Where do you rank gun issues in the mix taken into account for voting?

B

Blondie

New member
Is the gun rights/contol issue a dispositive issue for you when you decide to vote? In other words, if a politician is right, in your view, on all the issues, but wants to impose greater restrictions on guns, would you not vote for them? On the other hand, if you don't like someone on other issues, would you cast a vote for them if they are the sole candidate that seeks to protect your rights in re guns?

I ask because I read somewhere that this is the reason the NRA is so powerful in elections; that their members take the gun issue above all else and as such, they can move votes for candidates that support gun rights (but who otherwise might not get those NRA members' vote). In this way, a particular candidate would get the votes of their base plus the votes of the NRA members (assuming some of them are not part of the base).

By the way, I am dissapointed that most people see the gun issue as a political party issue, i.e. that only republicans are for gun rights. I think everyone should embrace their rights, even if they choose not to exercise those rights.
 
If a pol is wrong on all the issues but the 2A I will not vote for him. If he is right on all but the 2A I still will not vote for him! It is not due to a simple dedication to the 2A though.

I believe politicians should obey the COTUS. If they defy it I will not vote for them. Politicians who undermine the 2A or any part of the COTUS do not have my support. It gets very difficult for me in that voting booth:rolleyes:
 
I will not vote for a candidate who is wrong on other issues besides gun rights. He must be correct on all moral issues and most others. Ron Paul is the only guy that I will vote for this election. So even if he is pro gun I may not vote for him
 
i vote for a man only if he is pro gun. meaning he won't support any kind of anti gun law. the only thing that could over ride that is if he is pro choice, then i couldn't vote for him at all. im not a very religious person but i do believe i will go to hell if i support any kind of abortion in any way. i do support the death penalty. its not much of a political issue to me though cause if someone MURDERS one of my family members i'll execute them myself.
 
The 2A and abortion. Everything else is at least semi-negotiable, but if a politicritter is wrong on either, let alone both, of those then he's done.
 
Is the gun rights/contol issue a dispositive issue for you when you decide to vote? In other words, if a politician is right, in your view, on all the issues, but wants to impose greater restrictions on guns, would you not vote for them? On the other hand, if you don't like someone on other issues, would you cast a vote for them if they are the sole candidate that seeks to protect your rights in re guns?
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I view a candidate's support of the 2nd Amendment to be a qualifying/disqualifying issue. In other words, a candidate MUST have certain qualifications in order to rate my vote. One of those (but not the ONLY one of those) is support for RKBA, including liberal CCW. At the very least, a candidate must be agnostic on the issue, that being willing to support the status quo which is the reasonably decent state of affairs that exists where I am.

Any tendency to roll back our freedoms along those lines is an immediate disqualifier.

However, just because a candidate is extremely pro-2A, or even supports further liberalizing our RKBA and CCW rights, does NOT automatically mean that the candidate is going to get my vote. There are several other qualifying/disqualifying issues which might garner an automatic disqualification in my book. Some of these:

A> Socialist, be it overt or covert?
B> Subset of above, supporter of nationalized medicine in any form? (this is but one thing that sinks Hillary)
C> Attacker of the 1st Amendment? (this sinks Sen. McCain in my book)
D> Weak or anti- on the GWOT? (this sinks Rep. Paul in my book)
E> Unwilling to secure our own borders?
F> Unwilling to help implement tort reform? Bought and paid for by the trial lawyers?
G> Promoter of Keynesian style economics?
H> Bought and paid for by the unions?
I> Thinks that price controls are an appropriate policy to combat high retail prices?
J> "Nanny Stater" of whatever variety?
K> Favors unilaterally slashing the military & intelligence budget over and above the need, especially in a time of war?
L> Is a Pork Barrel Spender?

and so on and so forth.
 
To me, the 2A is a deal breaker. The candidate can be "right" on every issue, but if he or she supports strict gun control, they won't get my vote. If a candidate is wrong on some issues, but supports the 2A, then he will get my vote. If a conservative candidate was against the 2-A and a liberal candidate was for the 2-A, I'd be in a real bind. Fortunately, this very rarely happens.

Another wrench in the water, even if someone like John Kerry wholeheartedly supported the 2A, he is far too liberal for me to vote for him. The 2A is the number one issue for me when it comes to voting, abortion would be second(I'm pro-life), borders third, and Iraq fourth.

The comforting fact for me is that most of the politicians that support the RTKBA are firm conservatives. 99% of the time, its the liberals attacking our right to own guns, its a power play for them, a way to control the citizenry.
 
Supporting the 2nd amendment is the most important issue to me, but the second most important to me is supporting gay marriage. I think its rather annoying that no politicians that suport the right to bear arms also support gay marriage.

The third issue to me would be controling/stopping illegal immigration...but sadly, we all know that isnt going to stop.
 
One more for "Gotta be right on self defense" in addition to right elsewhere. No buy for a gun hugging idiot and no way for gun hater.
 
Yes, it's #1 - of necessity it must be because its the freedom that protects all others. Without guns to effect a revolt, what would we do if free speech was banned? The political pendulum can go back and forth on issues like speech, etc. But we can't let the pendulum swing too far anti-gun, because a tyrant (must..not..mention..current..potus) might seize power at the point when the pendulum is the wrong way, and citizens are powerless to revolt.
 
Yes, it's #1 - of necessity it must be because its the freedom that protects all others. Without guns to effect a revolt, what would we do if free speech was banned? The political pendulum can go back and forth on issues like speech, etc. But we can't let the pendulum swing too far anti-gun, because a tyrant (must..not..mention..current..potus) might seize power at the point when the pendulum is the wrong way, and citizens are powerless to revolt.
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I'd rank the freedom of arms and the freedom of speech as coequals.

Without the one, there is no civilization. No freedom of speech means no free flow of information and ideas -- without which civilization collapses. With the freedom of speech and the free flow of information, the other pathogens on a well functioning society are exposed and thus are able to be opposed and eliminated.

Without the other, there is no way of ultimately enforcing the first. Without the threat of force in the hands of the citizenry, there is no way of enforcing the freedom of speech. Without the credible threat of force, there is no way of combating the threat of a constitutional republic mutating into a despotic, genocidal autocracy (see 1930's Germany, or current day Zimbabwe) from within.

Given both the freedom of speech and the freedom of arms, a peaceful prosperous society has the chance of coming to pass, albeit painfully.
 
Well, guns are a pretty important issue when I vote. That's because I am aware that the most rabid anti-gunners intend to make practically everything firearm related a felony. As an example, in my state I can legally own an "assault weapon" that is unregistered and without a license. In California i cannot, and if I failed to register the weapon I would be committing a felony. Silly me, I always thought you had to do something really awful like rob, rape, or kill to be a felon, not possess an unregistered hunk of metal. :rolleyes:

However, I also prefer candidates who want to cut income taxes on earned or investment income (or at least leave them alone). This was because my college fund was in stock investments and, up until recently, if I redeemed funds to pay for school I then had to pay income tax on my tuition payments :eek: :barf: :mad:

Unfortunately, no candidates are serious budget hawks, so I can't apply a criterion that really should be: the utter unwillingness to spend money, whether it be borrowed or actual tax revenue. Already S&P and Moody's are projecting the U.S. Gov't bonds will be graded junk in the next 15-20 years. That means Uncle Sam's finances will be no different from your bankrupt neighbor's, or a 3rd world country's. Unchecked government spending will destroy the financial foundations of the economy and ultimately the republic itself.
 
"...a dispositive issue..."

???

I had to look it up. I guess my M.S. didn't cover that part of the dictionary. Figured it was some legal jargon.

"Relating to or having an effect on disposition or settlement, especially of a legal case or will."

____

"By the way, I am dissapointed that most people see the gun issue as a political party issue, i.e. that only republicans are for gun rights."

I feel the same way, but unfortunately the majority of gun control schemes have been introduced by Democrats.

John
 
If they support the 2nd amendment it's a start for me. I'll negotiate on other issues. If they don't support it I won't vote for them no matter their view is on the other issues.
I'll get blasted for being a one issue voter, but IMHO it's the most important issue. Without it the other issues don't mean a thing.
 
It's not a killer for me, I'd strongly consider voting for Mike Gravel if he picked up a pro-gun running mate. Might do so anyways if Paul doesn't get the GOP nomination. I won't vote for someone that wants to outright ban them, though. Just like I won't vote for someone that wants to outright ban abortion or gay marriage, I won't vote for someone that doesn't believe in the first amendment as well as the fourth and fifth and sixth and eighth and tenth and fourteenth and fifteenth.


I can always hide my guns.
 
I've actually found that the 2A issue is a fairly good barometer for me... If a candidate is against our rights to own a firearem in any way, it is usually a sign of something very wrong with his/her ideas about our Constitution.

The candidates in my area that are against our 2A rights are all pro-abortion Socialists and are primarily Democrats. The Republicans in my area are RINOs, so this issue is a good one to ferret out the human garbage before I go to the polls.
 
2A issues are at, or very near, the very top for me. Fortunately, the issue of 2A isn't something like abortion or immigration which can be, and often is, inconsistent with the rest of the politician's political views. If he's mostly conservative/traditional/Jeffersonian liberal in his views (as I am), he's likely to be pro-2A. As long as they're consistent with "pro-American, capitalist, small government, tread lightly but carry a big stick", in the T Roosevelt vein, they're getting my vote.

That said, I'll take a pro-2A/libertine democrat over a wishy-washy republican/"neo-con".

The issue of the 2nd Amendment is very closely linked to the candidate's position on things like protecting our foreign interests and even more importantly their stance on proper border control and immigration restriction, I think. It is impossible to be internally consistent if, while supporting the 2nd Amendment you also support willy-nilly immigration nonsense and a weak foreign policy, as carried out against those who intend us harm. It's apparent to me that this is, at least, being borne out in the coming 2008 Presidential election. The candidate supports the 2nd but either qualifies it with the "sporting purposes" clause or makes no clarification as to what they mean, and they also support amnesty of any form? Chances are they're not out for your best interests in either regard and don't take a Constitutional stance on the 2nd, but a 20th century interpreted and limiting stance (militias only, only muskets - whatever).
 
It's definitely a first-tier issue for me, but not a dealbreaker. I put it about equal to first amendment issues and fourth/fifth/sixth/eight amendment issues, as well as several other foreign and domestic policy issues.

The soundbite version of my first-tier voting issues would be gun rights, abortion, gay rights issues (including marriage), the war on drugs, the war in Iraq, human rights issues, and veterans issues.

The list of second-tier issues is longer (I'll not bother to list it here), and generally doesn't come into play unless I really can't decide between candidates based on first tier issues. Then there's "the rest," which is a bunch of issues I don't particularly care about at all.

Unfortunately, more often than not the candidate who most closely represents my views tends to be sketchy on gun control.

Third party isn't generally an option, as usually any of them (including Libertarians) do an even worse job representing my views than either of the mainstream candidates.
 
In an ideal world. A candidate would be pro 2nd Ammendment, anti illegal immigration, anti taxes, anti abortion, anti gay marriage, pro military, anti terrorist, pro family, tough on crime, tough on drugs, anti global economy, politicaly incorrect, and honest. I know that last one is a stretch. :D

If such a person exists let me know.
 
In an ideal world. A candidate would be pro 2nd Ammendment, anti illegal immigration, anti taxes, anti abortion, anti gay marriage, pro military, anti terrorist, pro family, tough on crime, tough on drugs, anti global economy, politicaly incorrect, and honest. I know that last one is a stretch.
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Amazing how much people's idea of an "ideal world" varies.
 
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