Posted on 10/27/2006 10:31:11 PM PDT by epow
Political Report: Pro-Gun Lip Service
POLITICAL REPORT
CHRIS COX, NRA-ILA Executive Director
More and more anti-gun candidates have realized that they must give lip service to the Second Amendment, camouflaging their real anti-freedom agendas until they are safely in office.
You and I are members of a proud and very large community. It is estimated that America’s sport shooting and hunting community is home to 47 million voters. Our size translates into a simple political truth: Candidates for office at all levels--federal, state and local--know they can’t afford to ignore us at election time.
Consequently, we have seen anti-gun groups grow increasingly desperate to protect their political friends whom they know will vote to destroy our rights upon taking office. This desperation has ratcheted up in the last several election cycles, as the online efforts of the nation’s bloggers have proven that the truth can no longer be completely filtered, spun and distorted by the likes of Dan Rather, Michael Moore and the editorial writers at The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Our opponents are working overtime on perfecting their camouflage this year because they believe that our Second Amendment majorities in the U.S. Senate and House are within their grasp this November.
Today, rare is the anti-gun politician who can mount a successful drive for elective office without seeing the ghost of Tom Daschle in his rearview mirror. Pro-gun challenger John Thune defeated the powerful Senate minority leader in 2004, in part because bloggers were able to circumvent coverage in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader--South Dakota’s only statewide newspaper, and a paper gun owners and others viewed as utterly biased in favor of Daschle.
With voters being constantly reminded of the gaping chasm between Daschle’s voting record in Washington and his statements back home--together with the Argus Leader’s refusal to acknowledge the same--the game was up for the minority leader. He became the first Senate leader in half a century to be voted out of office.
So now more than ever, anti-gunners seek to wrap themselves in the Second Amendment banner and claim allegiance with shooters and hunters. This political season, the camo came out of the closet early with the creation of the American Hunters and Shooters Association (AHSA), a group that sees gun bans as somehow not infringing on the Second Amendment. For an in-depth look at this new group, which promises to provide political cover to enemies of our firearms freedoms, please go to Anti-Gunners Don Camo As Aelection Looms.
This earnest effort to repackage the anti-gun agenda can’t be lightly dismissed. Two years ago, we saw John Kerry in his presidential bid desperately seeking not to repeat Al Gore’s 2000 campaign mistake of dismissing gun owners and sportsmen. Kerry--despite his two-decades-long anti-gun voting record--boldly marched to the Senate podium and declared: “I believe American gun owners are right to act responsibly and to live by common sense, and I am proud to stand with those gun owners today … gun rights and gun responsibilities are mainstream American values, and that is what we should vote for in the Senate.”
With his voice still echoing in the Senate chamber, Kerry showed he was actually standing behind gun owners with a poised knife in hand, as he proceeded to vote to ban semi-automatics, to destroy gun shows and to ban the vast majority of centerfire rifle ammunition. He then took every opportunity to gut the gun-industry junk lawsuit preemption bill. Did he really think we were not watching, not keeping score?
Two years ago, Kerry unwittingly became the poster boy for anti-gun politicians whose “support” of the Second Amendment is limited only to those rights they judge appropriate for the rest of us common folks.
As I’ve said before, it comes down to cynical political calculus in the end. Anti-gun candidates have now accepted that they must give grudging lip service--not unwavering support--to the Second Amendment.
Our opponents will not abandon their broad agenda of attacking our fundamental rights, but they will--with the Gore, Daschle and Kerry defeats in mind--try to polish their rhetoric to such a brilliance that gun owners and sportsmen are so blinded that they can’t see such troublesome things as anti-gun voting records.
Our opponents are working overtime on perfecting their camouflage this year because they believe that our Second Amendment majorities in the U.S. Senate and House are within their grasp this November. All they have to do is just lie skillfully enough to fool, confuse and dishearten enough voters in the shooting and hunting community. They’re betting a lot of money that they can.
Very, very few Democrats running for national office are actually pro-2nd Amendment no matter what they say or what these fake pro-gun orgs claim about them.
Busy Saturday bump. Vote pro-2nd Amendment, the antis are hoping that we have become complacent about our RKBA over the last 6 years.
The new tact I've noted this go around is that they will claim straight out to support the 2nd Amendment and NOT FURTHER CLARIFY what that means to them. They won't mention guns at all.
They want us to read into their assertion that they support the individual citizen's rights when they in fact do not.
If pressed, they will speak of hunting rights and traditions. Push them on their views on Hollocaust Prevention and the importance of privately owned small arms.
BTW--the tell-tale BS of the new fake-gun owners group is that they copy their crap from HGCI without thinking "Would an actual gun owner know this is bulls*it?"---They STILL MENTION 'cop killer' bullets as a problem.
Right, using terms like that is a dead giveaway to what kind of people we're dealing with.
Anyone who is even minimally knowledgeable about guns and projectiles knows that any type of bullet is a potential cop killer if it's fired with the intention of killing a cop. I have a little Beretta 950B chambered for the relatively ineffective .22 short cartridge. If I fired it into a LEO's forehead from close range, it's tiny 29 grain soft lead projectile would instantly become just as much a cop-killer bullet as the Teflon-coated FMJ bullets Schmucky Schumer calls cop killers. Gungrabbers are pathological liars incapable of telling the truth, and that gives them away every time they open their mouths.
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