Posted on 01/22/2008 7:34:09 PM PST by Rumierules
What’s ‘AWB’?
I don’t see McCain as just going nuts every now and again. I see him as a liberal, in bed with the Democrats every chance he gets, and willing to push legislation that the Republican base despises inspite of all the evidence. I won’t vote for another Bush that ignores us and pushes for amnesty. Speaking of going crazy now and then, I’d rather vote for Ron Paul than McCain. ;)
I disagree. The Clintons are about acquiring power and holding on to it. It is why Bill basicaly took every Republican proposal and ran with it as his own. Remember Welfare reform?
Clintons love power, but Bill Clinton passed the largest tax increase in the history of the world and the Brady Bill/AWB. Shortly after that, the Dems lost both houses of Congress and the Clintons were relegated to pushing Midnight Basketball, school uniforms, and other less substantial items. However, Clinton still vetoed the Ban on Partial Birth Abortion (BPBA) 2 or 3 times. After vetoing Welfare Reform (WR) twice, Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming by a GOP Congress and the pressure of his own re-election bid (per Dick Morris) to sign WR. It was only the GOP Congress that forced spending cuts & balanced the budget, but GOP lost the budget battle of 1995 that would have allowed the GOP to dramatically defund left-wing govt programs. (Sadly, GOP lost spending discipline after Clinton left the White House.)
Therefore, the Clinton record was push left wing ideas (tax increases, Brady, AWB) when they had Congress and block, as much as possible, conservative ideas (BPBA, WR, defunding left-wing govt programs) when the GOP had Congress.
As much as we would like to hope otherwise, the Dems will probably control both houses of Congress after 2008. (Dems almost certainly will maintain control of the Senate and the chances for GOP to gain the House are low.) Surely, you don't want the Clintons back in the White House with control of Congress in the Dems in view of their record of pushing left wing ideas when they can?
Hillary talked a good game to her base when she was running for the Senate, but how much of it did she try to implement? Look at the list. How many times did she team with Feinstein? How many Gun Control bills did she push?
The answer is Zero.
No, actually she co-sponsored all or almost all of the bills/ideas discussed in the quoted CNN article. With the GOP controlling Congress until 2006 and with the Dems in Congress concentrating on legislating a defeat in Iraq during 2007, the bills may have gone nowhere, but Hillary tried to implement them. The following from the Gun Owners of America [GOA rates Hillary as F-, meaning below zero percent voting record b/c she leads charges against gun rights] doesn't list sponsors or other co-sponsors, but I'll bet Feinstein was involved with numerous, if not all, of the below anti-2nd Amendment anti-gun bills co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton:
Anti-gun Bills Hillary Clinton Cosponsored: S. 368: Massively expand federal funding and control of local law enforcement. S. 456: Treat firearms offenses as though they were Mafia or gang-releated crimes. S. 527: Redefine more handgun ammunition as "armor piercing". S. 578: FBI to maintain gun sales records of persons on "watch lists" for 10 years. S. 620: Reinstate the expired ban on semi-automatic firearms and magazines. S. 645: Semi-auto ban plus a ban on some youth sportshooting competitions. S. 935: Fifty-caliber ban. S. 22: Omnibus gun control: gun show ban, lifetime juvenile offender ban, FBI record-keeping, much more. S. 448: Huge bill including a magazine ban, gun show ban, mandatory trigger locks, one-handgun-a-month, etc. S. 1034: Semi-auto ban reauthorization. S. 1431: Vastly expanded semi-auto ban reauthorization (more guns banned plus other anti-gun provisions). S. 1774: Permanently ban polymer-framed (so-called "plastic") firearms. S. 1807: Gun show ban. S. 1882: FBI to maintain gun sales records of persons on "watch lists". S. 1983: National ballistic registry of all new fireams, plus increased BATF power and funding. S. 2109: Ten-year extension of the semi-auto ban then in effect. S. 16: "Crime bill" including: gun show ban, lifetime juvenile offender ban, FBI record-keeping, much more. S. 767: Gun show ban. S. 924: Expand federal police power, specifically the federal government's role in "firearms-related incidents." S. 940: Gun show ban included in a large education bill. S. 1253: Register lawful gun buyers for a minimum of 90 days. S. 1788: Audit background check information; make it available for both criminal and civil inquiries.
I still believe Mitt is a guaranteed AWB. McCain may not be. Huck may not be. and Hillary will definitely not be.
If Hillary was elected, from a domestic perspective, she would govern as a Republican, just like Bill, to keep us from getting agitated, and showing at the polls.
No way would she govern as a Repub with Dems controlling Congress. Relative to Clintons, look at how they governed when they had Congress. Hard left with Brady Bill and AWB.
Romney is kind of like Bush, who said that he would sign an extension of AWB, but Bush did nothing to further such an extension. Not very strong in support of the 2nd amendment, but not hard committed against it. He might back an AWB, but he might not. Hillary would support AWB, not just verbally, but with the whole corrupt machine known as Clinton, Inc.
McC sponsored the McCain/Lieberman gun show bill, which would have given the federal government the administrative power to prohibit all gun shows, and to register everyone who attends a gun show per http://www.trugop.org/Editorials/2ndAmendment.htm.
Huckabee seems to be sinking fast. At any rate, if he somehow won the GOP nomination, the Dems would likely get a 40 to 45 state sweep in the Presidential race, a filibuster proof Dem majority of 60 in the Senate, and a huge majority in the House. Regardless of Huckabee's positions, such a huge loss would devastate gun rights.
i already voted. for mitt.
I do disagree strongly and will explain my position that Hillary is terrible on the second amendment and that McCain is not very good on the second amendment and beyond. Romney has not been great on the 2nd amendment, but might work out reasonably good in the end on that issue, certainly better than Hillary or McC.
I disagree, but admit neither of us could know for sure. My feeling is 94 and 2000 were lessons to the Dems. Screw with the NRA and you loose power. I suspect Hillary would want to keep Congress, and would do what Dems are doing now. Not allow anything to come up for a vote. All those bills Hillary authored didn’t get voted on for a reason. The NRA is presently a Sleeping Giant, and nobody wants to awaken it. I would expect that trend to continue into a Hillary term. In 93, she and Bill just had no idea.
They may well have gotten a vote in committee. If they didn't get a vote on the Senate floor, the reasons were (1) GOP controlled the Senate most of the time Hillary was in the Senate such that bills were not passed in the committee vote or the GOP leader did not schedule a floor vote following passage in the committee, and (2) when the Dems controlled the Senate, they knew that Bush would simply veto most such bills (whereas a President Hillary would euthusiastically sign an anti-gun bill). Also, much of the time, Senate Dems were preoccupied after 911 from 2001 to 2002 and then preoccupied with surrendering Iraq to Al Qeda & Iran in 2007.
Now here is what Hillary said to Tim Russert this month:
We do need to crack down on illegal gun dealers. This is something that I would like to see more of. And we need to enforce the laws that we have on the books. I would also work to reinstate the assault-weapons ban. We now have, once again, police deaths going up around the country, and in large measure because bad guys now have assault weapons again. We stopped it for awhile. Now they're back on the streets. [emphasis added]
Thus, Hillary has said that she will reinstate AWB. If your enemy says that they are coming after you, you ignore them at your peril.
That said, we agree on Huckabee. He is a disaster. I think Mitt is the same thing, though, and if he won would renew the AWB.
Romney said in Thursday FL debate that he would not try to add new federal gun laws & would not try to revive the lapsed federal AWB (although he backed it verbally in the early to mid 90s, as mentioned by his questioner). I think that he, unlike Hillary, respects the political strength of gun owners. Hence, his new respect for the 2nd amendment.
Romney signed a state AWB, but it was apparently backed by Mass. pro-gun groups as well as anti-gun groups. Here is what I found about that:
The truth from a Mass resident. We had a state AWB in Mass since 1994, unlike the Federal ban it did not have a sunset clause. While in office Romney passed an rewrite version of the Mass AWB. What happen in 2004, is the anti's in the state legislature wanted to further the ban with a rewrite of the original ban. They wanted to ban all AWs in the state. Thankfully some pro gun legislators fought them on the bill, and had them remove any language that would have banned more types of AWs. The new bill was a near copy of the orginial ban but the confusing language of the original bill was cleaned up. Romney passed the new bill with fan fair claming it would reduce crime in Mass etc. What he did not mention is this was just a rewrite of the original. I have no idea why he got a B rating from the NRA. I guess he was not as anti-gun as the other Governors including other republicans, in this state.
Romney's not great, but he is unlikely to spend any effort to add new laws, in stark contrast to Hillary saying that she will push to reinstate the federal AWB.
I’m feeling kind of stuck with McCain, but can’t blame anybody here, including you for hating me for it, nor would I blame Jim for banning me. I just feel like he’d be better than Romney on guns, though not by much, and less of a socialist than Huck, though maybe not by much.
Two part response on McC.
On the second amendment, he backed McCain-Lieberman (it didn't pass). According to his co-sponsor Lieberman:
What does the McCain-Lieberman Bill do? McCain-Lieberman requires background checks at all gun shows and public events where at least 75 guns are available for sale.. . .
Who is allowed to perform background checks? Under current law, only licensed firearms dealers are allowed to perform background checks. McCain-Lieberman creates a new category of people allowed to perform background checks called "Special Licensees." Special Licensees can be gun show or flea market organizers, or any other person who is approved by ATF to perform background checks at gun shows.
Thus, McC was supporting federal licensing of gun shows and a massive federal effort to restrict the 2nd amendment by regulating gun shows.
The second part of my response about McC is to note that he:
— adamantly against the Bush tax cuts (he now says that it was b/c there were not enough spending cuts, but when he opposed them, he took the Dem class warfare lie that it was “tax cuts for the rich”) (former Senator Santorum said that McC was "leading the charge" against the Bush tax cuts),— led the fight in favor of amnesty for illegals (McCain-Kennedy),
— leader in evading the first amendment & getting the first substantial restrictions on political speech in U.S. history (McCain-Feingold, aka, the Incumbent Protection Act),
— ignoring the second amendment, McC sponsored the McCain/Lieberman gun show bill, which would have given the federal government the administrative power to prohibit all gun shows, and to register everyone who attends a gun show per http://www.trugop.org/Editorials/2ndAmendment.htm,
— sponsored the McCain/Lieberman Cap and Trade System to Reduce Greenhouse Gases, which would hurt consumers, drive up business costs, and drive business to China and undeveloped countries that don't restrict carbon dioxide emissions (McC, willing to pay any price to fight GoreBull Warming, foolishly believes that such regulations create "green" jobs, in total ignorance of the famous Broken Window Fallacy),
— a key RINO in the Gang of Fourteen, thus undercutting GOP fight against Dem improper filibusters of conservative judicial nominees,
— promises to close GITMO the first day that he is president so that he can move the world’s worst captured terrorists to the U.S., possibly to a neighborhood near you,
— is against waterboarding of even the most vicious terrorists, even when interrogation experts believe it is necessary or advisable to get info in order to save innocent American lives, and despite the fact that it is not torture, it is done routinely on some U.S. military during training, it has reportedly only been used 2 or 3 times against terrorists, and McC’s critique plays into leftist smears against the U.S. for torture,
— using the language of the socialist left, he now attacks the pharmaceutical industry, one of the crown jewels of the U.S. economy, and is trying to force drug re-importation (those vicious people in big pharma, who actually want to make a profit by helping cure people and alleviate pain, were the "big bad guys" per McC),
— is against drilling in ANWAR, McC comparing ANWAR to the Grand Canyon (ANWAR is "what hell would look like if it froze over" per the IBD) ,
— wants an economic stimulus bill, but incredibly says that it should be "paid for" by spending cuts in total ignorance of the theory behind any stimulus which is to increase govt spending and borrowing, thus to increase economic activity ("paying for" a gov stimulus bill negates the purpose, it means that it is no longer a stimulus),
— curries favor with his friends in the liberal media, even as they trash conservatives in McC’s own party, and
— toyed with the idea of accepting the VP nomination of his good friend, John Kerry (Kennedy, Feingold, Lieberman, Kerry, all liberal Dems, see any pattern?).
I probably left something out, but that will have to do.
Considering this atrocious record, no conservative should support McC in the primary.
McC is a true American hero for his war service. He was been strong and steady relative to Iraq and the surge. He should be given a medal & sent home to a rocking chair.
McC is not the right person to lead the country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.