of Representatives in the 2000 election and partially responsible for Al Gore's loss of the Presidency to George W. Bush.

Very patriotic of them and they have a duty to continue to keep the Democrats out of power for the sake of all of us and our children. Vote straight GOP ticket. Case closed. No more BS. Next thread.

[nopardons]

No, she won't go the incrimental route ; she'll demand ALL guns ... immediately.

[Uncle Bill]

Don't look at this as an issue. Consider this life and death. I can tell you most informed gun owners do that love, respect and adhere to the Constitution.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

...how will conservatives ever hold on to power if everyone abandons our president based on our respective "one special issue"s?...

Direct that one to the President.

He's the one doing the abandoning; in this case, of the gunowners, who put him into the White House. Does he hope to pick up more votes, from the middle? It didn't work, for his father.

[.45MAN]

(((ping)))

[Uncle Bill]

"Wonderful choices we have here: heads, increasing government intrusion and gun control, tails, increasing government intrusion and gun control."

Isn't it the truth. Maybe Bill Clinton's mentor was right.

"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one perhaps of the Right, and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.... [E]ither party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same policies".[1]
Professor Carroll Quigley
[1]Tragedy and Hope - The History of the World in Our Time - (New York : Macmillan, 1966) - pages 1247-1248.

[Byron_the_Aussie]

..you've got to give it to them, they've done a good job. They've probably had more to do than anyone else in the fact that we didn't win the house this time...

Right.

There's the President's debt, right there. All he has to do is pay it back and the gunowners will do a 'good job' next time, too.

[Drammach]

We will have some 300,000 marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen coming home before 2004.
They will have a new perspective concerning freedom and guns.

I don't think many of them will appreciate any anti-gun measures.
A voting block that large cannot be ignored by Bush or any other candidate.
I am assuming for now that if push comes to shove, Bush will do the right thing and refuse to sign an extension to the AW ban.

I could be wrong, but he's done the right thing concerning Terrorists, Afghanistan and Iraq. (so far)

I too, consider this a "life and death" issue.
I will not vote for Bush if he fails us and all gun owners.

[CyberCowboy777]

if he signs new legislation extending the prohibition.

Key

All the hype is pointless at this point - conact your congressman and this will never get to the POTUS desk.

[spunkets]

"This is hopelessly silly, how will conservatives ever hold on to power if everyone abandons our president based on our respective "one special issue"s?"

That one special issue happens to be Freedom. CFR and now this, both are unconstitutional limits signed into law. We're also a Homeland now. Is that why the Constitution doesn't count anymore? What happened to the US? How soon before I need a govm't training program on how to wipe my butt properly?

" Besides, im sure there are alot of other gun laws that Bush is against which Kerrey would pass."

That's right let's all get along, so the boogy man don't come. Follow the leader boys and girls. Here's are new flag. The flag of the homeland.

Do you think if we just let him do whatever he wants w/o complaining he'll let us go for another 3, or 4 years before he lets 'em toss in a junk food tax? That would be great!