As I Predicted, George W. Bush Is Backing Bill Clinton's Gun Ban

Toogood Reports ^ | April 15, 2003 | By Chuck Baldwin

[diamond6]

The message would be that the voters wanted a more liberal candidate than the Republican party could offer.

But, OK. I'm game. Who's your third party candidate?

[ZULU]

I don't know. We'll have to see who materializes.

Besides, the statement from Bush's "spokeperson", whom no one ever heard from before, may have been a "trial balloon", and he might have been selected to see what kind of heat this would generate. Hopefully, the White House has been bombarded by enough letters and petitions of complaint to make Bush rethink this, if he ever seriously was considering it.

Also, he may be preparing a scenario that someone suggested - letting the bill die in committee or in the Congress so he didn't have to get involved - really a coward's way out.

So at this point everything is really kind of premature. If you think like I do, I'd send the President a message directly and sign some of those peitions out there. He may be listening.

I'd hate to make an issue over this with voting for him in 2004, but there are other problems - like our leaky bordersm, his suck-up attitude to an ungrateful Vincente Fox. Unfortuately you can't always get everything you want, but the Second Amendment issue is a most serious one.

[ought-six]

"Americans don't want 25 caliber chain guns or M16s or Kalishnikovs on the streets. Nobody will accept that a Remington 870 Pump Load is a semi-automatic assault weapon to be seized. Ain't gonna happen."

It's already happening. Look at New Jersey. Look at California. Look at what King Richard II is trying to do in Illinois, where he has introduced a bill that would ban ALL semi-automatic firearms, even .22 rimfires. He also wants to ban all shotguns except for the .410. And he wants all Illinois gun owners to register with the police in the same manner as sex offenders. The problem with letting one ban go through as "reasonable gun control" is that it doesn't stop there, and was never intended to stop there. The VPC's (among many others) agenda has been to eliminate the private ownership of firearms incrementally, bit by bit, until one day the American citizen realizes he or she no longer has a right to own ANY firearms. The VPC is very up-front and candid about this. Your Remington 870 will be history before you know it if you allow this crap to continue. Are you willing to fight to keep your rights? Your answer to that will speak volumes, one way or another.

[RinaseaofDs]

I agree. Bush is nuts to back this. There was another thread that posits a hypothetical speach about the gun ban, where 43 rolls back the ban.

Bush isn't going to lose any votes that he wouldn't have otherwise have lost by rolling back the ban, but he gains and holds millions by rolling it back.

I have to say, 43 is taking the same path Daddy did. He can lose this election. I also believe that an R in the White House can more easily impinge on the 2nd Amendment than a D can. "Only Nixon could have gone to China."

If he now caves on tax cuts and the appellate justices, and he lets Snowe and Voinovich get away with the crap they have been perpetrating, then why NOT vote for a D?

What's the difference, other than the fact that one is better at foreign affairs than the other?

The reason why Perot siphoned votes from Bush is because R's perceived a choice, one in which Perot was perceived to be more conservative than the R candidate. That's why Bush lost - he stopped being a conservative. It wasn't Perot's sparkling personality, it was his position on core R issues that made him viable at the time.

Protecting the second amendment isn't a far right issue. It's fundamental baseball when it comes to having a democracy.

Why does it seem easier for 43 to stand up to the UN and to Iraq than it does his own party in the Senate?

[ArneFufkin]

The way to fight that battle against the agents of disarmament is politically. You guys need to be in a Party to leverage your influence. If everybody abandons Bush and the GOP as threatened, you'll be powerless. That's my large point. You can't fight Sarah Brady by venting on Free Republic. It's got to be done systematically. Get 2nd Amendment defenders elected to key offices.

The NRA is going to fail miserably here if they wage some high profile resistance by villifying Bush. That's just plain stupid. That's what they're going to do though. It's going to hurt the cause, our disconnected neighbors don't like "extremists" and "assault weapons" paints an ominous peril. This has to be a low volume House smothering.

Everybody wants to get a chunk of President Bush though. That's the objective for many. That's nothing but a detriment to tweaks and fine tunings that could be applied before the vote.

Baldwin's piece is pure garbage. What a mean spirited and poorly written feces slinging. Bush is not a family man. My arse.

[ZULU]

"The way to fight that battle against the agents of disarmament is politically. You guys need to be in a Party to leverage your influence. If everybody abandons Bush and the GOP as threatened, you'll be powerless."


I agree with you there, and I certainly have no intention of abandoning the GOP, just individual GOP candidates who have forgotten the GOP heritage of strict construction, small government and individual freedom. I can and will still vote in GOP primaries. But I have seen time and again, liberal RINOs stand around with their hands in their pockets during general elections when their liberal candidates get beat out in primaries by conservatives. Yet when liberal RINOs get nominated in primaries, conservative GOPers always put their shoulders to the wheels and back them, only to get slapped in the face after they get elected, or payback time comes around and a conservative Repub gets nominated. Consequently, I will be highly selective when it comes to voting for Republican candidates in general elections when they start to waffle on what I consider to be significant issues of policy. And I do try my best to get 2nd Amendmenters elected to office whenever I can. For that purpose, the Repubicans are the best bet - the Dems have become a crypto-communist party. But their is a very dangerous wing in the Republican Party - the small, but well-heeled limousine liberal "Rockefeller" Republicans - people like Chrissie Whitman, Olympia Snow, Tom Kean, etc, who are EXTREMELY liberal on social issues and whose main interest in the Republican Party is its ability to keep the tax rate low ofr multi-millionaires.

"The NRA is going to fail miserably here if they wage some high profile resistance by villifying Bush. That's just plain stupid. That's what they're going to do though."

I don't support vilifying Bush. He's basically a good man and the best we have had since Reagan. But the Feinstein-Schumer-Florio gun bill is an important one and he has to find a way to avoid signing that bill one way or the other.

"It's going to hurt the cause, our disconnected neighbors don't like "extremists" and "assault weapons" paints an ominous peril. "

"Assault weapons" - You have to hand it to the Bolsheviks in the Democratic Party - they really know how to coin key phrases which appeal to emotion while neglecting all logic.
Like ANY weapon is an ASSAULT weapon, and a "Smart-gun" which malfunctions or costs too much for the average law-abiding Joe isn't very "smart" at all. But when you have the major media on your side, like they do, it makes things much easier.

However, thanks to forums like this one, talk radio and FOX news, the truth is slowly filtering out to the masses.

"This has to be a low volume House smothering. "

Then its time for Bush to call in his political chips and have his allies in the house protect him. I think he made a bad mistake signing McCain-Feingold, and he may have been counting on the same policy to save him back then.

"Everybody wants to get a chunk of President Bush though."

I don't want a part of him. So far he has done an excellant job. He could do more about our leaky borders, and get off Tancredo's case though. I think Rove may be giving him wrong advice on these issues.

"Baldwin's piece is pure garbage. What a mean spirited and poorly written feces slinging. Bush is not a family man. My arse."

Actually, I didn't read the whole article. I just saw the part about Feinstein-Schumer (those two names just make me want to vomit) and I went ballistic. Bush has got to avoid signing that bill - believe me. Even if it made no difference to me, there are thousands of Second Amendment Americans out there who came out for him in 2000 who are watching and waiting. He may be a Methodist, but his own Church won't support him in 2004 - it has been Bolshevized.

[ArneFufkin]

Why does it seem easier for 43 to stand up to the UN and to Iraq than it does his own party in the Senate?

On the tax vote TWO Senate Republicans out of 51 voted against the President. Two.

So 49 Republicans wanted to give us $740 billion in tax relief. 0 Democrats did.

Why not vote for a D? Hey no reason for you not to.

It's a subtle disparity, I know.

[Jesse]

And your candidate for President in 2004 is................. (tick, tick, tick....)


Don't know yet. But if this gets to Bush, and if he signs it, it won't be Bush.

I'm a single issue voter now. Lower taxes (pitifully lower) aren't going to buy me off.

[Jesse]

How did you survive these last five years so unarmed and outgunned?

Not sure what you mean, but you answered my question. Apparently, you're one of the gun-rights freeloaders who has the gall to criticize the very people who have bothered to support gun rights over the years.

Anyway, you're welcome.

[FSPress]

Let me see if I understand what you are saying in your post:

A well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free state implies that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. That is, the right to keep and bear arms is dependent on the government's needs for a well regulated Militia. Would this mean then that the govenment may keep the Militia well regulated by restricting the types of arms one may keep and bear?

[diamond6]

By jove, that's one interpretation anyway, isn't it?

[FSPress]

You answer seems obtuse. Did I understand what you were trying to say or not? If this understanding of what you were trying to communicate is not correct please help me see where it is incorrect.

[diamond6]

Yes. You got it.

[spunkets]

"Books don't kill people."

Neither do guns.

[FSPress]

Then if the government ceased to have a need for a well regulated Militia there would be no right to keep and bear arms. In other words, the right to keep and bear arms derives from the govenment. Correct?

[diamond6]

No. The right to keep and bear arms is limited by the government. Therefore, they can pass laws that regulate it.

[FSPress]

I thought that you had agreed that [the right to keep and bear arms is dependent on the government's needs for a well regulated Militia] and it seems that I misunderstood. What gives us the right to keep and bear arms?

[dcwusmc]

No, arne, the world TURNS. Arne spins. and spins. You're almost as civil as James CarVILE.... but he's more charming and less of a liar than you. which is sure going some. Take your roscoe and peddle it to your next JBT meeting. I'm sure THEY'LL like it. Meantime your post is nothing but spin and lies. May your chains rest lightly. And please don't bother to reply to me again unless you have some actual facts. I no longer subscribe to the "If you ain't guilty, why worry about it" school of "thought." If it's WRONG it's wrong. and NO amount of spin and roscoe's gonna make it right. If you're too damned dumb to understand that simple statement... if you're too much on the FedGov payroll to respect the RIGHTS of others AND their legitimate concerns... all I have to say to you is ESAD. Because YOU don't care doesn't mean squat. There are millions who are concerned, perhaps not with just ONE issue but with the overall trend. Which is pretty ugly. So ugly, in fact, that they would like to have YOUR pic to post to describe how ugly and vile-spirited it is.

[spunkets]

" Sorry, I'm just the messenger for American Heritage."

Interesting choice of dictonaries, cause you missed the real American Heritage part.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms is the central idea of that Article in the Bill of Rights. That is commanding statement denoting the founders intent. Nothing else.

The clause, a well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state", is an incomplete thought. It is not a statemnt at all, not does it imply, or directly attach some conditional to the intent, or the meaning of the central idea and command of the amendment.

well regulated can't mean there must be rules in place, becasue the central command of the amendment forbids them. The meaning is to be found in the writings of the founders themselves. The dictionaries still hold the meaning of the word regulated. Webster's(A beetter dictionary) has it as, "bringing order and method". You'll probably find something similar in A.H. Order and method implies and also brings skill. THe idea was to develope skill though drill and familiarity with arms, so that individuals were competent in there use.

A little note of history here. THe NRA was founded by Union generals to provide that very service, because they had noted the lack of skill and discipline with arms of Union troops at Gettysburg. They not only continue to provide that service, they defend the very right itself!

[Dan from Michigan]

I have a news bulletin for you, Bill. Books don't kill people.

Neither do guns.