Kerry Panders to NRA
As everybody has probably seen already, Kerry went hunting today on a supporter's farm near Youngstown, Ohio. --A big mistake.
I don't know if Kerry owned a gun before one was given to him on the campaign trail this year. I don't know if he hunts. But I know one thing:
Even if he owned a gun, even if he hunted, even if there were photo, video, and DNA evidence, nobody would believe it.
The Republicans and the NRA have done such a good job of painting Kerry as an elitist that Kerry's believability as a "regular guy" has been completely eroded. Any voter out there voting on the 2nd Amendment made up his mind long ago.
I'm really surprised that Kerry's team made this mistake.
"If John Kerry thinks the Second Amendment is about photo ops, he's Daffy," says the ad the NRA said would run in The Vindicator. It features a large photo of Kerry with his finger on a shotgun trigger but looking in another direction."Link
A photo-op. Whether Kerry really hunts or not, that's what it was, and it's obvious. Not only does it make Kerry look false, it does much worse. It shows he's giving in to the NRA-- even when he doesn't have to.
Kerry was a soldier. He knows his way around a gun. He's used guns. He's shot guns. He knows how to take care of a gun. He knows their dangers. He can take one apart and put it back together. If the Kerry campaign wanted to convince anybody that Kerry had no aversion to guns, all they had to do was bring up Kerry's military background. End of story.
Instead, we got an obvious photo-op, and it opened the door right up to Republican attacks. Damn.
Let's get one thing straight. THE NRA IS NOT OUT TO PROTECT GUN OWNERS' RIGHTS. They are working to protect themselves and keep themselves in business. By opposing any sort of sensible gun-legislation, they are working directly against the rights of responisble gun owners.
In Michigan, for example, convicted felons can go into a gun shop, ask to see a gun, test it, and tell the clerk to sell it to his friend. The clerk is then allowed (implicitly, not explicitly, according to a recent Michigan Supreme Court decision) to advise the friend to lie to the gunshop owner, and say that the gun is for him. This is all thanks to NRA sponsored legislation.
Is any responsible gun owner in favor of such nonsense?
All this means that one day, something much, much worse than Columbine is going to happen.
And when it does, the response is going to make the Million Mom March look like a high school marching band. Gun reform will be demanded, and it will have to be done. And it will be much more restrictive than anything Kerry is proposing.
And another thing: It's not so bad that Kerry has been portrayed as the non-everyman. Bush and the neo-cons have been portraying Kerry as a French-speaking smarty-pants. Especially in today's geopolitical environment, I'd like somebody intelligent and thoughtful in the White House; I think other Americans would too.
Kerry has continually fought for veterans. Bush won't properly equip our troops. Kerry killed the enemy under fire. Bush couldn't even show up for a National Guard physical. Who would you trust with your gun?
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By opposing any sort of sensible gun-legislation, they are working directly against the rights of responsible gun owners.Gus, what gun legislation, that has not already been suggested would you like to see enacted?
BTW: I am glad you are starting to grasp what a poll watching, smiley face, fuex human he is. He looks like it really hurts him to try and be normal. How can this man of lifelong privilege even pretend to be looking after the interests of the common man. And even more asinine, why do common men believe his lies whole-heartily. He dont give a shit about nothing but increased personal power.
Boy have I been itching to respond to this one. Fortunately the weekend has given me some respite from the hectic last two days and I can now comment my heart out. Let's go.
"By opposing any sort of sensible gun-legislation, they are working directly against the rights of responsible gun owners." Gus, what gun legislation, that has not already been suggested would you like to see enacted?Oh, I don't know Red, maybe we can start by closing the gun show loophole that Al Qaeda's handbook found in the mountains of Afghanistan urges terrorists in the states to use in order to get guns.
Or we could finally start licensing gun owners. I have to have a license to drive a car, but not to own a gun. Seems a little counter-intuitive doesn't it? I don't mind anybody having a gun, so long as they prove they're able to handle it properly.
I'm also in favor of national gun registration. Gun owners make the argument that guns will always be around, and hence criminals will always get their hands on them. If we had a national gun register, we could track those guns and find out how they get from responsible gun owners to criminals. It will be much easier to find those bastards who are selling the guns to the criminals.
I also favor legislation to require gunmakers to put fingerprint identifiers on their guns-- they're already beginning to do this in some places with cops' guns-- and it means that if someone else gets their hands on the gun, they can't fire it. That will do a lot not only to prevent the use of stolen guns, but it will prevent teen suicide as well. A good move since guns in households are more likely to kill or maim someone in an accident or suicide than kill or maim a criminal. Teenagers have a way of finding daddy's gun, and daddy rarely finds a need or opportunity to defend his home against the evil criminals that gun-nuts seem to think are prowling our streets.
Oh yes, and there's that semi-automatic weapon ban thing. Tell me, do you often go deer-hunting with automatic weapons? Not very easy to cut up the venison with all those bullet holes in it, is it?
BTW: I am glad you are starting to grasp what a poll watching, smiley face, fuex human he is.This is great. I've wanted to ask a conservative this question for a long time. Please explain to me when paying attention to what the American people want became such a sin? I prefer a President who realizes that since he's doing the American people's work, he ought to listen to what they think. It's better than never admitting you're wrong, even when proven as such. I suppose Bush doesn't look at the polls since he's on record as saying he doesn't like to read. That's ok, he's got Karl Rove to look at the polls for him. And if you think Bush's illegal move to increase steel tariffs wasn't due to "poll- watching," then you're kidding yourself. The Bush campaign is doing so much poll-watching that they've even broken the law. They've realized that Condi Rice is much more popular than Bush in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania, so they sent her out to campaign ther for him. Unfortunately, this is against the "Hatch Law" which prohibits federal employees from campaigning. Condi Rice recieved a warning from the (Senate?) Judiciary Committee, and now she's pouting at home in Washington.
This comes back to Kerry's so-called "flip-flopping." I guess you'd prefer a President who stays on one track, come hell or high water, despite being proven wrong, and despite going against the will of the American people (eg. stem-cell research) time and time again. Hell, He won't even admit that he took us into Iraq to find WMD anymore, everybody remembers that it that was his main argument. I'll take the one who changes course if he's on the wrong one.
I don't know what "fuex" is, so I think you mean "faux." And I don't even speak French.
He looks like it really hurts him to try and be normal.For me, the last thing I would consider Bush is "normal." Bush seem to think his moseying around on his ranch reflects regular, everyday, middle class normal folk.
Maybe in Texas.
Everywhere else in America, people are doing they're best to get by, to believe that there's a responsible President looking after their sons and daughters, to pay for their or their children's heath-care, to find jobs that aren't there, to pay for the higher gas prices, to pay for college. And Bush is going on vacation? He's flying around in an F-16 talking about the "mission" being accomplished? He's telling me we're going to stay on the offense? How about some defense at our ports and chemical plants? He's telling me he's made a "Kill Box" that's attracting all the terrorists to Iraq (where our sons and daughters are) and at the same time telling me that a terror attack in the U.S. isn't a matter of if but when? There are bombings in Afghanistan and Israel/Palestine every day!
Maybe everybody in Texas has a horse, but in the rest of America, pretty much only the rich folks do.
For the rest of us, pay got lower but college tuition got higher. The income gap widened. But there was a $100,000 tax cut for non-farm horse owners.
None of that is normal. What's normal is a man who looks at such important issues from all the angles, somebody who sees that violence can never be the final solution to any of our problems. Somebody who knows that providing health-care for every child is more important and more prudent than a useless tax cut for the rich.
How can this man of lifelong privilege even pretend to be looking after the interests of the common man[?]
You know better than to ask this question Red, because I'm sure you know it makes much more sense to ask this question about Bush. Bush's father was a millionaire and Ambassador to China, Head of the CIA, Vice President and President. But even more telling, is that Kerry earned his way into Yale, when Bush used his daddy's influence and name rec to get in. Kerry did the hard work and went to Vietnam, Bush used his daddy's privilege to to hide in the National Guard, and then again to skip out on the Guard before he was finished and get into Harvard Business School. While Kerry went to law school, passed the bar and went to work prosecuting Bush was busy running four oil businesses he acquired from his daddy's buddies into the ground.
Bush is nothing like me or anybody I know. He's a super-religious, super-conservative, anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-environment, anti-internationalist, pro-gun, pro-war, pro-torture, anti-freedom, arrogant asshole. I sure as hell don't identify with him.
John Kerry shares my values, and that's how I know he'll look after my interests.
And even more asinine, why do common men believe his lies whole-heartily[?]
Probably for the same reason they believe Bush isn't going to reinstate the draft when he says we're going to "stay on the offensive."
Or for the same reason they believe he's not going to raise taxes when the trade deficit is gigantic, the budget deficit is bigger than it's ever been, the war in Iraq is getting no less expensive, there's a house-price bubble, and the baby-boomers are about to retire.
Or for the same reason they believe his "culture of life" nonsense when he favors the death penalty and opposes possibly life-saving research.
He dont give a shit about nothing but increased personal power.I don't buy it, but even so, he cares about getting this megolomaniac out of the White House, so that's good enough for me.
Whew, you wasted a lot of ink on that one. You're really starting to scare me now.
Its 1:30 AM here, I will have to get back to you on all that,
Well, these things tend to get me all worked up. And I'm nothing if not long-winded.
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