Posted on 02/15/2013 11:48:48 AM PST by neverdem
Second thoughts on the Second Amendment in the race to replace Jesse Jackson Jr.
After a long wait, Illinois’s second district will soon have a representative in Congress. That seat has been vacant since Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned from it in November, and the bizarre politics of gun control may determine who its next occupant will be. As the issue plays out on the national stage in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Conn., it can be seen in microcosm in the Illinois race, where 17 Democrats are fighting for their party’s nomination in advance of a primary set for February 26.
The salience of the gun issue has provided an opportunity for anti-gun activists to target allegedly pro-gun Democrats in their ranks. It has also exerted enormous pressure on erstwhile strong backers of the Second Amendment to fall in line with the party’s left wing. In the Illinois race, they have done so expeditiously.
New York City mayor and anti-gun activist Michael Bloomberg is aiming his fire — at the cost of over a million dollars — at former Illinois representative Debbie Halvorson, who earned an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association during her term in Congress from 2008 to 2010. One of the ads sponsored by Bloomberg’s Independence USA super PAC warns ominously, “Gun violence, it’s out of control. Debbie Halvorson will make it worse.” Another charges, “When it comes to preventing gun violence, she gets an ‘F.’”
Halvorson calls the ads “over the top” and “deplorable,” in part because she has systematically disavowed the positions that earned her that “A” rating. With the exception of an assault-weapons ban, she backs all of the proposals set forth by the president and Democrats in Congress. “I have always said, since running in this primary, that we need universal background checks, we need to end the gun-show loophole,” she tells National Review Online.
Asked about her change of heart, Halvorson offers a curious explanation. Because of redistricting, she says, she now represents a different constituency. “It’s kind of ironic that they’re trying to take my stance from my old district and do what they’re doing,” she says. The second district, which is now majority African American and overwhelmingly Democratic, is more urban as a result of the 2011 redistricting process. In other words, Halvorson’s views on gun regulation seem to have shifted to reflect those of her new constituency.
Halverson also says that her views are “evolving” in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Conn., that took the lives of 20 children and six adults. “There’s a national conversation,” she adds, a growing sentiment that “we have to do something.” Needless to say, she hasn’t sought the NRA’s endorsement this time around.
The views of former Illinois state senator Toi Hutchinson appear to be evolving as well. She earned an “A” rating from the NRA in 2010 for opposing a ban on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines and supporting the right to carry a concealed weapon. Like Halvorson, she cites the Newtown shooting as the catalyst for a conversion. “When it’s time to move, you need to move,” she told the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board. Hutchinson now supports bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines as well as universal background checks.
Ironically, the gun-control flip-floppers in Illinois’s second congressional district will have one gun owner to thank if they claim victory on the 26th. Their political fortunes markedly improved when the initial front-runner, Illinois state senator Donne Trotter, dropped out following his arrest at Chicago’s O’Hare airport after TSA agents stopped him from trying to board a plane with a .25-caliber Beretta handgun nestled in his carry-on bag. Perhaps not surprisingly, Trotter is a gun-control advocate who opposed legislation in Illinois to legalize carrying concealed weapons.
The latest poll shows Halvorson and Hutchinson trailing front-runner Robin Kelly, who has brandished her “F” rating from the NRA, by single digits. Suffice it to say, in this urban, Democratic Chicago district, the political effects of the Newtown massacre are on display, and they appear to be more about posture than principle.
— Eliana Johnson is media editor of National Review Online.
How can the Democrats promote gun control in Chicago when there has been a thousand killings? That’s not gun control, that’s a revolution.
Can’t trust dims on guns.
“views are evolving” = “say whatever the rubes want to get me elected”
Debbie Halvorson looks like a pug.
low information voters will NEVER get it.
just focus on the word “rights”.
Democrats take YOUR rights.
(low information voters don’t know miranda rights but they know they have RIGHTS)
Ask her repeatedly why are your TAKING RIGHTS.
for MSM reporters why are you opposing the bill of rights.
The low information voter will hear only rights and taking.
Why does the gop not remove Bloomberg from their membership? Because the gop agrees with Bloomberg?
Billionaire Bloomberg knocks out Joe Baca, adds dynamic to gun politics
Both of these broads are just like the conversation Winston Churchill had with some hoity-toity Brit “Lady Whatsomever”:
WC - Would you go to bed with me for 10000 pound Sterling?
LW - Probably so.
WC - Would you do so for 1 Pound?
LW - Of course not!! What do you take me for, some kind of harlot???
WC - We’ve already established that fact and now we’re just negotiating the price.
The aforementioned erstwhile Congresspersons have established that they have no principles and it all depends on who is voting as to what positions they will take.
Bloomboob shed the RINO label during his 2nd term. He's been an indie for 4 years, at least, IIRC.
What does Bloomberg have to do with the GOP? His name has a big (I) behind it.
Notice that all of the Democrats who are now being hammered by other Democrats for their “obsolete” pro-2nd Amendment positions, have now done a 180 and adopted anti-2nd Amendment positions. Both Debbie Halvorson and Toi Hutchinson have had a change of heart, and now want to confiscate your guns.
I hope that the NRA leadership has learned something from this. You just can’t give a Democrat an “A” rating on 2nd Amendment issues, because the minute the party leadership barks an order, the Democrat you just gave an “A” rating to will stab you in the back.
You’re right and I’ve spoken to dozens of low information blacks in her district. 100%, and I mean not one iota of resistance, have stated that they want a gun to protect themselves and that they believe it is their right.
Halvorson may win here on that issue alone. She shouldn’t run from it. She’d be wise to point out the inherent racism in keeping blacks from protecting themselves along with the history of gun control. This is a real opportunity for GOP outreach.
I disagree. I want the NRA to remain a single issue organization. The rats ran moderates and centrists many of whom claimed fealty to the 2nd Amendment in 2006 and 2008. RINOs almost got wiped out in those elections.
Obama and Holder started making noise about renewing the so called "assault weapons" ban in March 2009. More than 5 dozen rats wrote a letter to Holder telling him to get lost. Reid and Pelosi made comments that gun control wasn't on the agenda.
To placate the Brady crowd they hatched Fast & Furious. Now with little chance of retaking the House for a decade, rat true believers in gun control are sounding off. It keeps the Brady crowd happy and their donations coming in.
The NRA knows who screwed them. Reid has said a renewal of the so called "assault weapon" ban is off the table.
The Democrats will find other ways to screw gun owners. Universal background checks ... publishing a website with searchable, sortable CCW license holders' names, addresses, and make and model of registered firearms ... and remember, they use our tax dollars to screw us however they like, and then we spend years, and hundreds of thousands in attorney fees, fighting our way past federal judges appointed by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to challenge them in the USSC, with no guarantee of success.
One of the most likely ways they’ll screw us is requiring a Federal Firearm Owner’s ID card (FFOID), which can be denied, or taken away, by a Bill Clinton or Barack Obama appointee on the federal bench, deciding on scant evidence of eccentricity that we are “mentally ill” and therefore dangerous.
Los Angeles has already demonstrated how gun control laws can be abused for political purposes. Most of the people who have been issued CCW licenses are major donors to Democratic Party candidates. There’s even been a thread about it here at Free Republic today.
They’re not getting any gun grabbing bill through the House of Representatives in this decade, IMHO. I doubt Reid will pass anything in the Senate. Any pubbie in the House voting for it will be primaried.
Thanks for the ping!
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