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.
Are you familiar with the original intent of the 2nd Amendment? It has nothing to do with hunting.
I suppose the fact that they more than doubled the size of the police department had nothing whatsoever to do with that.
And if we support gun control in Iraq, the whole business of us "fighting for the freedom of Iraqis" is BS.
Do you know why the founders included the 2nd Amendment in the Constitution? Fair warning, the answer might scare you.
Killing machines are exactly what guns are!
You're being labeled due to your gross ignorance of the 2nd Amendment, not your candidate.
I know you don't trust him. You have made that very evident and there is no way to convince you to so I don't worry about that.
Kyoto is a treaty which must be confirmed by the Senate. It has rejected said treaty by 99-0 or 99-1. I don't see Rudy resubmitting it come what may. This cannot be proven to your satisfaction no doubt.
Stay tuned. I'm sure the subject will come up in debates.
Well, there's the whole defending a traitor in court thing...
What crap. Militias were barely able to defend themselves against Indians much less a modern military. And there is no "well-regulated" militia today.
Honest question. Do you truly believe that your posts on the 2nd Amendment are likely to convince gun owners with reservations about Rudy to vote for him? I'm genuinely curious.
Since I am not a spokesman for Giuliani what do my opinions have to do with anything?
And there is certainly nothing false in my statement in any case.
Myths about the militias need to face the light of day. We won our independence because George Washington built a federal army along professional lines. He had nothing but problems with militia's which were notoriously unreliable and ineffective. This isn't a secret.
Western settlements continually clamored for more military aid from Washington against the Indians knowing full well the weakness of militias. This also is not a secret.
And you are not going to pretend that there is any militia today which is well regulated are you?
Militia's were important to the Founders as auxillaries necessary fot the security of a Free State not a force to war against one.
That is fine let it.
"Sensible gun laws" = code talk for total prohibition for everyone except police, military, politicians and celebrities (The NYC way)
It seemed to me like you were supporting him in the primaries. If I were a casual gun-owner on the fence about whether or not to vote for Rudy, your posts would have convinced me not to. The Giuiani supporters would do much less damage if they simply admitted that Rudy is wrong on guns, and stressed his positives instead.
What critical situation was that? Individual gun ownership by honest citizens?
The number of gun point robberies, especially in the outer boroughs of NYC justified this action, and
Do you seriously think that robbers are following gun laws? Or could it be that he increased the police force from 23,000 to 55,000 MIGHT have had something to do with it.
I for one feel safe traveling through these areas where 15 years ago only would if you were crazy
Typical New Yorker thinks guns cause crime. Tell me do you think flies cause sh!t? I hold people like you in contempt, not so much for their views, but for their arrogance in not critically examinining those views in the light of reason.
Don't worry, Rudy is not going to Waco anyone.
Tell that to the people his JBTs arrested for violating the Dinkins semi-auto ban.
Bottom line if you don't know enough about Rudy, read his book Leadership.....
I' ll read his liberal POS book when I read Hillary's and Obama's and for the same reason.
"No real Republican would really vote for any of these three, would they?"
Real republicans probably would
I know of very few real conservatives who would.
I will support Rudy in the General election but do not know whom I will vote for in the Illinois primary. That depends upon the specific situation at the time.
There is no way to convince you about him so don't pretend there is.
Where do you get this horse sh!t? there have only been 745 NYC police killed in the line of duty in the last 100 years including a number of other agencies that were assimilated into the NYC police in the early 20th century and that includes 23 that were killed by the 9/11 terrorists. Armor piercing pistol rounds have NEVER been available to the general populace although they have been issues to police and FBI for decades. Any police officers killed by those would have been "friendly fire" casualties
You're absolutely right about that. I was referring to less ideological gun owners.
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