Posted on 05/19/2003 5:45:32 AM PDT by SJackson
Edited on 04/22/2004 11:48:55 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
It's no surprise that Republicans in Congress aren't eager to renew the ban on certain semiautomatic firearms due to expire next year. What's more interesting is why Democrats aren't raising much of a fuss about it.
Our suspicion is that the left has learned the hard way that gun control is a political loser. The first signs came in 1994, after Bill Clinton successfully urged the Democrat-controlled House and Senate to pass legislation outlawing 19 types of "assault" weapons. In November of that year, several Democrats who had supported the ban, including then-House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington, were voted out of office in the Republican sweep. Mr. Clinton later said crossing gun owners cost his party more than 20 seats. In 1995, the House voted to repeal the ban, which wouldn't even have passed without a sunset provision, but the effort died in the Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Well sort of. I was actually thinking of the Original AWB, which was an amendment to a what was originally a House bill. The amendment, which started life as a "free standing" bill just like the ones currently filed, didn't pass the Senate at midnight, but rather November 17, 1993, at 10:10 AM. (That may have been when the voting started rather than when it finished) Of course the bill had to go back to a conferance committe and be re-voted on by each House. Some of that may have occurred in the wee small hours, for example the final Senate Vote on the conference report was August 25, 1994, 10:24 PM, with the final House vote the day before, 21-AUG-1994 7:51 PM. It's hard reconstruct some of the votes and actions from information available on "thomas".
I would expect that if either of the current "renewal" bills, or any renewal bill, makes it into law, it will be as part of some big "must pass" bill, since that gives a certain amount of "deniability" to the CongressCritters, especially those from the house that did not attach the provisions to the larger bill. Then as now, the Senate contains a higher fraction of "RKBA hostile" types, so it would seem likely this stuff would follow a similar path. Probably attached to anti-terrorism legislation rather than anti-crime as before.
Hell, I'd be happy if he'd just rescind some of the executive orders Clinton signed. I'sd like to be able to get a spare barrel for some of my imported "assault weapons" without having to file a Form 6.
And there are people in Hell who want ice water.
When the Democrats ran the show they never gave the slightest consideration to the Republican agenda.
Despite all your self-pitying "the Republicans have no spine and don't say and do the things I want them to," AWB ain't going anywhere.
I almost get the feeling you want it to pass so you can whine some more about how worthless the Republicans are.
Why? Are you one of those pitiful losers who spends all their time on the Internet looking for a date?
Paranoia is a disease. You should get treatment.
Never mind.
Whatever it is you're smoking, you really should quit.
Bill Clinton did not say "This bill is a giant leap forward in our journey toward a totalitarian peoples' paradise" when the AWB was passed, though that was the agenda.
There is a middle third of the voters who have no clue, but it is they who determine the course of elections. They listen to the bleating of the Liberal press and think it is the gospel.
Gun control is an issue the press is expert at demagoging. Give them an opening and they will have the clueless sector of the electorate peeing all over themselves.
So, I take it you disagree with this article's premise?
I disagree with the premise the Dubya must pound his chest and propound things you want him to say about truth, justice and the Second Amendment.
It ain't enough for you to sunset AWB. You want your little ego stroked too.
Must be my "little ego" that allows me to carry on a conversation without calling people names.
This is not a conversation. The Internet is not real life.
You don't have to "give them" an opening, they make their own, and on this issure, "renewal" of the AWB, they are already in full bleat. The issue is not going to die, and "W" will be blamed, already has been in some reports, for the "strategery" of talking renewal while secretly "ordering" Tom Delay to kill it. If he's going to get the heat anyway, he should get into the kitchen ... unless the "stragery" that you and the gun grabbers seem to think is what's really going on is not what's truly behind his spokesmans' statements of his support, but rather that the President really does support renewal. I actually hope you and the gun grabbers are right on this one, but it doesn't really match his general MO. He might hold his cards close, but he doesn't use a marked deck either.
And they can't prove a thing if he doesn't open his mouth and say the words knee-jerk "conservatives" want him to say.
It will be as easy as pie to ignore the AWB renewal and let it die. It's not ignoring it that will breathe life into it.
Yesterday on Hannity's radio show, Clinton lackey Sidney Blumenthal said that the reason they lost the House was because of his "good" policies of gun control and health care. An odd spin, to be sure, but he is openly admitting that the issue was key to their defeat.
Thank you. You've just given me an idea. I've been thinking about re-activating my Law School's Second Amendment Society, but I was wondering exactly how I would actually go about pursuing the group's stated goals of disseminating pro-gun information to the public at large. As a recent public schoolteacher, I think I could get invited to my old schools (and others) as a speaker, because, as you note, these kids are intensely interested in guns. (Personally, I work better with small groups, and I'd bet that many parents would have an instant conniption if their school had a school-wide convocation about guns, so I think offering it on a volunteer basis with parental permission would be the best way to go.)
If anyone has other ideas for me, PLEASE FReepmail me!
Actually, if the under-30 person were female, I'd wager he was 100% correct. Bi-sexual acts by females are very chic and help a girl's popularity. Guns are very scary, unnecessary, evil, and ugly (in their minds of course). It would be no contest.
This is politics, not a court of law, they don't have to "prove" anything. Just alleging it, and repeating the allegations often enough suits their purpose just fine.
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