Posted on 10/30/2008 11:43:40 AM PDT by Domandred
Democratic candidate Walt Minnick leads Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Sali by a seven-to-five margin in one of the most telling polls of Idaho's 1st Congressional District race: a tally of the two rivals' personal firearms.
Minnick owns seven guns: three pistols, a .22-caliber rifle, two Remington shotguns and a pellet gun he's used to teach his children to shoot. Sali, who in 2006 helped fight off an Army National Guard effort to restrict shooting in a Snake River raptor preserve, owns two shotguns and three rifles.
Now Minnick and Sali are dueling over who would best stick up for 2nd Amendment rights. Sali won an "A+" rating from the National Rifle Association on a questionnaire; Minnick got a "D+".
Meanwhile, Minnick, a 66-year-old former business executive who tied for the highest score in his 1970 U.S. Army class's marksmanship test, was endorsed by a rival group, Maryland-based American Hunters and Shooters Association, which says the National Rifle Association backs candidates for partisan reasons.
"I think guns are part of our American culture," Minnick said earlier this month. "There is no one more opposed to gun control than I am."
Sali, a 54-year-old lawyer from Kuna, retorted, "He believes it's OK to go out and shoot a deer, but not a criminal intruder in your own home."
For a glimpse of how deeply guns resonate in Idaho, take Greenleaf, a town of fewer than 1,000 souls founded by Quakers in the sugarbeet and mint fields above the Snake River. In 2006, it passed a law asking residents who didn't object on religious grounds to keep a gun at home.
The hamlet's mayor, Brad Holton, who owns 25 rifles, estimates that as many as 40 percent of eligible voters in Greenleaf see gun rights as a decisive ballot issue. While few think Minnick aims to ban guns, Holton said some fear the Democrat would be more likely to back legislation limiting acceptable weapons.
"The peace-driving people, they're saying, 'We've got to get Walt in there because he's going to reduce the variety of guns,' " Holton said. "But there are other people who have Uzis. To me, they are gun pursuers that love the right of firearms. They pursue it as far as that will go. I personally don't have them, but I understand that people enjoy them."
At the center of this debate is the 27-question National Rifle Association survey Minnick completed earlier this year.
The survey included this question: "The NRA opposes gun bans as a violation of both the Second Amendment and common sense. (However, fully automatic firearms, short-barreled shotguns, and certain "destructive devices" are currently very strictly regulated.) Which of the following statements best describes your opinion about banning firearms?"
Minnick, an NRA member, wrote "firearms with no legitimate sporting or recreational use" should be banned.
Andrew Arulanandam, an NRA spokesman in Virginia and a former Idaho GOP state director, said that answer won Minnick the poor rating.
"It's reasonable to conclude, based on Walt's response ... that he believes that a woman with a restraining order against a violent ex-, or the parole officer who has a conceal-carry permit to defend himself and his family from some of the people he deals with in his line of work, that these people don't deserve to own a firearm," Arulanandam said.
Minnick aides counter that the question referred to unconventional automatic weapons, short-barreled shotguns and "destructive devices." His response was never meant to be interpreted as opposition to handguns used for self defense, said John Foster, Minnick's spokesman in Boise.
"From Walt's perspective, there's no reason for someone to have a howitzer in their backyard or a .50-caliber machine gun in their garage," Foster said. "It's about protecting the rights of lawful gun owners by making sure they stay out of the hands of felons and criminals."
Minnick's answers did conform with the NRA's stance opposing registration, federal licensing and waiting periods -- and backing the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2008 decision to overturn a Washington, D.C., handgun ban.
Sali aides said Minnick isn't sincere.
"He's not a friend of the 2nd Amendment," said Wayne Hoffman, Sali's campaign spokesman. "He just doesn't like the fact that the NRA is calling him on it."
American Hunters and Shooters Association touts itself as "a gun owners association that doesn't have a radical agenda" and accuses the National Rifle Association of hijacking mainstream gun owners' heritage with an anti-conservation message. Its directors say Minnick's stance on guns -- and membership on boards including the Idaho Conservation League -- made the choice easy.
"We believe Minnick is going to protect our guns and the places where we learned to hunt and fish," said John Robinson, its chief of staff. "With Sali, we see a future where our wild lands have been sold off to the highest bidder to be harvested, logged, mined and carved up with roads."
Before anyone says it yes I know the AHSA is a gun grabbers friend. They don't understand that the 2nd is not about hunting and sports.
I’m so glad I live in Idaho.
NRA endorses two Democratic candidates that I'm eligible to vote for. Voted for neither. One has no Republican opposition and will win walking away, the other is running for State Treasuser, so I frankly don't care what his positions are on firearms. And he's a cokehead.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
All I know about Minnick is that he has millions apparently to spend on advertiseing and not once in his commercials does he admit that he is a Rat...someone should ask him if he supports the abomination and would he support ANY kind of gun control, fairness doctrine,etc....
WE CANNOT ELECT ANYMORE RATS....THEY ARE LIKE SHEEPLE IN THEIR PARTY AND THEY SWING THE WAY THE PARTY SWINGS AND WITH hussein THE PARTY IF A FASCIST ANTI-AMERICAN GROUP....
If it isn’t the NRA or Gun Owners of America, I’m suspicious.
It doesn't surprise me to see the liberal infested Boise area tipping the balance in favor of Minnick. I've done my part by making contributions to Sali's campaign.
I believe after what I’ve seen of the democRat party lately, I’d go with the GOP on every question. Even with people like Stevens (R-AK), the odds are better.
“A gun is a tool, Marion, like a shovel, an ax, anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it.”
Five guns? Seven guns?
What a couple of flyweights!
It's closer than it ought to be but I'm still calling it for Sali. But I've been wrong before.
Sheesh, I could win every elective office in the state and still have enough left over to be crowned Russett Potato King.
What a pair of poseurs.
I imagine that would include most pistols, anything that can fire more than one shot without reloading (if you can't make a kill with one shot - you shouldn't be hunting), and of course any firearm that is mostly black in color.
Actually - I see now that I miss read it - he includes “recreational use”. Those full-auto shoots where they shoot at cans and cars that blow up look like a lot of fun.
LOL!
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