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.
(I should note that Fred's a Republican and a staunch defender of the Bush Administration, so this was not meant in a mocking way).
Kinda like John Kerry explaining how he hunted deer, crawling through the woods etc.
I think Kerry was having a Viet Nam flashback.
Just because he joined the NRA has nothing to do with support of the 2nd Amendment. Beware Beware.
If hunting stories qualify a presidential candidate as pro-gun then I’d like to hear about his experiences that qualify him as pro-heterosexual—how many times, where, with whom, details....
Some of my good friends are Calvinist!
He supported the Assault Weapons Ban back in 94, but now he is claiming to be a pro-gun, all-American hunter type?
Yeah, ok...it’s only about hunting. /s
Maybe one of his wives does his own custom reloads while he is out on the campaign trail.
I guess I'd have to see you catch. LOL.
I am a lifelong dancer too. But never got paid for it. I danced when I was young and have taken it up again recently. I consider myself a lifelong dancer even though I didn't dance continuously. It's like riding a bike, catching a ball, shooting a gun, you never forget.
Feb 18 transcript in which Romney supports banning certain classes of firearms:
Stephanopoulos: Let’s talk about guns. You were supportive of the Brady bill, the handgun waiting period, in the past. You signed an assault weapon ban into law and you said, in the past, “I don’t line up with the NRA.”
Now, you…
Mitt Romney: Well, on that issue.
Stephanopoulos: Now you’re a member of the NRA.
Mitt Romney: Yes, and I know the NRA does not support an assault weapon ban. So I don’t line up on that particular issue with the NRA, either does President Bush. He likewise says he supported an assault weapon ban.
Today we don’t have the Brady bill because we have instantaneous background checks. That’s no longer a operative or needed measure. [so please don’t diss me for supporting it...]
But I’m a strong proponent of Second Amendment rights. I believe people, under our Constitution, have the right to bear arms. [Just not “assault weapons” whatever they are]
We have a gun in one of our homes. It’s not owned by me, it’s owned by my son, but I’ve always considered it sort of mine. [which is why I said I was a gun owner a month or so ago, but I’m really not]
Stephanopoulos: When did you join the NRA?
Mitt Romney: Within the last year and I signed up for a lifelong membership. I think they’re doing good things and I believe in supporting the right to bear arms. [exept “assault weapons” whatever they are]
I’ve been a hunter all my life, not frequently, but as a boy, when I worked on a ranch in Idaho, we used to go out shooting rabbits, because they were eating all the barley, and I got pretty good with a single shot .22 rifle, and been quail hunting more recently*. [But now I claim not to be good with a single-shot. It took the power and deadliness of a semi-auto to get those rabbits!]
So I’m a hunter and believe in Second Amendment rights, but I also believe that assault weapons are not needed in the public population.
[end transcript]
Romney supports a Federal ban on Assault Weapons, but I doubt he knows what they are.
*Yet when the hunters who were at the Governor’s Association posed with their guns and birds, Romney was not in the picture for some reason).
There are phonies, and there are Massachusetts phonies, and then there are Romneys. This guy is in a league of his own.
Yeah, Mitt, because semi-autos are much more deadly than single-shots, eh? He sure knows a lot about guns and hunting!
He’s not even a HINO.
“Maybe one of his wives”
He’s the only one in the top 3 or 4 pubbies who has only had one wife.
Play fair.
Unless Thompson actually does get into the race (he is tens of millions down right now, at this very second) Romney is the “best” of a bad bunch of republicans who have raised the cash to run in 08.
Hunter is better, but he also may not be viable enough to win.
Oh dear what will the gunnuts do?
The guy has hunted and strongly supports the Second Amendment.
Stupid issue. I don’t hunt much at all, but would call myself a lifelong hunter. If somebody tried to take my guns, they are going to have a bit of trouble.
Add this to all the other stuff he’s backpedaling from... what are this guys core values? I don’t need a candidate who practices political taqiyya. It’s not that he’s a hunter or not a hunter, as if that had anything to do with the 2nd Amendment; its that he stretches the truth like another clown from Massachusetts. Who wants to have to check up on their candidate as if he were a kid who couldn’t be trusted to tell the truth. This guy is bad news.
You are correctomundo!
If Zumbo wants to do some good, he could write to Romney and explain that the term “assault weapon” was invented by anti-gunners in order to outlaw military-looking semi-automatic firearms. Romney is not only anti-gun, he is ignorant.
“No, but they’re easier to aim!”
Aiming is independent of action type and you know it! That’s why Romney’s statement is bogus.
If you can draw a bead on a squirrel noggin with a semi, you can do it with a bolt, pump, or belt-fed 10-22.
The National Match Rifle course was originally set up for bolt action.
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