Guns Are Back; Dems Are Easy Targets

This type of thing cracks me up. Two democrats with identical records when it comes to guns (ban them!) and identical policy proposals for next year (let states and localities do the dirty work) are bashing each other in the hunt for votes from gun owners. Neither can actually claim to be good when it comes to gun rights--no one would believe them if they tried--so both are trying to cast the other as quite bad.

This never would have happened if the Democratic contest had ended on Super Tuesday. Obama and Clinton are scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for atypical voters--for Democrats, anyways. This is great news for Republicans.

First, Democrats have been hiding from the issue during Bush's presidency. Al Gore's virulently anti-gun primary campaign is partially blamed for his loss and for many down-ticket losses in 2000. Democrats realized that as long as they shut up about guns Republicans couldn't use the issue to bludgeon them. Their lack of support for new gun control measures has been especially useful as many of President Clinton's anti-gun laws expired.

Now that Democrats are ready to talk about guns again, we should be hitting them hard on the issue. Neither Democratic candidate can move all that far to the right on guns--not as long as the primary continues--and McCain should be taking this opportunity to stake out a vocal pro-Second Amendment position. Seriously, it's as simple as a little patriotic music with McCain reading the Second Amendment crosscut with Clinton and Obama saying "Leave it to states to make that decision."

Source





AZ: Store clerk shoots would-be robber : "A man's attempted armed robbery of a central Mesa store was foiled Sunday when the clerk fought back with a Taser, his fists and a handgun, police said. The 30-year-old suspect, shot several times by a clerk at Mesa Mart, 1510 S. Country Club Drive, was listed in critical condition at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn, police spokeswoman Detective Chris Arvayo said. Although the 55-year-old clerk had been assaulted with a pipe, he did not require extensive medical attention... The incident began about 8 a.m., when the suspect entered the store near U.S. 60. He then demanded money while striking the clerk with a pipe.The clerk first used a Taser, but it did not stop the robber. Police said the clerk then shot the suspect."


MN: Suspect in break-in caught by homeowner: "Jon Sokol wasn't trying to be a hero when he confronted a burglary suspect who had brazenly broken through the front door of his home in St. Paul. Sokol, 49, said his adrenaline was flowing as he crept up the stairs, revolver in hand, from the basement bedroom he shares with his wife. ... Sokol said he'd gotten to the second step when he saw somebody cross the room upstairs. 'Oh my, there is somebody in our house,' he thought. 'I grabbed our gun, which we keep for protection,' he said. 'As I stepped around the corner, he hit me ... right between the eyes,' Sokol said. 'And I fired the gun.' 'Down on the ground he went and I insisted, in a not very nice way, that he not move,' he said. 'I held him at gunpoint until the police arrived.'"


Let Americans keep their guns : "Gun control may fit into any equation concerning crime, but it does not, in any form or fashion, have a place in the United States of America. In 1974, Dr. Mark Borinsky, a victim of gun violence, founded the "National Council to Control Handguns." In 2001, it was renamed "The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence." Each year this organization rates each state, with a number grade similar to school grading, from 0 to 100. A "100" would mean that the state has the tightest controls in place and the "0" rating means simply that the state has no gun controls in place."