Posted on 01/25/2008 9:59:59 AM PST by JRochelle
During the debate last night, Mitt Romney was asked about his support of Brady and a ban on assault weapons.
MR. ROMNEY: I do support the Second Amendment, and I believe that this is an individual right of citizens and not a right of government. And I hope the Supreme Court reaches that same conclusion.
I also, like the president, would have signed the assault weapon ban that came to his desk. I said I would have supported that and signed a similar bill in our state. It was a bill worked out, by the way, between pro-gun lobby and anti-guy lobby individuals. Both sides of the issue came together and found a way to provide relaxation in licensing requirements and allow more people to — to have guns for their own legal purposes. And so we signed that in Massachusetts, and I said I’d — I would would support that at the federal level, just as the president said he would. It did not pass at the federal level.
I do not believe we need new legislation.
I do not support any new legislation of an assault weapon ban nature, including that against semiautomatic weapons. I instead believe that we have laws in place that, if they’re implemented and enforced, will provide the protection and the safety of the American people. But I do not support any new legislation, and I do support the right of individuals to bear arms, whether for hunting purposes or for protection purposes or any other reasons. That’s the right that people have.
I think it might be helpful to review Dave Kopel’s thoughts on Mr. Romney’s views of the Second Amendment and gun ownership as published in National Review.
Romney’s Record Similarly, this year’s presidential candidate from Massachusetts has a thin record to back up his claims of support for the Second Amendment. On his website, you can find two accomplishments:
First, in 2004 he signed a bill which reformed some aspects of the extremely severe and arbitrary gun-licensing system in Massachusetts. This would be an impressive accomplishment if that were all the bill did. But the bill also made the Massachusetts ban on “assault weapons” permanent. (The previous ban was parasitic on the federal ban, which expired in September 2004.) The bill that Romney signed was a compromise bill, approved by both sides in the Massachusetts gun-control debate and widely supported by both parties in the legislature. The NRA considered the bill to be a net gain, but it’s hardly the unalloyed, pro-rights success that Romney now claims. As governor, Romney declared his support for banning so-called “assault weapons.”
The other accomplishment noted on the website was Romney’s signing of a 2005 bill that improved some technical details for hunting with muzzle-loading guns.
Other than the 2005 proclamation, there is little evidence of executive leadership by Romney on Second Amendment rights; rather, he tended merely to accept reform bills which could pass even the Massachusetts legislature.
But Romney occasionally considered the Democratic-dominated Massachusetts legislature too soft on gun owners. In the summer of 2002, the Massachusetts house overwhelmingly passed a bill to relax the state’s lifetime ban on gun ownership for persons convicted of some misdemeanors. Faced with a bill that had passed the left-leaning House by a huge margin, Governor Romney declared his opposition, while allowing that he would back a much “more narrow proposal” (Boston Globe, July 17, 2002, page B4). (The narrower proposal was eventually included in the 2004 bill which he did sign.)
Running for re-election in 2002, he bragged, “We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts. I support them. I won’t chip away at them. I believe they protect us and provide for our safety.” At the least, Romney generally didn’t show leadership in making Massachusetts’ terrible gun-laws even worse. For example, his 2002 anti-crime plan included no new gun control (Boston Herald, August 21, 2002).
Conservative? Hmm. Let’s continue.
Romney’s website brags about how he balanced the Massachusetts budget “without raising taxes.” That depends on what the meaning of “taxes” is. Unmentioned on the Romney website is how he dealt with a state budget gap: namely, by quadrupling the fee for a Firearms Identification card (FID) to $100. Without a FID in Massachusetts, you are a felon if you possess a single bullet, even if you don’t own a gun. The FID card is required even to possess defensive pepper spray. Thus, an impoverished woman who wanted to buy a $15 can of pepper spray was forced by Romney to spend $100 for the privilege of defending her own life (North Shore Sunday News, August 8, 2003).
This year, Romney has been portraying himself as a staunch Second Amendment advocate. But when he was interviewed by Glenn and Helen Reynolds, he displayed little understanding of the Second Amendment and had difficulty articulation anything more than platitudes and slogans.
Conservative? Paying $100 to carry pepper spray? Let’s continue.
Unreliable Friends of Convenience Mitt Romney’s attitudes on guns — like his double flip-flop on abortion — appear to have more to do with political expediency than with conviction. While an expedient and cynical “friend” like Mitt Romney would probably be better for gun owners than would a sincere and fierce enemy like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, it is still worth wondering what President Romney would do if his political calculus changed yet again.
George H. W. Bush was another gun-rights friend of convenience, who (like Romney) bought himself a lifetime NRA membership shortly before running for president. And when circumstances made it convenient for Bush to become a gun-control advocate instead of a Second Amendment defender (only a few weeks after he took the oath of office and swore to defend the Constitution), Bush switched sides, and spent the remainder of his administration promoting restrictions on the Second Amendment.
I don't think I'd say it was quite the end of the world, but you can see it from here.
Nothing was actually banned except for the stuff that was banned.
Any compromise with socialists is an exercise in defeat. They NEVER compromise anything that they arent gonna build on later, while we keep sending in the clowns and slowly bleeding out.
call it what you like, but I will no longer vote for a professional politician who would pawn my rights in the name of compromise with satanic powersluts. If that means the queen b!tch gets to pick new drapes for the oval office, so be it, at least I know who the friggin enemy is and where the attack will come from...
Thanks for speaking my mind...
and that my FRiend is one of the biggest problems we had...
You will never find a politician you can get elected to anything more than a local town race who will be an uncompromising ideologue. The chance of getting such a man elected President is less than the chance that we’ll elect that Asteroid some people have been joking about the past week.
Sorry, but even Ronald Reagan new how to compromise to get most of what he wanted.
When you are living with the cannabals, if you get out with one hand missing, you have won.
And maybe the others would say so — but I haven’t seen the word “VETO” on any of their web sites relating to gun laws.
Huckabee has a LOT of veto threats on his web site. Pork barrel spending, trade with Cuba, line item veto, but not guns so far as I can find. And he’s supposedly the best candidate left on the gun issue. (other than Ron Paul).
I guess if guns were the only issue I cared about, and I wasn’t worried about running the country or someone who could put together a good team and implement a conservative agenda, I might vote for Mike Huckabee.
Mike Huckabee
Look again what I wrote, "assault rifle", not "assault weapon".
The term is a translation from the German "Sturmgewehr", coined to impress the little Corporal, first used to describe what had been known as the MP-43 and -44 (MP == Maschinenpistole). The -44 was renamed StG-44 (Sturmgewehr 44) the which could be translated as "storm" or "assault", but "storm" the sense of "attack" or "assult", "gewher" just meaning rifle. The generally accepted definition is a carbine sized rifle, with select fire capability, firing an intermediate power (between pistol and full power rifle, such as 7.62x51, 30-06, .303, 7.62x54, and pistol cartridges.
Apparently the definition has been removed from the DOD Dictionary of Military Terms. but the term is being used. The new rifle being developed for the Special Operations forces is called the SCAR (S.O.F Combat Assault Rifle) However the "heavy version" doesn't fit the classic definition, being chambered for 7.62x51.
But the real point is that "assault weapon" is a political term, meaning "scary gun we want to ban...this year".
Pfft. I was on line in 94 when they did it. Not on the Web, but on newsgroups, like talk.politics.guns and rec.guns, and mailists, like "Noban", which was set up to oppose the "Assault Weapon" ban of '94. I think I'm still on at least one RKBA mail list.
Others were on line even before the net, with using .. what were they called... senior moment here.... oh well (I found it "Bulletin Boards"). They were a group of folks with computers and modems. You could dial them up, read your group, and make posts. Then in the middle of the night they would call up the other servers on the net and exchange new posts.
They were actually contemporaneous with the first newsgroups, which were set up for the scientists and engineers at major universities, who were on the "DARPA Net" the predecessor to the Internet. (DARPA Defense Advanced Research Agency... previously ARPA, without the "Defense".) So I'm somewhat skeptical that it couldn't be done or won't be done if the Supreme Court gives him "permission" to do it.
Of course there are a lot more people on the Web than were ever on the bulletin boards or the pre Web 'net.
Mitt's executive abilities are impressive. With the duty of inforcing our constitution as part of the presidential pledge, (with maybe a few staffers and others shoving it in his face from time to time), he might just execute it.
Got no problem with that.
Romney joined NRA in August
Was advocate of gun control
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was a former advocate of gun control.
By David Abel, Globe Staff | February 19, 2007
Mitt Romney, who has touted his support of gun owners since launching his presidential campaign, yesterday acknowledged he did not become a member of the National Rifle Association until last August, campaign officials said.
Article Tools
A former advocate of gun control, Romney during his 1994 run for the US Senate backed measures the gun-rights group opposed, such as a five-day waiting period on gun sales and a ban on certain assault weapons.
The former Massachusetts governor has been criticized for changing his positions to appeal to social conservatives voting in Republican primaries. In a nationally broadcast interview yesterday, he also had to explain his switch to a conservative stance on abortion and why he once voted for Democrats in Massachusetts primaries.
Spokesman Kevin Madden said Romney did not join the NRA just to court gun owners, who are considered a force in Republican primary politics.
“He joined the NRA because, like millions of Americans, he supports the group’s advocacy of the Second Amendment and its commitment to education programs promoting the safe use of firearms by law-abiding gun owners,” Madden said.
More coverage of the 2008 presidential race
Asked why Romney joined only a few months before declaring his candidacy, Madden said: “I would argue not many Americans care when you join, but why you join, and I think I’ve made that clear.”
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Romney said he signed up for a life long membership “within the last year.”
“I think they’re doing good things, and I believe in supporting the right to bear arms,” Romney said.
Not all gun advocates are convinced of Romney’s commitment to their cause.
“His past votes have been anti-gun and I feel like it may just be a campaign strategy that we’re not going to fall for,” said Gerald Stoudemire, president of Gun Owners of South Carolina, an NRA state association. “I’ve never seen a politician change their way of thinking 180 degrees, except when they were running for office.”
In the interview, Romney also explained why he was a registered independent in the early 1990s and voted for former senator Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic presidential primary. He said it was a tactical maneuver, his effort to get the weakest Democratic nominee.
“In Massachusetts, if you register as an independent, you can vote on either the Republican or Democratic primary,” Romney said. “When there was no real contest in the Republican primary, I’d vote in the Democrat primary, vote for the person who I thought would be the weakest opponent for a Republican.”
But in a 1994 Globe story, Romney said he voted for Tsongas because he was from Massachusetts and “because he favored his ideas over those of Bill Clinton,” according to the story.Continued...
In yesterday’s interview on ABC, Romney added: “Let me tell you, in the general election I don’t recall ever once voting for anyone other than a Republican. So, yeah, as an independent I’ll go in and play in their primary. But I’m a Republican and have been through my life.”
Romney’s explanation that he voted for Tsongas because he would be a weaker opponent for George H.W. Bush struck Northeastern University political science professor William Mayer as odd. “It would have been a strange election to cross over,” he said, noting it’s rare for more than 4 percent of voters to “raid” an opposing party’s primary. “Everyone had conceded it to Tsongas.”
He added: “His explanation gets to his basic problem. He’s always trying to figure out what’s in his best political interest and is willing to cut and trim his behavior to what’s in his short-term interests.”
In the interview, in which Stephanopoulos questioned the governor’s “conversions of convenience,” Romney, a former supporter of abortion rights, refused to say which punishment he thought would be appropriate for women who have abortions. In recent months, Romney has campaigned strongly against abortion rights.
“Well, I’m not about punishment,” Romney said. “That’s not what I’m considering. I’m saying that, in my view, we should let the states make that decision, and I am in favor of life and in favor of choosing life.”
With his wife, Ann, on ABC, Romney also said his faith as a Mormon would not hinder his ability to govern.
“I’m not running for pastor-in-chief; I’m running for commander-in-chief,” Romney said.
Asked whether his Mormonism would alienate evangelical voters, Romney said: “I think we are, if you will, one family of humanity.”
When asked how Muslims might view Mormon doctrine, which holds that Jesus will return to the United States and reign for 1,000 years, Romney said “that doesn’t happen to be a doctrine of my church.”
“Our belief is just as it says in the Bible, that the messiah will come to Jerusalem, stand on the Mount of Olives, and that the Mount of Olives will be the place for the great gathering and so forth,” he said.
Michael Purdy, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Mormons believe Jesus will return to both the “old Jerusalem” and “new Jerusalem,” which Mormons believe is somewhere in the state of Missouri.
“When Christ appears, we believe there will be people of many faiths on the Earth, and no one will be compelled to change their faith,” Purdy said.
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This guy is like a chameleon.
I don’t trust him.
No need to interpret the Constitution.
The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting.
This is definately the crux of the matter. It was also the point I was trying to make.
I bet I'd like a copy of that SCAR in the 7.63 X 51 size. It would look good in the cabinet with the rest of them in that caliber. ;-D
While you see getting back the Government's permission to exercise a fundamental and Constitutionally guaranteed right through Government inaction to be a 'victory', I look at it as an issue which never should have been on the table in the first place.
Pray tell, what happened to the the RKBA conciousness of the Republican Party?
The current "front runners" are either somewhat soft on the issue (Huckabee--a 'B' from the NRA), or have a track record for being downright hostile to the RKBA (all 11th hour conversions aside).
You seem to feel that we are somehow resisting the forces of Socialism by only advancing their agenda a little here and a little there, instead of letting them go ahead and make a train-wreck.
Either way, they win.
If the Republican party candidates win, the Socialists can kick back with a bottle of their favorite beverage and celebrate.
Why? becuse they won, that's why.
Their agenda transcends party lines as well as do the Conservative positions on the issues.
In 2006, the Republicans tried to out-liberal the liberals, and lost, resoundingly. Democrats ran to the right of Republicans on key issues and won.
That should have been a wake-up call, but instead of recognizing that that was a critical Republican mistake, here we go again.
How is voting for the candidate who is only 20% Socialist a win? By not getting the candidate who is 40%, 60%, or 80% Socialist?
Look, at some point, we have to decide where the limit is.
Some of us will hit it earlier than others, because we have values and beliefs which are absolute.
To demonstrate, let's roll back the clock.
If, for instance, in 1960, someone had decided to use the no-knock, dynamic entry, militarized police unit technique for serving a warrant, it would have cost the local sheriff his job in short order.
The process of allowing a baby to turned in the womb, born except for the head, and their brains sucked out would have been decried as the horror it is, and not debated as a woman's 'right' in Congress.
The idea of some people using a word (no matter how distasteful) being a "hate crime", would have been laughed at as straight out of 1984, another horror story which was embraced by some as a manifesto.
Some things were socially unacceptable among decent folks, no law needed.
The idea that a local government wanted to take someone's property and tear down their home or lawful business, not to put in a road, but to sell it to someone who would build a property which would increase the local tax base, would have been met with a march on city hall with torches and primitive farm implements, not upheld by the SCOTUS as 'emminent domain'.
The idea of keeping a firearm in your home for the defense thereof and not being charged for using it for that purpose was taken for granted.
The idea that the Federal government would mandate what kind of light bulbs you could obtain and use would have been laughed away.
I am not saying every change has been bad, but a great many have.
So where do we decide to stop the slide and begin the long climb out of the abyss?
If voting for someone other than the big two candidates can send the message, great.
Personally, I think 'none of the above' would be good to have on the ballot, and that might get out more voters than all the election-year pandering and fear mongering will.
Am I quitting? No. But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life stuck on stupid, either, by slowly voting away my great-grandchildrens' freedom when I have a chance, any chance of helping turn things around.
If the Republican party is not going to be the vehicle by which we achieve that turnaround, and at present it does not seem so, then we had better find another vehicle by which to accomplish those ends before things have gone past the point of no return.
Maybe all the gauges running in the red will get the point across.
If the Republican Party is going to be the vehicle by which conservatives can turn things around, then it is time for the drivers to realize that it needs to be reworked. It is running badly and pulling hard to the left. A combination of denial and panic is keeping it from being fixed.
Thank you both for the addidtional information and clarifying things.
It’s about the right to keep and bear arms. Hunters keep and bear arms. Without the 2nd amendment, the government could take away your right to have guns to use for Hunting.
So Hunting is certainly one of the uses for the weapons we have a right to keep.
Just like protection and ALL OTHER PURPOSES” are. Which is why Romney included ALL purposes in his statement, including Hunting and Protection but not excluding anything else.
'Tis time to take back the Party, as was done in the 1976-1980 period. The country club types didn't like it then, but too damned bad...we gave this country the best President since TR and we're still reaping benefits.
Well, no one questions that, but it will have to be done from the ground up.
And having Democrats running the country is not an option.
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