Some Good News!~ Have Gun Will Vote!

nralife

New member
HAVE GUN, WILL VOTE

By FRED BARNES

- AP http://www.newyorkpost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/28547.htm


WILLIAM Schneider couldn't believe his eyes. The CNN commentator and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute felt there must be something wrong with a recent CNN poll. It showed Americans are evenly divided on whether George W. Bush, who doesn't talk much about guns, or Al Gore, who has made gun control a theme of his presidential campaign, handles the "gun issue" better.

Schneider requested the question be asked again. It was - with the same result.

The gun issue isn't supposed to be playing this way in 2000. Democrats, liberals, the press, most of the Washington political community, and even a good number of Republicans thought the politics of the issue had been transformed, post-Columbine. No longer would the intensity be on the side of the National Rifle Association and gun owners.

Now, it would be with middle-class voters, suburbanites, soccer moms, and others who favor sweeping gun control, including registration of all handguns. They would force queasy Republicans to swallow gun control or else lose in this fall's election.

Quite the opposite has happened. The intensity has shifted - strengthening the foes of gun control. NRA membership is soaring and may reach 4 million by year's end. Most Republicans feel politically secure on the gun issue, and President Clinton has jettisoned the not-so-popular phrase "gun control" in favor of "gun safety." Democrats made gun control the overriding issue last fall in the Virginia and New Jersey legislative races. The result was GOP capture of both houses of the Virginia legislature for the first time ever and easy Republican retention of the New Jersey statehouse.

In poll after poll, public support for gun control has dipped. More important, public belief that more gun restrictions are the answer to gun violence, especially among youths, has faded.

A new twist to the debate has been crucial in undermining the drive for gun control. This is the argument, stridently voiced by NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, that existing gun laws should be enforced before any new ones are enacted. "Finally, their side has an argument the public is receptive to," says Karlyn Bowman, who monitors polls for AEI.

Polls bear this out. A survey in April by ABC News/Washington Post asked whether "passing stricter gun control laws" or "stricter enforcement of existing laws" is the best way to curb gun violence. Enforcement was preferred by 53 percent to 33 percent. In a survey for YRock, the Young Republican Web site, GOP pollster Frank Luntz asked for reaction to this statement: "Passing gun laws is what keeps politicians' careers alive. Enforcing gun laws is what keeps the rest of us alive." Sixty percent agreed, 34 percent didn't.

By championing enforcement, Republicans have deftly adjusted to a change in the gun debate that Democrats were certain would help their side. In this regard, they first seized on Project Exile, a program in Richmond, Virginia, in which criminals who use guns are prosecuted in federal court, where trials are swifter and sentences harsher.

The Clinton administration privately opposed expansion of Project Exile until last year, when a Senate hearing on it was scheduled. The Saturday before, the president reversed the policy and used his radio address to praise the program.

The public has dramatically lost faith in gun control as a solution to violence in America, notably to gun violence in schools. What would have the greatest impact in reducing school violence? In the Luntz poll, only 10 percent said gun control; 77 percent said teaching about right and wrong. Given other choices, 84 percent said parental involvement was the answer; 14 percent answered gun control.

One person who hasn't been surprised by voters' attitudes about guns is Karl Rove, George W. Bush's chief strategist. Bush, of course, echoes the GOP line about first enforcing, and then tinkering with, existing gun laws. Rove characterizes the presidential race as between "one guy who says the answer is more gun control" and "the other guy who says we've got laws on the books people are breaking ... and while we need a few improvements, we need to send a message that when you use a gun, you go to jail." The second guy wins 60 percent to 20 percent, according to Rove. He exaggerates, but he and Bush understand that the new politics of gun control are a lot like the old.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard (weeklystandard.com), where this article first appeared.
 
If the gunnies get off their a** and vote
single issue in Nov, the Dems are dead,
plain and simple. I sure hope it happens.
I intend to do my part.


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Never do an enemy a minor injury. Machiavelli
"Stay alive with a 45"
 
worth the picture post load time:
web04180025.jpg


at home i'm on a 28.8 modem

dZ
 
nralife--same here.

I figure that if a candidate is on the wrong side of the gun rights issue he or she is either stupid, ignorant, demagogic, hysterical, unprincipled, mendacious, or all of the above, and has forfeited the public trust.
 
jimmy, don't waste your vote on a democrat or republican neither supports your Rights nor the oath of office. Vote third party. Yeah, I hear all the screams of fear and politico induced parrot echos, but you ain't gonna change democrats and/or republicans by continuing to vote for them and begging them to honor their oath of office. And yeah I know you have a very good representative. Paul is the only Representative I know of who is worth his salt.We have until November to try to get the word out. So tell everyone you know to vote third party. It could save your Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness and your children's too.

My Congressman, Asa Hutchinson, has a discussion board (the only elected in WDC that does) and I invite you to post there. Be forewarned there a few regular socialist posting there. They believe the Constitution is a old outdated worthless rag. http://plato1.aristotle.net/asa/ubb/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro

Also, I have a very good copy of the Constitution with interpretation prepared by Joanne Campbell that I will email to anyone who wants it. I have found nothing with Joanne's work that I disagree with. ahampton@tcainternet.com

I wish you all Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Allan
 
Sure, vote for a third party candidate who has no chance of winning. Al Gore needs all of the help that he can get. ;-) A vote for anyone except for Bush is a vote for Al Gore. Don't get me wrong, under normal circumstances I may have voted Libertarian this year, but this is not a normal election cycle.

This year the stakes are just too high! The next president will nominate three or four new Supreme Court justices. With all of the lawsuits going on these days and with our lack of congresspeople with a spine, it is imperative that we keep a pro Second Amendment Supreme Court! That is where our last and best hope lies.

Bush may be silent on these gun control issues, but at least he is not actively working against us. I think Bush is just trying to appeal to the most people possible by being moderate. It is the undecided middle of the roaders who will decide the next election. As long as the news media is conspiring against us, it makes no sense for Bush to talk about guns which would just scare the soccer moms and other undecideds.

Joe



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Joe's Second Amendment Message Board
 
nralife, too bad you are so blinded by political rhetoric that you spread it. What is it that you do not understand that those elected enacting unconstitutional laws are the enemy of America and Americans? Who are the elected that's doing this? Certainly not third party candidates.

Only the blind, or other socialist, can't see or agree with what socialist (democrats and republican) have done to American in at least the last 70-80 years. Go right ahead and vote for which winner you are told to vote for. If you haven't figured that out then I can tell you the winner as told will be a socialist (demo or repub) and the enemy of America.
 
Allan,

Your remarks about me are obviously unresearched. I do take offense that you would call me "blinded" when you don't know a damn thing about me. I have studied the issues and have made my choice to vote Republican THIS time around. Read my above post, too much is at stake this November to waste a vote on an unwinnable third party candidate! A vote for Al Gore or for an unwinnable third party candidate is a vote to start the bloodshed. It looks like that is what you want anyway. It is always darkest before the dawn. It is sad that when the political process gets a little tough, that people like you will give up all hope and take your ball and go home like some kid who couldn't have his way. Get a grip and some gonads and stick this thing out, we can beat the antigunners big time this November. As recent newspaper articles are showing, the Democrats have now realized that they have overestimated the public's appetite for more gun control. It will backfire on them big time.

Joe
 
Allan, when Gore was bashing Bush the other day over Texas CCW, Bush said that signing the CCW law made Texas a safer place. No waffling, no apologies. I'll bet you any amount of money that, if one of your third party candidates was within a few points of winning, they'd waffle.

Go ahead. Vote for Gore by default. Line up for your mugshot and fingerprinting. Give Gore a list of your guns so he can take them in 2004, after Hillary announces her bid for the Oval Office and the Supreme Court has been loaded with appointees who see the 2nd
as an antique.

Oops, sorry, I forgot. You third party guys are going to shoot it out with the government. I always forget what a quick and popular revolution that's going to be.

Dick
 
Certainly many Republicans are not pro gun but the party as a whole is not anti-gun and therein lies our best chance. Voting Demo or 3rd party can't possibly benefit our cause. I will lecture , cajole, beg my family members and friends to vote Republican on this one issue
Herb

[This message has been edited by Herb Leventhal (edited April 20, 2000).]
 
C'mon now, Monkeyleg.

If you want to condemn those who vote FOR the Second Amendment, that's fine. But not one third party supporter has mentioned anything about shootings.

As a matter of fact, it is the third party supporters who have the nerve and moral fiber to vote FOR the Second Amendment rather than "just a little against it ... just this once" (as gun owners have done since Reconstruction).

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Either you believe in the Second Amendment or you don't.
Stick it to 'em! RKBA!
 
I've said this before. Any person with half a grain of sense would have to be enamored of the Libertarian IDEA! Face it. The Party is not ready for prime time. Until it is the race will be between thw selected candidates of the two major parties. SO a vote for anyone but GWB is a vote for GORE.

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Better days to be,

Ed
 
Dennis, if I've painted third party supporters with too broad a brush, I apologize. There has been a lot of talk on TFL about going to the mattresses, though, which I don't think is either feasible or desirable. At least not in the foreseeable future.

This entire Third Party vs. Republican argument has become a closed-loop tape. Virtually everyone here on this forum is pro-
2nd. How we defend the 2nd is the area of disagreement. I understand how it feels to
act on pure principle: it feels good. During the last three congressional elections I worked my tail off for a candidate who I knew
would not win. Why? Because he was 100% pro-2nd. And his incumbent opponent is 100%
anti. However, if there had been a candidate with a better chance of winning who was 95%
pro-2nd, I would have worked for him.

Laws, even bad laws, are seldom repealed. So it makes little sense to me to allow someone to be elected who has promised to enact more bad laws.

Bush has thrown a couple of tokens to the gun-control issue: trigger locks (he said he'd sign a bill if it reached his desk; read between the lines), and hi-cap magazine bans
(don't we have that already?). He's defended very well his decision to sign Texas CCW, and
has indicated he would sign a repeal of the
semiauto ban if it was passed. He is, I think, someone the gun owners can keep pressure on.

If it's going to make you feel better to vote third party, that's your right. I just hope that there aren't so many of you that Gore gets in.

Dick
 
Folks, it seems to me that the Texas State Rifle Association knows Bush's position on gun rights better than just about anybody else. So, to me, it's significant that the TSRA endorses Bush for president. This is from the latest TSRA legislative report:

"This report should start by mentioning George W. Bush. TSRA endorses George W. Bush because he has done everything for us that he said he would. I heard him speak at a Legislative Reception at the beginning of the legislative session in 1995. He told a group of legislators that he would sign a Concealed Carry Bill if they could get it to his desk. Ann Richards had vetoed their work the session before. He signed the Manufacturers Protection legislation passed in this last session. He signed it when he did not have to because it had passed by a large enough majority to become law without his signature. He signed it against the advice of his staff. Remember it was early after Columbine? We want to support someone who can win. Period."

I especially like the part about his signing a pro-gun law over the objections of his staff.
smile.gif


http://www.tsra.com/legrpt2.htm
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by nralife:
Allan,

Your remarks about me are obviously unresearched. I do take offense that you would call me "blinded" when you don't know a damn thing about me. I have studied the issues and have made my choice to vote Republican THIS time around. Read my above post, too much is at stake this November to waste a vote on an unwinnable third party candidate! A vote for Al Gore or for an unwinnable third party candidate is a vote to start the bloodshed. It looks like that is what you want anyway. It is always darkest before the dawn. It is sad that when the political process gets a little tough, that people like you will give up all hope and take your ball and go home like some kid who couldn't have his way. Get a grip and some gonads and stick this thing out, we can beat the antigunners big time this November. As recent newspaper articles are showing, the Democrats have now realized that they have overestimated the public's appetite for more gun control. It will backfire on them big time.

Joe
[/quote]

Then you think a vote for socialist Ralph Nader is a vote for Al Gore, too
smile.gif
?
 
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