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Gun control lessons from Lyndon Johnson (Lays out their game plan)
The Washington Post ^ | December 16, 2012 | Secretary Joseph A. Califano Jr.

Posted on 12/16/2012 10:05:48 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

If ever there were a moment for President Obama to learn from history, it is now, in the wake of Friday’s shootings at the elementary school at Newtown, Conn. The timely lesson for Obama, drawn from the experience of Lyndon B. Johnson — the last president to aggressively fight for comprehensive gun control — is this: Demand action on comprehensive gun control immediately from this Congress or lose the opportunity during your presidency.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (just weeks after the fatal shooting of Martin Luther King Jr. and only a few years after President John F. Kennedy was shot), President Johnson pressed Congress to enact gun control legislation he had sent to Capitol Hill years earlier. LBJ ordered all of us on his staff — and urged allies in Congress — to act swiftly. “We have only two weeks, maybe only 10 days,” he said, “before the gun lobby gets organized.” He told Larry O’Brien and me, “We’ve got to beat the NRA [National Rifle Association] into the offices of members of Congress.”

For three years Johnson’s bill had been locked in the Senate Judiciary Committee by a powerful army of gun lobbyists. But LBJ was always poised to grasp any opportunity to achieve his legislative objectives, even in the most horrendous circumstances. He had used the tragedy of King’s assassination in 1968 to “at least get something for our nation” out of it, finally persuading the House to pass the Fair Housing bill he had sent it in 1966. Johnson saw in the tragedy of the assassination of Robert Kennedy in June of 1968 a chance to get his gun bill enacted...

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Issues; U.S. Congress; U.S. Senate
KEYWORDS: 1966; 1968; assassinationplots; banglist; crisis; democrats; fairhousingbill; guncontrol; lbj; leftwingnuts; martinlutherking; obama; opportunists; secondamendment
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To: Tzar

Most guns are registered in one form or another- illegal aliens not so much


41 posted on 12/17/2012 6:28:30 AM PST by Nailbiter
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To: PapaNew
The MO of the Leftists. Tragedies should never go wasted and unused. The Demagoguery Party (AKA the DEMOgogbureauCRATS) will use any excuse for more government and more regulations.

And that, my FRiend, is EXACTLY what our spineless *G*OP should be saying in front of the cameras, 24/7!

42 posted on 12/17/2012 7:41:33 AM PST by Jane Long (Philippians 2:11)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"Demand action on comprehensive gun control immediately from this Congress or lose the opportunity during your presidency."

Overton Window

The Overton window is a political theory that describes as a narrow "window" the range of ideas that the public will find acceptable, and that states that the political viability of an idea is defined primarily by this rather than by politicians' individual preferences.[1] It is named for its originator, Joseph P. Overton,[2] a former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.[3] At any given moment, the “window” includes a range of policies considered politically acceptable in the current climate of public opinion, which a politician can recommend without being considered too extreme to gain or keep public office.

43 posted on 12/17/2012 7:53:13 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum ("The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state." - Cornelius Tacitus, Roman Senator)
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To: Freedom of Speech Wins
The ironic part of this is that LBJ may have been behind what happened to JFK.

He was the one who derived the greatest benefit from the assassination.

44 posted on 12/17/2012 8:19:02 AM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed &water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: The Working Man
One at a time, I’m afraid, one at a time. On the other hand the actual people doing the ground work may find out a very unpleasant truth. It won’t be as easy in practice as it was on paper.

They'll have to shut down the internet, or at least selected sites like FR. Otherwise word would get out as soon as the first few confiscations occurred, and the next group would be prepared to either fight or explain about that boating accident.

45 posted on 12/17/2012 8:26:50 AM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed &water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS, NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Simple. Passive collection.

You do not go door to door, busting down barracaded houses.

You collect them as the result of other criminal investigations. You got burglarized? “Sir, we need to check the house for evidence.” Domestic violence? Arrest everyone then ransack the house.

Felonies given out every time you find one.


46 posted on 12/17/2012 8:44:44 AM PST by Lazamataz (LAZ'S LAW: As an argument with liberals goes on, the probability of being called racist approaches 1)
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To: The Working Man

I agree with you entirely which is why anyone but a sociopath would stop “nudging”. Zero isn’t just any old sociopath. He wants to see if he can out do Uncle Joe, Mao, Hitler, all of them. Sort of like a high school punk who puts “anarchist” on his FB page wants to see if he can do better than Kleebold. Sick bastards, all of them.


47 posted on 12/17/2012 10:04:17 AM PST by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: Lazamataz

Simple. Passive collection.


I agree that would work in the long-term. I just don’t think they are thinking long-term here. Their goal is in sight and I think that will overrule their normal patterns of incrementalism. They won’t be able to keep it slow either once they reach the edge of their own slippery-slope, it will snowball into an avalanche and they will be lucky if they can keep in front of it. My guess is that they will be over-run by events completely out of their control.


48 posted on 12/17/2012 11:05:57 AM PST by The Working Man
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Comment #49 Removed by Moderator


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