You know, I really don't think this horse is gonna be dead till Rudy Giuliani's candidacy is...
Rudy Giuliani addressed a potentially troublesome issue with conservative voters, saying his policies as mayor to get handguns off the street helped reduce crime in New York.
"I used gun control as mayor," he said at a news conference Saturday during a swing through California. But "I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms."
He said what he did as mayor would have no effect on hunting.
In all seriousness, I'd love to get back into hunting. I haven't done it in ages, and I know very well that it sharpens valuable skills and teaches all sorts of valuable lessons. And Lord knows I love any kind of game prepared any kind of way. But there's not much argument in my mind that the surest sign that a politician is going to go after the people's guns, or at least look the other way when others go after them at the lower levels of government, is when said politician trots out the whole "not gonna take yer deer rifle" bit. The GOP had nigh well better wake up to the truth of the matter. No matter what Rudy says about our natural right to arms -- and "I used gun control...(but) I understand the Second Amendment" is a contradiction if ever I heard one -- he understands the Second Amendment and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms about as well as the average toddler understands nuclear physics. What I for one would love to see is one of those front-runners get up there and defend things like shall-issue CCW laws (or, better yet, Vermont & Alaska-style open carry), civilian full-auto possession, potmetal poodle-poppers (aka "Saturday Night Specials"), ARs, AKs and .50BMGs. That would, I think, be a hell of a much better sign of understanding what the Second Amendment protects, as opposed to muttering platitudes about deer hunting. Sadly, figuratively speaking, that would take balls of solid steel, and that criterion has weeded out all but a precious few when one gets to national-level politics.
Jim Kenefick over at Right Thoughts had this to say, though:
Yes, he’s flawed on gun control, but he’s also learning how guns and gun politics work on a national stage as opposed to the second most liberal state in the union.
He also said this over at Right Thinking:
Rudy is already changing his tune from the hard-line gun control stance he used to have. The NRA is hard at work teaching him why NYC gun policy doesn’t fly in the rest of the country. he’s already moderated his views - the more he’s exposed to good, honest gun owners without being inundated - and responsible for as mayor - the worst parts of gun culture the more he learns how we feel and the more he understands us.
No offense to Jim, but I think that's a crock. I honestly don't think the NRA is going to teach Rudy Giuliani a damn thing. I applaud them for at least trying, but I think it's also an indisputable fact that Giuliani believes in more gun control -- prohibition, even -- just as ardently as the Bradys, the Violence Policy Center, IANSA and all the rest of the national and international gun prohibitionists. Evidence of this lies in his feeble attempt to cover his arse with the hunting remark, and his record as mayor, even going so far as to file one of those frivolous suits against firearm manufacturers in 2000 (press release here, video here).
And there's another reason I think the NRA is wasting its time. The lessons of gun control as a political failure have already been taught, at least twice -- in the 1994 midterms, and in the 2000 presidential election, when Southern Democrat Al Gore failed to carry a single Southern state due in part to his radically anti-gun views. One would think people like him and Bill Clinton (who, of course, started out as governor of another Southern state) would have known or figured out the gun control bird wouldn't fly outside the coasts and the major metro areas, yet still they pushed ahead with their nefarious agendas. (And Gore did so after the Dems took their '94 thumping!) I shudder to think of what Clinton could have gotten passed in the way of gun control if he'd had a Democratic Congress for any more of his term.
If Rudy had not believed in gun control, he wouldn't have pursued it as he did while he was mayor of New York City. He does, though, and I for one don't have any doubt that he'd advocate it just as ferociously as he did in the Big Apple. This latest story is nothing but a display of Giuliani just being a pandering politician. May enough figure that out before it's too late.
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