Corker on Guns
Corker, who was endorsed by the NRA, doesn’t have a hunting license. I’m more concerned about whether he has a concealed carry permit or a wall full of AR-15s. I don’t have a hunting license and I’m as pro-gun as they get.
Here is my question; if a candidate in Tennessee really wants to get the support of Gun nuts (and I use that term with heartfelt affection), shouldn’t they forget about the hunting crap, and instead go for a carry permit? I’ve been in Tennessee for over 5 years now, and all the gun people I have run into care more about Tactical Shotguns, Glocks (or other handguns), and Assault Rifles…not some WalMart shotgun used to shoot birds. To them, the test of true gun nuttiness is not their ability to shoot clay pidgeons (sic), but their ability to hit a target at center mass while on the run.
Not bad for a liberal. He also has some advice:
Now, Corker being a Republican by default has the gun group endorsements in the bag, but if Ford wants to peel some of the gun voters off, here is my advice to him. Take a day out of your schedule and take a class for a carry permit. Brush up on your gun lingo, for instance make sure you know the difference between a Glock and a Kimber, and the positives and negatives of each.
Or Mr. Ford, you can go bust some caps with yours truly if you feel the need. One note though: The NRA endorsement does not, by default, go to Republicans in Tennessee. Ask this guy.
Of course, Ford has that whole introducing an anti-gun bill thing hanging over his head.
September 18th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Uhm, I’m about as pro-gun as it gets and I don’t have a hunting license.
September 18th, 2006 at 10:00 am
eeer, Im about as pro gun as you can get AND I DO have a hunting license (and a concealed carry permit) but I DON”T have any tectical assault weapons (unless you consider my garand one) or any plastic weapons any more.
hopefully that wil change soon
September 18th, 2006 at 10:05 am
re: NRA Endorsements
From what I’ve seen, the NRA will endorse a Conservative Democrat so long as they have no viable challengers, as is the case with Davis. But if said Democrat is in a close district, most of the time the endorsement will go to the Republican.
September 18th, 2006 at 10:16 am
In VA this past year, they endorsed the Democrat for Attorney General. (The VCDL endorsed the republican, I believe.) That race ended up being extremely close, with the republican winning by a nose.
Basically, neither AG candidate was a bad choice gun-wise (Though having a Dem AG with an anti-gun Dem governor wouldn’t be good), and the NRA picked the D.
Yeah, yeah, the plural of anecdote is not “data.”
September 18th, 2006 at 10:52 am
Well, perhaps you are right, I don’t follow NRA Endorsements that closely. I simply remember a couple years ago, my coworker had the NRA Newsletter/magazine delivered and it had endorsements. I remember reading something about how a vote for a Democrat would be a vote for a Democratic majority which is a bad thing. I could be mistaken (wouldn’t be the first time), but it just seems as though the NRA on the Federal Level has pretty much married itself to the Republican party. With good reason I suppose, but nevertheless, I don’t personally consider them to be a non-partisan or bi-partisan organization…they are a Republican group that, on occassion, endorses a Democrat. Personally, I prefer the ACLU’s method of dealing with politics, instead of endorsing a candidate, they simply grade them and let the people decide who would be better at protecting their Civil Liberties (minus the right to buy any weapon).
September 18th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Wouldn’t rushing out right now and getting a hunting license OR a carry permit make any candidate-thing look like they were trying to pull a “John Kerry”?
Who wants to elect a pandering waffle?
September 18th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Probably, however, don’t staged hunting trips (which many politicians take) during the middle of the campaign season do the same thing? Or trips to the Southern Border to kick around some dirt and talk about what you are going to do about immigration? Or a trip to Iraq in the middle of a campaign to “survey” the situation? I roll my eyes at all staged campaign events, but somewhere they have poll numbers to show it works, so candidates will keep doing it.
The politically active Gun people might scoff at Ford going to get a carry permit, but those who don’t follow politics all that much, and who aren’t aware of Ford’s voting record on Gun control, might be swayed by some stunt like that.
As for “Who wants to elect a pandering waffle?” Nobody, unfortunately, both candidates in the Senate Campaign fall under that category, so unless you go Green or Nut, you aren’t going to have a candidate to vote for that isn’t a waffle.
September 18th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
I think any gun owner who votes for a Democrat this election needs to have his head examined. Ford could be a lifelong hunter, CCW permitte, and Class III owner and he’d still be a net negative for gun owners.
That’s because as a Democrat, he’ll support Harry Reid for Majority Leader if the Dems win control of the Senate. While Reid might be mildly pro-gun, he owes his position and power to the far Left elements in his party. And when they say “Pass the Assault Weapons/.50 cal./Gun Show Ban” he will do it, regardless of what he’s said to Nevada voters in the past.
That’s the problem with voting for moderate Democrats: While they might be on the right side of the issues, all the other warm bodies in the Party are on the Left. And if a newly-elected moderate Democrat Senator/Representative wants his committee assignment/leadership position/favorite bill, he’ll do whatever he needs to do to keep in the good graces of the Party Leadership.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
That actually kinda proves my last point. Lefty Senator Jay Rockefeller admitted to owning an AR-15 back in the mid-90’s; it didn’t keep him from voting for the AW Ban.
(It also provided for some great political comedy, because he said that he “kept it under the bed at home”. It wasn’t until some member of his staff realized he had just admitted to a felony in DC that they came out and clarified it was under the bed in his West Virginia home.)
And of course, then there’s Dianne Feinstein who had a CCW permit while Mayor of SF. Liberals don’t really hate guns, they just hate guns that are in the hands of the “wrong” people, ie, people who aren’t well-connected upper-class elites like them.
September 18th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Captain Holly,
You’re exactly right. So-called “liberals” are actually leftists who, like their Communist and Nazi cousins, want to keep guns only as hired guns, i.e., the government.
“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns,
why should we let them have ideas.” –Joseph Stalin, Communist Dictator of
Russia
“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms.” – Adolf Hitler
“The Communist Party must control the guns.”–Mao Tse-tung
“Germans who wish to use firearms should join the [Nazi] SS or SA–ordinary
citizens don’t need guns, as their having them doesn’t serve the state.”
–Heinrich Himmler, Head of teh Nazi Gestapo
“A system of licensing and registration, is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.” Vladamir Ilyich Lenin
September 18th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
In 2002, Harold Ford Jr. took a NRA membership form from some volunteers. I recall Ed Williamson, an NRA volunteer coordinator, being the man at the table. Ford said he wanted to sign up. Williamson tried to get him to turn it back in, but Ford never did. I mentioned it in one of my columns in 2003.
Not really anything earth-shattering…I just thought I’d offer it up for general “FYI.”
September 18th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Sean
NRA’s endorsements in recent years have steered towards Rs mostly because the Ds have married themselves to the gun banning bigots. However, many Ds do recieve endorsements, and much to the chagrin of Republican or the rare 2nd Amendment friendly Democrat challengers, the organization is VERY consistent in regards to its policy of ALWAYS endorsing incumbants that side with it. Its a sound strategy, and in fact is the reason that no republican was ever able to win NRA’s endorsement over Howard Dean in Vermont.
I think if you looked around the country, on a race by race basis, you would be shocked at the number of Ds with NRA endorsements. Its just that the high profil/super liberal ones suck up all the attention and of course a story on the NRA being as bipartisan as it is doesn’t really sell papers. Heck, for all the Democrats harping at the NRA, I bet you didn’t know that the NRA-ILA (the sub group of the NRA which actually engages in politics) was formed at the behest of John Dingel (D-MI) in the late 70s after his frustration at watching gun banners take the 2nd Amendment to the woodshed over the previous 20 years as the NRA had obiediently stayed out of politics.
Life in Washington hasn’t been the same since.
September 18th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
Sean Braisted Says:
I suppose I would say it depends. If Pawpaw decided to run for office and during his campaign, he allowed one of his hunts to become a “media event”, that’s one thing, Kerry accepting a shotgun from teh Union peoples which would be illegal for him to keep back in his home state is something quite another.
Abe Lincoln had hand-split rails displayed when he spoke on the campaign trail. The deal was that his supporters made the extra effort to actually get the actual rails that Lincoln split earlier in his youth. Davey Crockett had his coonskin cap too, although again, he wore the cap long before he became a congress-thing.
September 18th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
IF politicians and candidates, especially of the presidential variety, had to abide by the same gun laws that they seek to impose on us, then they would all be much more pro-gun. I think it’s called “the “equal protection of the laws” (14th Amendment)