Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Heeding the lesson?

Yeah, we'll see how that works out...

WASHINGTON — The last time a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress banned civilian sales of military-style assault weapons, it took American voters just seven weeks to rebel.
They handed Republicans control of the House and the Senate for the first time in 40 years.
There is indeed a lesson there, but some of these fools don't ever learn, as evidenced by Dick Durbin's whine about "no one sticking their necks out for sensible gun control." I don't know how many Americans would go so far to say "sensible gun control" is hitting your target," but fortunately it would seem that their idea of such is much different than that of Mr. Durbin, who would probably disarm Americans completely if he had his way. I got a huge kick out of E.J. Dionne whining yesterday that "He was not elected by the gun lobby....Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him?" Funny stuff, because as we all saw in 1994, gun owners might not have elected Obama, but we can sure as hell make things a lot harder for him if he crosses us. I don't know how many gun owners voted for Clinton in 1992, but I'm sure Bush the Elder pissed more than a few of them off when he signed that executive order banning importation of certain semi-auto rifles. Had it not been for that, Clinton might well have lost the election. And of course everyone knows how close the 2000 election was -- would it have been that way if not for Algore's advocacy of tighter gun laws? We'll see how it goes, but considering the administration's willingness to take backdoor routes to more gun control, once again, I am not so optimstic.