Posted on 02/17/2009 6:29:08 AM PST by epow
WASHINGTON - - New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who argues her pro-gun stance aims to protect hunters' rights and the Second Amendment, last week said she and her husband, Jonathan, keep two rifles under their bed to protect their upstate home.
UPDATE: Gillibrand removes guns from bed citing security reasons
Gillibrand said neither she nor her husband is a hunter, and in a general discussion of gun control said, "If I want to protect my family, if I want to have a weapon in the home, that should be my right."
The mother of two young children has taken "gun safety procedures to ensure family safety," an aide later said, but declined to say what steps.
Related links
* Kirsten Gillibrand Kirsten Gillibrand Photos * Gillibrand wary of Geithner's financial plan
Gillibrand's guns are rifles, her chief of staff Jess Fassler said in an e-mail, and she won one of them in a raffle at a county fair while campaigning. He said New York does not require anyone to register rifles.
-Click here to see photos of Senator Gillibrand and her family
The disclosure came in an interview with Newsday a week before her first trip as a senator to Long Island, where gun-control activist Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola) has threatened a primary challenge to Gillibrand in the 2010 election.
It drew headshaking from Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who expressed concern about storing guns under beds, where children can find them and where burglars typically look first.
And it demonstrates the difficulty Gillibrand is encountering as she tries to recalibrate her public persona and political views in moving from upstate congresswoman to New York's junior U.S. senator
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
Carolyn McCarthy has already attacked her. So it won’t be long before she does a 180.
Does she think the little people can do the same?
...or when she finds she just doesn’t get invited to the ‘right” cocktail parties...
Always read the fine print. The message here is she will protect 'sportsmen', but not ALL weapons. Watch AWB support and registration positions somewhere along the line.
Anyone who keeps rifles under the bed for protection has not thought things through, or is a dem gungrabber lying to get cred with the firearms community.
Dosn’t she have kids running around the house?
She has already gone 180 on illegal immigration in yesterday’s Newsday.She’s just another politician saying
what she needs to get elected.
I agree. She’ll support a hunter owning an appropriate registered shotgun, as long as sensible safety, licensing, and storage precautions are followed.
Now she claims her rifles are no longer under the bed.
Don’t fall for it. She was picked for a reason. She voted for the ‘stimulus’ package and ran on a hate Bush/hate the war platform in 2006.
Unless a politician overtly says that they support the 2nd amendment, they are all full of sh*@ and use euphemisms like ‘hunter’s rights’ and ‘anti gun violence’.
She’s like all the other dems.
You know, I don’t really care if she has a bazooka under her bed. As a politician, all I care about is what her stance is on the second amendment. It has never impressed me to see politicians duck hunting or whatever. What impresses me is their votes on the second amendment. I think Fred Thompson campaigned the best concerning the 2nd amendment. You wouldn’t see him out hunting or skeet shooting. No, you would see him visiting a gun show or a gun store. That’s what it’s about, the availability of guns and ammo to the American citizen for protection against criminals and their government (often one and the same).
Exactly. Any politician who claims to support the RKBA because of hunting is a almost always a fraud, and will NOT support the original intent of the 2nd Amendment, i.e., to guarantee that the people themselves would always have the power to overthrow a centralized authoritarian government by armed force if necessary. And a centralized authoritarian government is precisely what the Magic Kenyan and his behind-the-curtain handlers intend to establish.
Well actually it has already been incrementally established over the last 7 or 8 decades to a large degree, but the Magic Kenyan with a majority Democrat Congress backing him up will bring it to a new level of authoritarianism that FDR and LBJ could only dream about.
You can’t have a gun under your bed? What’s wrong with these people? They’re not acting in anybody’s interest, they’re dictators.
Rifles for home defense.
It may be the thought that counts, in which case she needs to apply more of it.
Shotguns first, hand guns second, rifles a distant third in home defense.
When an intruder comes around the corner of your hall and runs into you, which do you want? The short shotgun with the open choke so you can spray anthing in the general vicinity, but not kill the kids in the next room? The handgun that you can swing in his direction quickly without having the muzzle batted away? Or the rifle which takes some time to get on target, and will go through three walls to kill your neighbor?
Sheesh, what a lightweight. The only home defense weapon anyone should consider is a 12 ga pump loaded with buckshot.
We need to know a little more about that neighbour............
>>”Any politician who claims to support the RKBA because of hunting is a almost always a fraud, and will NOT support the original intent of the 2nd Amendment...”<<
Well said. NRA granted her an “A” rating over her opponent, Sandy Treadwell, who is a hunter and long time gun owner!
I like the idea of a shotgun for home defense. I keep a Remington 870 pump in our bedroom loaded with buckshot, along with a .38 revolver on the nightstand in case I'm ever awakened by an intruder already in the room and can't get to the long gun in time. Call me paranoid if you like, but out here in the boondocks where I live the county's LEOs are not likely to be anywhere around if I ever need them at 3AM.
However, the mental picture that many people have gotten from typical Hollywood action films of a shotgun blast spraying a large area with pellets that throw bad guys across the room and out through a plate glass window is ridiculous. The buckshot pattern from even an open choke 18" barrel at the short range inside a 20' x 20' room is no wider than my hand, and that means you can't just spray and pray that you will hit the bad guy. Even at across-the-room range a shotgun has to aimed if you want to hit what you're shooting at, no matter whether it's me or Steven Segal doing the shooting.
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