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

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

[Uncle Bill]

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

TooGood Reports
By Chuck Baldwin
Chuck Baldwin Website
April 15, 2003

In this column dated December 17, 2002, I predicted that President G.W. Bush would support the so-called assault weapons ban first promoted by former President Bill Clinton and Sen. Diane Feinstein back in 1994. Interestingly enough, the gun ban became law on the strength of a tie-breaking vote by then Vice President Al Gore. The ban is scheduled to sunset next year, but Bush is joining Clinton and Gore in supporting an extension.

Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said, "The president supports the current law (the Clinton gun ban), and he supports reauthorization of the current law."

This must come as quite a blow to people such as the leaders of the National Rifle Association who campaigned heavily for Bush touting him as a "pro-gun" candidate. Since his election, the NRA and others have repeatedly reaffirmed their support for Bush, because he is "pro-gun." Well, now the mask is off!

I have tried to warn my readers that Bush is not a true conservative. He is not pro-life; he is not pro-family; he is not pro-Constitution. And now we know he is not pro-gun.

Instead of reversing the miserable policies of Clinton/Gore, Bush is helping to harden the cement around those policies. The gun issue is no exception.

The so-called assault weapons ban was the benchmark piece of legislation reflecting the anti-gun policies of people such as Clinton, Gore, Feinstein, and New York Senator Charles Schumer. It was also the number one target of the NRA. In fact, the NRA all but promised their supporters that a Bush presidency would help reverse this Draconian gun ban. Instead, Bush is pushing Congress to extend the ban.

A bill to reauthorize the gun ban will be introduced by Senator Feinstein in the coming weeks. It must pass both chambers of Congress to reach the President's desk. The best chance of stopping it will be in the House of Representatives. However, in order to defeat this bill, it must resist the power and influence of the White House. This will be no small task.

Not only is Bush betraying the pro-gun voters who helped elect him, he is breathing new life into a nearly dead anti-gun movement. Most political analysts credit Bush's pro-gun image as the chief reason he defeated Al Gore in the 2000 election. They also credit the pro-gun image of the Republican Party for helping them to achieve impressive wins in the 2002 congressional elections.

Now, Bush is giving new credibility to anti-gun zealots such as Schumer and Feinstein and is helping to reinvigorate the anti-gun momentum that had all but been put on ice.

However, the real question will be, "Will pro-gun conservatives continue to support Bush?" Bush is every bit the "Teflon President" that Clinton was. Conservatives seem willing to overlook anything he does, no matter how liberal or unconstitutional it may be. Will they overlook this, also?

If you truly believe in the Second Amendment and are willing to do something about it, I suggest you go to the Gun Owners of America website. They have a quick link set up which allows people an opportunity to conveniently send email to the White House about this issue. Go to the gun ban "alert" button. From there you can voice your disapproval with the President's decision to betray his constituents by supporting this new round of gun control.

Once again, the ball of freedom and constitutional government is in the court of the American people. Will they keep the ball and do something with it, or will they hand it off to the neo-conservatives at the White House? We'll see.

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PLEASE Don't Sit out 2004, EVEN IF Bush signs the AW ban extention

Bush Supports New Extension Of Assault-Weapons Ban

Bush Backs Renewing Assault Weapons Ban

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"That’s why I’m for instant background checks at gun shows. I’m for trigger locks."
George W. Bush - Source: St. Louis debate Oct 17,2000.

MORE INJUSTICE ON THE WAY - Bush GUN CONTROL
"Gene Healy, a Cato Institute scholar, recently provided a thorough exploration of the unintended consequences of one law, the new Bush-Ashcroft plan to federalize gun crimes, known as the Project Safe Neighborhoods program. The unintended consequences of this law are frightening."
NOTE: Same Article in Washington Times.

There Goes the Neighborhood: The Bush-Ashcroft Plan to "Help" Localities Fight Gun Crime, by Gene Healy

"W. Wimps Out on Guns"
The Bush package includes several pet causes of the gun-control lobby, including $75 million for gun locks; $15.3 million for 113 new federal attorneys to serve as full-time gun prosecutors; and $19.1 million to expand a program by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms aimed at preventing youths from obtaining guns. Although Bush stressed that he simply wants to "enforce existing laws," the fine print of Project Safe echoes the gun-grabbing Left's call to ban the importation of high-capacity ammunition clips."

Project Safe Neighborhoods, A Closer Look

LAURA BUSH:
"During her San Diego speech, for instance, she said nothing about the school shooting that occurred 20 miles away in El Cajon the day before, although in a television interview she condemned it, adding that she thinks more gun control laws are needed.

"I think that's very important," she said when asked by CNN whether stronger gun laws are needed."
Source.

EMERSON & THE SECOND AMENDMENT

A Gutless Supreme Court Decision - Gun Control

Republican Leadership Help Push Gun Control

Bush's Assault On Second Amendment

NEA Resource Text Guide In Regards To The Extreme Right - Where Do Your Kids Go To School?
"The radical right says it is pro-life but it bitterly opposes gun control legislation"

or

A Problem With Guns?

Thanks for that Patriot Act George

[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.