McCain on the Issues - 2nd Amendment

McCain Website ^

[Bob J]

Protecting Second Amendment Rights

John McCain believes that the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is a fundamental, individual Constitutional right that we have a sacred duty to protect. We have a responsibility to ensure that criminals who violate the law are prosecuted to the fullest, rather than restricting the rights of law abiding citizens. Gun control is a proven failure in fighting crime. Law abiding citizens should not be asked to give up their rights because of criminals - criminals who ignore gun control laws anyway. Gun Manufacturer Liability

John McCain opposes backdoor attempts to restrict Second Amendment rights by holding gun manufacturers liable for crimes committed by third parties using a firearm, and has voted to protect gun manufacturers from such inappropriate liability aimed at bankrupting the entire gun industry.

"Neither justice nor domestic peace are served by holding the innocent responsible for the acts of the criminal."

-Senator John McCain

Assault Weapons

John McCain opposes restrictions on so-called "assault rifles" and voted consistently against such bans. Most recently he opposed an amendment to extend a ban on 19 specific firearms, and others with similar characteristics.

Importation of High Capacity Magazines

John McCain opposes bans on the importation of certain types of ammunition magazines and has voted against such limitations.

Gun Locks

John McCain believes that every firearms owner has a responsibility to learn how to safely use and store the firearm they have chosen, whether for target shooting, hunting, or personal protection. He has supported legislation requiring gun manufacturers to include gun safety devices such as trigger locks in product packaging.

John McCain believes that banning ammunition is just another way to undermine Second Amendment rights. He voted against an amendment that would have banned many of the most commonly used hunting cartridges on the spurious grounds that they were "armor-piercing."

DC Personal Protection

As part of John McCain's defense of Second Amendment rights, he cosponsored legislation to lift a ban on the law abiding citizens of the District of Columbia from exercising their Constitutional right to bear arms.

Criminal Background Checks

John McCain supports instant criminal background checks to help prohibit criminals from buying firearms and has voted to ensure they are conducted thoroughly, efficiently, and without infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens.

Background Checks at Gun Shows

At a time when some were trying to shut down gun shows in the name of fighting crime, John McCain tried to preserve gun shows by standardizing sales procedures. Federal law requires licensed firearm sellers at gun shows to do an instant criminal background check on purchasers while private firearm sellers at gun shows do not have to conduct such a check. John McCain introduced legislation that would require an instant criminal background check for all sales at gun shows and believes that such checks must be conducted quickly to ensure that unnecessary delays do not effectively block transactions.

The Firearm Purchase Waiting Period

John McCain has opposed "waiting periods" for law abiding citizen's purchase of firearms.

The confiscation of firearms after an emergency

John McCain opposes the confiscation of firearms from private citizens, particularly during times of crisis or emergency. He voted in favor of an amendment sponsored by Senator David Vitter prohibiting such confiscation.

Stiffer Penalties for Criminals who use a Firearm in the Commission of a Crime

John McCain believes in strict, mandatory penalties for criminals who use a firearm in the commission of a crime or illegally possess a firearm. Enforcing the current laws on the books is the best way to deter crime.

[Bob J]

There is a strong anti-McCain movement on FR and while there is nothing wrong with that in general I feel that some of those involved have been in engaging in an effort of mischaracterization and misinformation on where McCain stands on the issues. The anti-McCain crowd consistently state that there is no difference between McCain and Obama/Clinton, which is simply ridiculous. There are points where the difference is less stark than others but to make a sweeping claim such as that, IMO, demonstrates the hsyterical lengths some will go to try to get others to stay home or vote third party on election day.

Now McCain wasn't my #1 candidate as he wasn't for most FReepers, but he will be the GOP nominee and a realistic analysis of his positions free from rhetoric and hysteria is important to gaining a full understanding of what to expect from him if he were towin the election.

In the interests of having a rational discussion and attempting to soberly define where McCains stands on the issues and whether or not there is a "difference" between him and his opponents, I will post one new McCain issue standpoint a day.

To those "one issue" voters, please don't muck up these threads by bringing up the other issues not being discussed this day, you're chance will come.

Previous posts;

Economy

Iraq

[IBD editorial writer]

test

[El Gran Salseron]

Please ping me when you get to the “illegal alien amnesty” thread.

[G.Mason]

" ... I feel that some of those involved have been in engaging in an effort of mischaracterization and misinformation on where McCain stands on the issues ..."

Really?

Perhaps you will name names, and provide evidence to those instances of mischaracterization and misinformation?

[dljordan]

“John McCain believes in strict, mandatory penalties for criminals who use a firearm in the commission of a crime or illegally possess a firearm”

Depends on the definition of “criminals” doesn’t it? To the Brady Bunch anyone other than police, the military and appropriate armed bureaucrats who are in possession of firearms are “criminals”. To the rabid anti-gunners if you use a firearm in protection of your home, your family or your life it’s a crime. He’s not really saying anything he can’t weasel his way out of later. They all do this.

[calcowgirl]

Here are some FR links. I believe this is in line with your desire to "soberly define where McCain stands on the issues."

McCain Still Trying To Gag Gun Owners From Criticizing His Anti-gun Record

McCain blames fellow politicians (and guns) for fostering bigotry

Friendly Fire - If McCain’s going to claim he’s a conservative on guns, then he’s got some...

Friendly Fire (“pro-gun”conservative McCain ..explain ??)

McCain names [anti-gunner] Mike DeWine as Ohio campaign chair

Father of slain teen urges McCain to speak against gun violence

McCain heckled over gun rights stance

McCain tried to Eliminate Gun Shows

John McCain Is A Liberal Gun Grabber

GUNS AND SCHOOLS: THE POLITICS (McCain tries to grab guns, 1999)

(October 5, 2000) McCain changes tack on gun background check

Gun Games (McCain Archives- May 2002)

McCain has ‘work to do’ with gun owners: NRA ("He's not there yet," NRA says)

Dear (anti-gun) Senator Mccain

McCain targets gun-show loophole

McCain Is a No Show on Guns:The Arizona senator's questionable commitment to Second Amendment rights

Pro Gun Groups Denounce John McCain

McCain Planning Gun Control Bill

"McCain Planning Gun Control Bill"

Sen. McCain Wants More Gun Control

The McCain-Lieberman Gun Grab

The McCain-Lieberman Gun-Grabbing Machine

MORE GUN CONTROL: McCAIN-LIEBERMAN

Preview of Coming Attractions: McCain on Guns

McCain Shills for 'Gun Safety'

McCain, Lieberman Promote Gun Control Bill

S890 - McCain gun show bill

Big Guns Aim at McCain

John McCain: Traitor to Gun Rights

Anti-gun Senator John McCain on Chris Mathews now advocating STUN GUNS on planes.

McCain: Terrorists bypass laws by using gun shows ( McPain wants to take away your guns )

McCain, Lieberman seek gun debate

Gun Shows and Gun Control: McCain Is at It Again!

[DuncanWaring]

John McCain introduced legislation that would require an instant criminal background check for all sales at gun shows...

As I recall the situation at the time the legislation came up, it was worded such that in the scenario described below, the show producer would go to jail.

I go to a gun show. I run into someone who has a matched set of firearms for sale. I tell that person that while I'm interested in one of the firearms, I don't want the whole set. I further tell him that if he doesn't sell the set during the show, that I'd be willing to purchase one out of the set. I get his phone number. I call him up a week later to ask if he has sold the set. He replies "No". We agree to meet; I give him his asking price for one firearm, he gives me the firearm.

Under the proposed McCain "Close the Gun Show Loophole", we are now criminals.

[jmc813]

He has supported legislation requiring gun manufacturers to include gun safety devices such as trigger locks in product packaging.

I'd love to know what part of the Constitution he dreams authorizes nonsense like this.

John McCain supports instant criminal background checks to help prohibit criminals from buying firearms and has voted to ensure they are conducted thoroughly, efficiently, and without infringing on the rights of law abiding citizens.

Ditto.

John McCain introduced legislation that would require an instant criminal background check for all sales at gun shows and believes that such checks must be conducted quickly to ensure that unnecessary delays do not effectively block transactions.

Feel good, soundbite crap.

John McCain believes in strict, mandatory penalties for criminals who use a firearm in the commission of a crime or illegally possess a firearm. Enforcing the current laws on the books is the best way to deter crime.

I guess the family of a murder victim would feel better if their loved one was stabbed to death instead of shot. More feel-good nonsense.

Don't blame me. I'm voting for Barr.

[EnigmaticAnomaly]

Bookmarked for later viewing...

[Dante3]

Examples of mischaracterization and misinformation include
*McCain is a conservative. No conservative would push for open borders, CFR, etc.
*He supports WOT - no one who wants to fight WOT would be for amnesty, open borders, and vote against the Cronyn amendment.

[meandog]

Yeah, the mind-numbed dittohead FReeps that tune to the obese prescription-drugheaded, thrice-divorced draft-evading "Pilonidal Cyst" to do their thinking might find it more than a little disturbing to wake up with President Obama in the White House come November and discover armed libs at the door:
1.Demanding their firearms,
2. Confiscating their wealth,
3. Denying their choice of medical care coverage,
4. Outlawing their right to teach their children,
And, 5. Sentencing them to re-education facilities!

[Blood of Tyrants]

What bothers me is that the McCain haters are not just trying to promote the candidate of their choosing, they are ACTIVELY trying to HURT McCain’s prospects for the WH. I have no idea why except that they prefer Obama or Hillary in the WH.

[Sprite518]

When it comes to the issues McCain is more concerned about looking good to the Media,(giving the leftist Media what they want) then having a back bone. Case in point the recent switch to the anti capitalist Global Warming nonsense. I just don’t trust the guy. I think he has been in Washington DC too long.

[Little Ray]

Like many things McQueeg’s stances on things like Shamesty and Gun Control changes with his ambitions:
http://www.gunowners.org/mclott.htm

***
Let’s consider just one of these issues: McCain’s claimed pro-gun record. This was true a decade ago, but since then, on issues such as regulating gun shows, banning less expensive guns and so-called assault weapons, and requiring gunlocks, McCain has supported central portions of the gun-control agenda. Indeed, in a couple cases, McCain authored the proposed legislation himself.McCain’s gun show regulations, instead of simply requiring background checks on sales at gun shows, would make it extremely difficult for gun shows even to function. A special license would be required to operate gun shows. Licenses could be denied without the federal government even having to give a reason, and no time limits would be placed on how long the government had to make its decisions.

While gun-control groups have tried for years to register the names of gun owners, McCain’s legislation helps accomplish this by effectively requiring the registration of all people who attend a gun show. Gun show operators would even face criminal penalties and imprisonment if any unregistered attendees were to trade a gun after the show if the gun were discussed in any way during the show. The only option to operators would thus be to register everyone.

McCain acknowledges that these regulations could be abused, but, according to him, the goals are too important to compromise, and McCain assures us that we should trust the regulators. Yet, it was not so long ago that the Clinton administration constantly halted gun sales nationwide as background checks broke down and kept records long after the law explicitly allowed.

Most troubling are McCain’s extreme measures for what is essentially a non-existent problem. The Bureau of Justice Statistics under Clinton conducted a survey of 18,000 state prison inmates in 1997 — the largest survey of inmates ever conducted. Less than one percent of inmates (0.7 percent) who had a gun obtained it from a gun show. The vast majority of criminals — 40 percent — say they got their guns either from friends or family, and 39 percent got it on the street or from other illegal sources.

Of course, like with many gun-control regulations, this call for more regulations rests on distortions. Despite the “gun show loophole” term used by McCain and others, there are no special exemptions for buying a gun at a gun show. Dealers must perform the same background checks as in a store. What gun-control groups refer to is the non- regulated private transfer of guns. Eighteen states regulate the private transfer of handguns, with some having regulations going back more than several decades. However, not surprisingly, just as with the semi-automatic gun bans, there is not a single academic study showing that these regulations reduce any type of violent crime.
***

I may have to vote for the SOB, but I don’t have to delude myself about him. Unlike some I could name...

[Joe Brower]

Not to argue that Obama and Hillary aren't poison where the 2nd Amendment is concerned (no to mention the rest of the Constitution), but let's keep a reality check on what we're getting with McCain.

I particulary love how this text spins McCains feverish attempts several years ago with Joe Lieberman to shut down gun shows via his "Bipartisan Gun-show Loophole Closing Act":

"Background Checks at Gun Shows

At a time when some were trying to shut down gun shows in the name of fighting crime, John McCain tried to preserve gun shows by standardizing sales procedures. Federal law requires licensed firearm sellers at gun shows to do an instant criminal background check on purchasers while private firearm sellers at gun shows do not have to conduct such a check. John McCain introduced legislation that would require an instant criminal background check for all sales at gun shows and believes that such checks must be conducted quickly to ensure that unnecessary delays do not effectively block transactions."

[jmc813]

2. Confiscating their wealth, 3. Denying their choice of medical care coverage, 4. Outlawing their right to teach their children, And, 5. Sentencing them to re-education facilities!

Please don't muck up these threads by bringing up the other issues not being discussed this day, you're chance will come.

[G.Mason]

ROTFL ... Oh ... that kind of mischaracterization and misinformation.

There are more Chamberlains here than than I can keep track of.

( How's that for mischaracterization and misinformation? )

[Sigurdrifta]

Yes, you are correct. There are a number of points where I don’t agree with McCain. But to read some of the anti-McCain comments I see here , it seems like those folks want to be like the conservative version of the “identity politics” version of the Democrats, apparently 15-20% of whom will not vote for the Democrats if “their” candidate is not elected. They are certainly free to do so, but in the end I suspect that the large majority of American voters won’t really care. And those conservatives won’t be teaching anyone a lesson by sitting out.

Frankly, the prospect of either an Obama or Clinton presidency scares the h*ll out of me, especially with two children in the military. (Question:What would have happened if the Europeans had stood up to Hitler in 1938?)

Also, although I don’t like McCain’s stance on global warming, if it gets us to a more secure energy policy (that is, forcing the Saudis to go back to earning a living by pearl fishing, which is apparently what they did before anyone knew that oil was important), then that’s fine by me.
If it improves national security, I really don’t care what they call it.

I think McCain is trying to distance himself from Pres. Bush. Considering that one of the Democrat’s talking points is that voting for McCain is just voting for a “third Bush term”, that would seem to make sense as a political stance (unless of course you are one of the “true believers”, in Eric Hoffer’s sense of the term).

[G.Mason]

Look at you! You’re drooling all over your keyboard.

[calex59]

To the poster of this thread and all other idiots who think McCain is wonderful: McCain/Feingold, amnesty unchecked. Two reasons that McCain is not a conservative. His most recent wonderful conservative idea embraces man made global warming, cap n trade. Not to mention being against drilling in Alaska and anywhere else in the USA.

He is pandering to left wing voters and doesn't care about his base. If you have to ask why conservatives(lots of them, not just a few)don't like McCain then you are not a conservative, you are at best a neo-conservative, which is to say a liberal who thinks they are conservative.

You speak of one issue voters but post a thread that is, wait for it, about one issue, namely gun control.

I am a member of the NRA, I have owned firearms since I was 11 years old, I am now 66. I believe in the right to keep and bear arms, BUT I do not like McCain and have looked at his record. He is indeed backed by the NRA but they have little choice this election, he is the best they can endorse, that's not saying a lot.

Now, to get to the point of why conservatives don't want to vote for McCain, he is left wing as they come, he is a total socialist and the conservatives feel betrayed by their party for having this fool as a candidate. Many would rather vote third party and let the votes fall where they may than to compromise their principles one more time. It is time to stand up and tell the republicans "No MAS", we don't want another RINO as President, period. Can't understand that? Then I suppose you have no ethics and no standards you live by.

Personally I think FR is full of trolls this year as no other, people like the poster of this thread who are trying for arguments and hoping to stir dissent in the ranks of conservatives. Don't worry, we will vote our hearts and keep to our standards. What you have to do is vote your heart and if McCain is in there that is fine for you, but he won't be in mine.