Posted on 04/05/2007 12:47:51 PM PDT by mrhansen
BOSTON - To hear Mitt Romney talk on the campaign trail, you might think the Republican presidential candidate had a gun rack in the back of his pickup truck.
"I purchased a gun when I was a young man. I've been a hunter pretty much all my life," he said this week in Keene, N.H., to a man sporting a National Rifle Association cap.
Yet the former Massachusetts governor's hunting experience is limited to two trips at the bookends of his 60 years: as a 15-year-old, when he hunted rabbits with his cousins on a ranch in Idaho, and last year, when he shot quail on a fenced game preserve in Georgia.
Last year's trip was an outing with major donors to the Republican Governors Association, which Romney headed at the time.
An aide said Wednesday that Romney was not trying to mislead anyone, although he confirmed Romney had been hunting only on those occasions in his life.
"Governor Romney's support for the Second Amendment doesn't come from the fact he knows how to handle a firearm; it comes from his appreciation of the Constitution and the rights enshrined in it, including the right to keep and bear arms," said campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.
He went on to cite the pro-gun measures Romney signed into law while serving as governor from 2003 to this past January.
Romney himself made several of the same points to the Keene audience, while also trying to offer some perspective on his hunting experience.
"I support the Second Amendment," he told the man who had asked about his views on the constitutional right to bear arms. "I purchased a gun when I was a young man. I've been a hunter pretty much all my life. I've never really shot anything terribly big. I used to hunt rabbits."
Romney added: "Shooting a rabbit with a single-shot .22 is pretty hard, and after watching me try for a couple of weeks, (my cousins) said, 'We'll slip you the semiautomatic. You'll do better with that.' And I sure did."
On the Georgia excursion, he said, "I knocked quite a few birds and enjoyed myself a great deal."
Expressing familiarity with and support for gun rights is key among Republican presidential contenders, who count gun owners, members of the military and the NRA itself among their potential supporters.
It helps explain why Romney joined the NRA last August, signing up not just as a supporter but a designated "Lifetime" member, and why he has softened his gun control positions.
Romney told a Derry, N.H., audience, "I'm after the NRA's endorsement. I'm not sure they'll give it to me. I hope they will. I also joined because if I'm going to ask for their endorsement, they're going to ask for mine."
During a 1994 U.S. Senate campaign, Romney positioned himself as a moderate outsider, warning special interest groups to stay out of the race and saying he supported the Brady gun control law and a ban on assault rifles.
"That's not going to make me the hero of the NRA," he told the Boston Herald at the time. "I don't line up with a lot of special interest groups."
It's a theme he carried into his 2002 gubernatorial campaign. At the time, Romney pledged to do nothing to change the state's firearms statutes.
"We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts. I support them. I won't chip away at them. I believe they protect us and provide for our safety," he said.
True to his word, Romney went on to sign one of the toughest assault weapons laws in the country.
Romney, though, also took steps to protect the rights of gun owners as governor.
The assault weapons ban won the backing of Massachusetts gun owners in part because it included provisions extending the term of a firearms identification card and a license to carry weapons from four to six years. It also created a Firearm License Review Board to provide an appeals process for people whose license applications had been denied.
In 2006, Romney also signed NRA-backed legislation creating exemptions for the makers of customized target pistols who had found it too expensive to sell their guns in Massachusetts because of a state regulation requiring them to test at least five examples of new products "until destruction."
In February, Romney was touting such measures as he and his wife, Ann, toured the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show in Orlando, Fla., with Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president.
"I'm proud to be among the many decent, law-abiding men and women who safely use firearms," Romney said.
4. Preface your selective quote with and phase designed to lend even more credibility to the distortion.
Example:
‘Self described ‘life’-’long’ ‘hunter’...’
‘...confesses to being a ‘life’-’long’ ‘hunter’...’
‘...proudly proclaims himself to be a ‘life’-’long’ ‘hunter’...’
just go crazy with ‘’`’` ‘` ‘` `’`’`’`
Makes me think of Kerry, to tell the truth.
At least he isn’t orange.
Ironically I would not doubt that Kerry had been hunting before. It is a gentlemen's sport among the euro-socialists elite with whom he identifies. But again, hunting has squat to do with gun rights, and any condidate who makes some kind of deal about it is untrustworthy re RKBA.
And you just read a post from me for the first time in ten years? My my. You’re not paying attention. I have no reason to villify Romney who was a solid republican governor. I suggest you all stop your intramural destruction of the republican candidates.
You know nothing about my kind of dyslexic nor do you have my visiual and health issues. Moast of what I over came in my life was done on my own. In my day the teachers did not know nor care.
You are faultfinding with a disability, not something I always have control over!
You should stick to the topic, my bone with you is legit, we should not judge others or deni others in our lives just because they don’t agree with us!
You lump all those who are misguided in with those who are outright evil!
That is wrong for every once in a while you can persuade the misguided to do the right thing, you can never achieve that with evil!
Yes.
See you in 2017.
Curiously, when I was in college, this was my Number One pickup line.
I, too, have slidexia.
Seems as though they were,,
There are phonies, and there are Massachusetts phonies, and then there are Romneys. This guy is in a league of his own.
I have no words to describe this piece of trash.
He also supports Brady and the Non-sporting Weapons' Ban. Why should anyone who takes the Constitution seriously vote for this ... carpetbagger? (there, I found one)
For dyslexic it is because of the way the brain receives and preceives imformation, me I just a above average in my way of seeing things...
We all have gifts some are bless in the normal way in the way their brain funcition, others have to learn how to communicate with those who had set the norm.
Some outgrow it others are not that fortunate. I feel if it is understood early in one childhood and get counciling it can be over come, it was not until I was 21 before I discovered it had a name, I wish no one to live in the world of dyslexic thank God today much is being done!
Ok.. I’ll cut you some slack on the health issue. No offense.
"I purchased a gun when I was a young man. I've been a hunter pretty much all my life. I've never really shot anything terribly big. I used to hunt rabbits." link
Period.
You're referencing a different quote altogether.
Mitt is repeatedly claiming to be a lifelong hunter, sometimes giving the impression that he doesn't hunt frequently (maybe once a year?) and sometimes omitting that entirely. It's just a matter of the degree of exaggeration.
The really damning thing is that he starts talking about being a lifelong hunter (ha!) when asked about his views on the right to keep and bear arms!!
The really REALLY damning thing is that Mitt has a record of gun-grabbing.
Celestial "boy" for the LDS church
“This is overblown by the guys who want to trip him up.”
No, it’s not. He wants you to believe that he’s sympathetic to hunters by telling me he’s been a hunter all of his life. He’s asking for your trust, he’s saying that he understands gun rights, based on these two times.
As proof, he says he hunted when he was 14, and again when he was 57. He’s given up on the “owning a gun” lie because he got caught red-handed on it.
So if he’s in diapers when he’s a baby, and when he’s 90, would you believe him if he said he was in diapers all his life?
His history, recent and in the 2000’s and in 1994, shows him as a gun banner, who desperately needs your vote to get power.
Do you believe Hillary Clinton, who claims to be a duck hunter? Maybe she’d be a better guardian of the Second Amendment.
crawling around on the ground with my trusty shotgun hunting deer”.
Maybe that’s the way they do it in New England?
Alright, so you are comparing him to Hillary on guns?
Anyway, the bottom-line to me is I believe he will pursue friendly pro-NRA, but he is still pro assault weapons ban. If that is not good enough for some then find a candidate that will support that level of purity. However, that has been the position of all the recent Republican nominees for the last few cycles and to equate him to the level of Democrat or Rudy is pretty disingenious.
Yes, and to Kerry, Schumer, and Brady. They all say the same things.
As for “assault weapons” it all depends on the definition. If an assault weapon is a semiauto centerfire, and an “intermediate sniper rifle” and a “Saturday night special” it does not leave too much.
Mitt has no clue what an “assault weapon” is, so who knows what he’ll support for a ban?
Yes, I can hold out for a candidate who does not insult my intelligence by lying to me about themselves- that’s sort of important, and it’s why I bring in Hillary the Duck Hunter to compare with Mitt The Lifelong Hunter. They are both liars.
What has that got to do with his qualifications?
In his defense, guys don’t hunt like they used to. They golf. I doubt he would be a gun grabber.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.