...to see that Obama's "assault weapons" comments were simply writing ad copy for the NRA in Fudd-heavy swing states like Ohio and Wisconsin.
Will the guy who blew off the UAW newsletter to stay home on election day get off the couch for one from the NRA? That's the gamble. Your closed shop or your SKS, Bubba: pick one.
Can't tell you how much joy it brings that the link says handguns are the most popular rifle in America :-)
ReplyDeleteIt's those layers of editorial oversight that make Real Media superior to us bloggers.
ReplyDeleteWell, here in BuckeyeLand, Bubba doesn't even have to get off the couch. He can just pick up his phone, call the local Board of Elections, and have his Absentee Ballot HAND-DELIVERED by an Official Member of the Postal Workers Union to his door! Talk about Trade Union Solidarity!
ReplyDeleteAnd in this Election, it gets counted on Election Night instead of being sent to back of the LIne!
Still hoping my papers show up out here in time.
ReplyDeleteWho signed the State "assault weapons ban" bill in Massachusetts? It's frying pan vs. fire as far as I can see.
ReplyDeleteASM826
ReplyDeleteRomney won't have the support of congress to get any ban through. That's why Obama is so dangerous, with his executive orders........
"Dud A" vs "Dud B". Meh. What else is new?
ReplyDeleteGalt/Rearden 2012!
Well said Tam! And Obummer definitely licked the third rail with his comments the other night!
ReplyDeleteRegarding Romney = Obama on gun laws; yeah, certainly it would be much better to have someone in the office who has a deeply held personal understanding and belief in the second amendment. Last I heard, that guy/gal either isn't running or doesn't have the slightest hope of winning.
ReplyDeleteSo one way or another, we're going to get someone in the White House who is not a strong supporter of 2a. That doesn't mean it makes no difference, though.
Firstly, Obama is a hard core dyed-in-the-wool anti-2a dude. I'd rather have a guy who's weakly on our side now, with a checkered past, than a guy who's firmly devoted to the other side.
Secondly, politicians are about representing their constituents. Obama's base wants more gun control. In Massachusetts, Romney was representing a different population than he is now, and he certainly knows that now he's representing a bunch of gun owners.
Imagine either of these guys, under some pressure from Congress to sign a new AWB. They both get a hundred thousand letters from gun owners urging them not to sign it. Obama looks at those letters and says, "My side wasn't going to get those votes anyway. Where's my pen?" Romney looks at that pile of letters and says "I need these people to get re-elected, even though I don't personally care about those loud, shooty, what-do-you-call-'em things. Guess I better not sign this."
I was pretty determined to vote for some fringe wookie party, until The Big O came out with his rifles-and-pistols ban talk. Now I'm tempted to vote strategically for Romney, especially if it looks like my state is in contention.
Alath
Carmel IN
Many express concern that Romney as Governor signed an "assault weapons ban" bill in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Legislature was 85% Democratic and voted overwhelmingly for this bill. See the 6/29/2004 posting for what the NRA-ILA had to say about this bill when it was passed:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nraila.org/legislation/state-legislation/2004/6/massachusetts-firearms-reform-bill-se.aspx
What many do not seem to realize is that the power to legislate and override a Governor's veto or a President's veto sometimes is more important than an elected executive's power to veto. Aside from the mostly symbolic claim to have vetoed any gun control legislation while Governor of Massachusetts, which would have been overriden by the Massachusetts Legislature, there was nothing to be gained by Romney to have vetoed this bill.
The solution? Vote for state and Federal legislators and that support ALL of the U.S. Constitution and who will vote to revoke ANY and ALL current gun control law and actively work against ANY future legislation. Come to the realization that any politician, whether they be legislator, executive or judge, that supports gun control is willing to support violation of your civil rights. There must be NO compromise on this.
Ed, the problem with your "legislature would have overridden him" stance is he said this at the bill's signing:
ReplyDelete"Deadly assault weapons have no place in Massachusetts", Romney said, at a bill signing ceremony on July 1 with legislators, sportsmen's groups and gun safety advocates. "These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense. They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people." - July 1st, 2004 -- Mitt Romney
He had a golden opportunity to walk that back some in the second debate. Instead he doubled down.
"Who signed the State "assault weapons ban" bill in Massachusetts?"
ReplyDeletePaul Cellucci (R) signed it in 1998. It had no sunset provision.
I find a couple things interesting.
ReplyDelete1) That Wisconsin is now a swing state. Of course since Walker defeated the recall effort by a larger margin than his initial election and that WI now has CCW that's cromulent.
2) And related to the CCW, Fudds now care about AWBs. As Tam deliberatly mentioned an SKS doesn't even count as an "assault weapon". Fixed magazine et al. But that's the point as it would seem even the Fudds realize how this game works.
no
ReplyDeleteDear Proud Member of the Proletariat,
ReplyDeleteYour one word response "no" was interpreted as spam by the spam filter, which is why it wound up there all fifty-eleven times you typed it.
Since I do not actually sit at my computer all day monitoring the spam filter, it had to wait until I got back to let one of your lonely little butterflies out of the net. The rest went into the kill jar.
Solidarity, my brother! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
-T.
NH, Maine, VA, FL, even PA now - all swing states with a lot of Bubbas. Obama really wants to lose.
ReplyDeleteI figure Mitt would have a better chance of getting a new Assault Weapon Ban passed than Barack would. The (R)ino's would be able to say they where bi-partisan when they join the slightly more red brethren on voting for stupid feel good measures.
ReplyDeleteI just don't see even the idiot (R)ino's voting with Obama on any kind of gun ban.
I don't see a GOP-controlled House even thinking about an AWB. They haven't yet, so why would they magically start if Romney were elected?
ReplyDeleteA lot of the people advancing theories about what would occur if which candidate were to win were obviously out refilling their Count Chocula bowls between Scooby Doo episodes when the Schoolhouse Rock episodes came on. ;)
(And Mind You: I'm a likely Johnson-voting wookie suiter, but internet tripe to the contrary, Barry is anti gun while Mitt is gun-agnostic. He doesn't give a flip about guns one way or another.)
It is amazing how many people think the president writes laws now. As if the presidents tax plan, or green energy initiative or anything else could happen though him just waving his hand.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Congress used to write laws?
Is it a cause or a symptom of regulatory fiat?
Woodman,
ReplyDeleteIf they're good for nothing else, the NRA has been exceptionally solid at cock-blocking any attempt at gun control legislation in the House of Representatives, whose members are, after all, rarely more than a year away from a primary challenge.
A senator can take a risk and hope the base will forget in five years, but representatives are a lot easier to threaten with the consequences of a bad vote.
ASM826 --
ReplyDeleteThe bill Romney signed didn't ban a single gun.
Rather, it extended the (expiring) federal exemptions in the 1994 AWB to Massachusetts, which didn't actually formally recognize the federal AWB exemptions (the 1998 MA law was written to include, but not be limited to, any guns banned by federal law.)
The bill Romney signed not only made the federal exemptions statutorily binding on the MA AWB law, they made them permanent exemptions.
Stupid signing statement -- but it was a PRO-gun bill, despite how Brady and the press portrayed it.
Pay more attention to what politicians do, and less to what they say on camera.
Sebastian has a nice post on why the assault weapon's ban Romney signed wasn't an assault weapons ban.
ReplyDeleteSo I have an SKS with the 16 inch "Paratrooper" barrel (I think the Chinese actually marketed it as the 'Cowboy' version) wearing a conventionally shaped and sized American black plastic stock.
ReplyDeleteFor reference, it handles like a '94 Winchester, shoots minute of angle with a scope, and two minutes of angle with GI issue irons and Winchester white box ammo. Something about a book and it's cover.
CopSon wants it for a trunk gun
so badly I'll probably relent and give it to him for Christmas, but I'll miss it.
As for Romney, I have a lot of cop buddies in Mass, almost all of them competitive shooters and members of NRA affiliated gun clubs, and they don't have anything against the guy at all.
Rightly or wrongly, the Bartley-Fox gun law gets implemented two different ways up there, and has been since Romney was Governor.
If a Gangbanger gets caught with a piece in his belt, he does the extra year and whatever time he's owing for parole violation.
If Pierre Delacroix or Nuggy O'Malley from New Hampshire drives over the state line to buy some cheap brew at the packy in Mass while forgetting about the Marlin in the trunk, he gets cited for a bartley-Fox violation with a small b on the Bartley.
That's a discrete sign to the ADA that the kid should get his rifle back and get the charges knocked down to a $75 misdemeanor.
I never paid any attention to Romney at all as a Governor, but I guess he did a reasonably decent job standing up to the State unions, and turned a three billion dollar deficit into a small but real surplus.
As for his other legislation, he evidently picked his fights and walked away from the ones he knew he couldn't win in Massachusetts.
He actually got several penalties removed from the Massassholes healthcare bill and never even mentioned the abortion on demand statutes that were established law when he was elected and are still unchallenged up there today.
The week after the election I'm driving up to Vermont (best gun laws in the world, your Driver's License is your pistol permit) and I'll be stopping for dinner in a great little diner in Deerfield, about halfway there.
About any time between midafternoon Friday the 16th and sunrise on Saturday, there will be at least enough firearms out in the parking lot to outfit a company of leg infantry, and the Mass State Troopers you shoot the breeze with over your coffee are mostly local boys who will be out in the woods with you at 6:42 a.m.
Not much for the guy, and not much against him, until now. But he seems to be a decent administrator, so I'll give him a chance.
Well, I'm voting for Romney and any other candidates with his initilal after their names even though I reside in a blue state with a distressingly large number of reds who keep voting for Big State/small citizen despite the evidence of their lying eyes.
ReplyDelete