...or, at least he was, at one point.
Via THR, we have this, from Human Events:
RTWT...The new Giuliani of states’ rights simply does not square with the mayor of the ’90s.
In 1993, Giuliani met with then-President Clinton to discuss national gun registration and supported the Brady bill, which had recently passed, but Rudy argued that it didn’t go far enough. Clinton, largely crediting Giuliani for the idea, enthusiastically sent Atty. Gen. Janet Reno off to develop a gun-licensing and registration system.
In May 1994, as the battle over the ban on certain semi-automatic firearms reached its height, Giuliani threw his support behind the ban. On the eve of the final vote, he noted that so-called assault weapons “have no legitimate purpose.” When the ban passed, Giuliani commented that “this is an important step toward curtailing the indiscriminate proliferation of guns across the nation.”
When a lunatic attacked innocent civilians at the Empire State Building in 1997, Giuliani used the tragedy to again push for gun control beyond his city’s limits: “We need a federal law that bans all assault weapons, and if in fact you do need a handgun, you should be subjected to at least the same restrictions—and really stronger ones—that exist for driving an automobile. ... Congress needs to pass uniform licensing for everyone carrying a gun.”
I knew he believed these things, but I never knew the context in which he said them. As they say, it's deja vu all over again. The fact that the national movers and shakers in the Republican Party are pushing Giuliani as the Great Hope for 2008 is a sad commentary indeed. He's not any better than Bill Clinton, and we all know what Clinton did on the gun front...and the frightening thing is, Clinton did his dirty work in only two years. Only the voters throwing the Democrats out in '94 stopped it from going any further...and it's not at all certain that the GOP will be back in the driver's seat in Congress after the 2008 elections. We are indeed experiencing the Chinese curse of living in interesting times, but I for one would go for a little more boring right about now.
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