We Americans are about to yet again have to hold our collective noses when we vote in the coming election.
One thing is clear, and that is that Obama must go. His attempts at undermining American sovereignty. His just plain lousy choices for advisers and people in high office such as Hillary Clinton and Eric Holder being the best examples. His idiotic handling of energy and economic issues, crony capitalism, and the list just goes on forever make his removal from office a no brainer. His inexcusable use of the military as an election tool just tops off the cake.
So, what are we left with? Yet another chorus of decidedly poor choices. Let’s take an observation them through the looking glass of the Bill of Rights.
In the recent Presidential debate, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said America’s voters did not need to “settle” for the moderate candidate. Amen to that.
And gun owners do NOT want candidates who talk out of both sides of their mouths.
As the Gun Owners of America’s Board of Directors looks at the Republican candidates running to unseat radical anti-gun President Obama, we see several who have strong pro-gun backgrounds. Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman all have solid pro-gun records and deserve a hard look from pro-gunners.
At least one frontrunner candidate stands in contrast with a decidedly mixed record on the gun issue. While Mitt Romney likes to “talk the pro-gun talk,” he has not always walked the walk.
“The Second Amendment protects the individual right of lawful citizens to keep and bear arms. I strongly support this essential freedom,” Romney assures gun owners these days.
But this is the same Mitt Romney who, as governor, promised not to do anything to “chip away” at Massachusetts’ extremely restrictive gun laws.
“We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them,” he said during a gubernatorial debate. “I won’t chip away at them; I believe they protect us and provide for our safety.”[1]
Even worse, Romney signed a law to permanently ban many semi-automatic firearms. “These guns are not made for recreation or self-defense,” Romney said in 2004. “They are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people.”[2]
Romney also spoke in favor of the Brady law’s five day waiting period on handguns. The Boston Herald quotes Romney saying, “I don’t think (the waiting period) will have a massive effect on crime but I think it will have a positive effect.”[3]
Mitt Romney doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”
And that makes it all the more troubling that Romney refuses to answer GOA’s simple candidate questionnaire. In our more than 36 years of experience, a candidate is usually hiding anti-gun views if he or she refuses to come clean in writing with specific commitments to the Second Amendment.
Today, Romney may be a favorite “Republican Establishment” candidate of the national press corps. But that is exactly what gun owners DON’T need in a new President. We need someone who will stand by true constitutional principles and protect the Second Amendment.
[1] Mitt Romney in the 2002 Massachusetts Gubernatorial debate. Part of the quote can be read in this article at Scot Lehigh, “Romney vs. Romney,” Boston Globe (January 19, 2007) at:
“Romney signs off on permanent assault weapons ban,” July 8, 2004, at: http://www.iberkshires.com/story.php?story_id=14812
[3] Mitt Romney, quoted by Joe Battenfeld in the Boston Herald, Aug. 1, 1994.
Newt Gingrich
Prior to the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia had earned an A rating with Gun Owners of America. But that all changed in 1995, after Republicans were swept to power and Gingrich became Speaker of the House.
The Republicans gained the majority, thanks in large part to gun owners outraged by the Clinton gun ban. And upon taking the reins of the House, Speaker Gingrich said famously that, “As long as I am Speaker of this House, no gun control legislation is going to move in committee or on the floor of this House and there will be no further erosion of their rights.”
His promise didn’t hold up, however, and his GOA rating quickly dropped to well below the “C-level.” In 1996, the Republican-led Congress passed the “gun free school zones act,” creating criminal safe zones like Virginia Tech, where the only person armed was a murderous criminal. Speaker Newt Gingrich voted for the bill containing this ban.[1]
The same bill also contained the now infamous Lautenberg gun ban, which lowered the threshold for losing one’s Second Amendment rights to a mere misdemeanor.[2] Gun owners could, as a result of this ban, lose their gun rights forever for non-violent shouting matches that occurred in the home — and, in many cases, lose their rights without a jury trial.
While a legislator might sometimes vote for a spending bill which contains objectionable amendments, that was clearly NOT the case with Newt Gingrich in 1996. Speaking on Meet the Press in September of that year, Speaker Gingrich said the Lautenberg gun ban was “a very reasonable position.”[3] He even refused to cosponsor a repeal of the gun ban during the next Congress — despite repeated requests to do so.[4]
Also in 1996, Speaker Gingrich cast his vote for an anti-gun terror bill which contained several harmful provisions. For example, one of the versions he supported (in March of that year) contained a DeLauro amendment that would have severely punished gun owners for possessing a laser sighting device while committing an infraction as minor as speeding on a federal reservation.[5] (Not only would this provision have stigmatized laser sights, it would have served as a first step to banning these items.) Another extremely harmful provision was the Schumer amendment to “centralize Federal, State and Local police.”[6]
Final passage of H.R. 3610, Sept. 28, 1996 at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll455.xml . Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) warned his colleagues about the hidden dangers in H.R. 3610, and in regard to the Kohl ban, noted that it would “prohibit most persons from carrying unloaded firearms in their automobiles.”
See Gingrich’s vote at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll455.xml .
[3] Associated Press, “Gingrich Favors Handgun Ban for Domestic Abuse Convicts,” Deseret News, Sept. 16, 1996. The full quote reveals how much Speaker Gingrich had adopted the anti-gunners’ line of thinking: “I’m very much in favor of stopping people who engage in violence against their spouses from having guns,” the Georgia Republican said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think that’s a very reasonable position.” But the fact that this gun ban covers misdemeanors in the home is primary evidence that NON-violent people have been subjected to lifetime gun bans for things like: shouting matches, throwing a set of keys in the direction of another person, spanking a child, etc.
[4] See H.R.1009, “States’ Rights and Second and Tenth Amendment Restoration Act of 1997,” introduced by Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID).
H.R. 2703, March 14, 1996 at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll066.xml .
S. 735, April 18, 1996 at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll126.xml .
Both the above assessments are from Gun Owners of America
Clearly, neither candidate is a real friend of the Bill of Rights, and especially of the Second Amendment. Both are hell on taxes after all the whitewash has been removed. Both support the taking of fundamental rights away from people forever for less than felonious behaviors. Both believe in government running your personal day to day lives. Both are supporters of big government authoritarianism. Both are unacceptable, period…
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