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.
New York has had gun control legislation in effect since 1911, when the Sullivan Act was passed.
We're four years shy of New York celebrating 100 years of gun control.
Gun control was in effect long before Giuliani came into town. Why else do you think crime was so bad? It took tough, authoritarian crime-fighting measures to bring it down. Nice for New York, but it wouldn't have gotten so bad if gun control hadn't been introduced to begin with. And if Rudy thinks of pulling off the same legislation if (God forbid) he becomes President, it won't go over so well.
Learn your history. Gun control
is foolish.
Stupid enter button.
Actually, that's his record talking.
But then I'll take your opinion with a grain of salt after reading that you are supporting a loser like Duncan Whathisname.
And what is this? Conservative = Loser?
He is a liberal. New York City would have nothing else.
And hurling insults is unbecoming a lady.
Sure you are.
I will not vote for anyone who is against my second amendment rights. No conservative would vote for someone like that.
Oh, gag me.
I agree.
Rudy doesn't have very high regard for the Bill of Rights. Today he takes away guns, tomorrow freedom of speech. That's some candidate ya got there.
The NRA is making a mistake by backing the nutballs who want to own and sell assault rifles used in combat.
***The purpose of owning guns is for self protection and having a militia (cheap, fast, quickly available army) ready for when there is trouble. The purpose of a gun (other than hunting, which isn't part of the 2nd amendment, contrary to rudy's amazingly skewed legal perspective) is to shoot people, in defense of self. An assault rifle is just more efficient at doing what guns do. The traditional cutoff between militia weapons and army weapons was cannons/artillery, and the AR15 is certainly not a cannon nor artillery. If people like you have this little regard for the constitution and the checks & balances of power, then we leave ourselves open for any kind of fast-talking tin-horn dictator to step in & take over after a "national emergency". Wait, that sounds a lot like rudy. So that's why you like him so much.
I have a reproduction 1859 sharps, 1858 three band enfield and A M1 Garand,all types of these rifles were at one time used in combat
Rudy is wrong
What the anti-Giuliani posters on here fail to understand is that Rudy has a micromanagement style, where his specific attack against gun laws was aimed at a critical situation.
The number of gun point robberies, especially in the outer boroughs of NYC justified this action, and I for one feel safe traveling through these areas where 15 years ago only would if you were crazy.
Don't worry, Rudy is not going to Waco anyone.
Think of his approach as a localized one to communities than can not handle guns....no different than airports.
Bottom line if you don't know enough about Rudy, read his book Leadership.....rather than generalizing his approach in NYC to the whole country.
The RudyBots may think that it's just awful that such neanderthal "single-issue" voters won't support their guy. Ah, well... c'est la guerre.
In truth, I'm not a single-issue voter. I care about a number of issues, on several of which Giuliani has an unacceptable position. The Second Amendment issue, though, is the first tripwire for me. Rudy can't even clear that first hurdle in order for me to consider him on other issues.
You've gotta start somewhere in appraising these candidates; I just so happen to start with the RKBA - and I suspect many others do, too.
Rudy is not tough, once you take away all the JQ laws around him. Just another cream puff pol from Lawn Guyland.
Damn, we have a had an influx of libs here crawling out of the woodwork.
I'm the NRA and I vote. And I won't vote for anybody that is in favor of "sensible" gun laws. The only sensible gun law is the second amendment.
Hmm. I understand that Giuliani attempted to kill off gun manufacturers by suing them into bankruptcy, because he thought the existing gun control laws were too lax. If all he had done was see to it that existing laws (which preceded his administration by many years) were aggressively enforced and criminals punished, it'd be hard to call him a gun-grabber. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
Rudy's authoritarian, micro-managing style of governing might work in a place like NYC, but the fact is that most of the nation neither needs nor would welcome such measures.
My advice to Rudy, learn how to shake hands like a man and look me straight in the eye when you do so..........
As for the NRA, Rudy you've already lost my vote...........
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