Yesterday was the annual Congressional Shoot-Out by members of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus. I haven’t seen an official report yet, but word of somewhere around 3 dozen members of Congress took time out to hit the gun range.
Interestingly, not a single member of Pennsylvania’s delegation mentioned anything about attending on Twitter or Facebook. This is a shame because Pennsylvania native Olympic gold medalist Jamie Gray attended, and members of Congress from other states bragged about getting a photo with her.
It’s such a disappointment to see so little support outside of the House chamber for our sports. We’re not even talking a politically contentious side of the issue. With multiple Olympians in attendance, including a Pennsylvania gold medal winner, there are ways to make this event a completely positive photo opportunity that gets a few points with gun owners while creating no media headaches.
However, I’m tempted to give Rep. Glenn Thompson a pass since, during my search this morning to confirm the lack of Facebook posts about attending, I did stumble across an announcement for a trap shoot fundraiser on his campaign page.
UPDATE: Well, good news for some Pennsylvania gun owners. According to a comment, Rep. Glenn Thompson was actually in attendance. It just hasn’t been promoted by his office as of today.
UPDATE II: A formal report is now available:
Current CSC Co-Chair and team captain Representative Bob Latta (R-OH) was joined by his co-captain, CSC Vice-Chair Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA) as they accepted the trophy on behalf of team Republican, who edged out the Democrats by a score of 242 to 201 to take the Member Trophy for a second consecutive year. Team Democrat was lead by current CSC Co-Chair, Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice-Chair, Representative Tim Walz (D-MN). …
In the individual category, Representative Jeff Duncan (R-SC) was named the overall Top Gun Member of Congress. The Top Gun from team Democrat was Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN) and the Top Gun from team Republican was Representative John Kline (R-MN). The Top Skeet shooter was Representative Bill Huizenga (R-MI); Representative Steve Southerland (R-FL) won the Top Trap competition and Representative Steve Pearce (R-NM) won Top Sporting Clays.
Glenn Thompson was there. Off hand I don’t recall any other Pennsylvanians. But he was certainly there. As was Paul Ryan. There was a farm bill markup today at the Ag Committee and a contentious fight brewing over dairy programs so like a number of others I assume he left early (post shooting). Didn’t see him at the awards ceremony.
I shot like crap. Though I somewhat redeemed my sporting clay score with a terrible (but not completely embarrassing) score at skeet.
It’s a great event.
Woo hoo! I’ve updated the post. I hope he got a picture with Jamie Gray and has a chance to share it.
Wish I did. They announced her presence just as they were thanking sponsors, etc. and then we quickly departed to shoot. I didn’t see her but for a brief moment from across the pavilion. But then, I wasn’t actively searching them out as I had other things that were more pressing.
GT’s a RINO.
In his canned reply letter to constituents, he “supports the second amendment” and goes on to mention he’s an avid hunter.
Trust him not, he’s a liberal, willing to sell out conservatives at the drop of a hat.
Big government and another term is what motivates GT.
I voted for him….once
Nevermore….
“GT’s a RINO”
Care to elaborate? What exactly are you upset about about? And what exactly do you think a Republican actually is (if not actually someone who manages to be elected to Congress as a Republican which is the whole point after all)?
He might be referring to Thompson’s lifetime ACU rating of 83, which puts him about even with John Mccain. Only thing I can think of.
This is from the ACU web page (which doesn’t provide any links that I could find to individual member ratings, rather requires you to donload HUGE and slow pdfs files for each eyars votes. ugh. What a terrible presentation.
Anyway, here’s the ACU “PAC” endorsements from 2012, which I assume would be the only conservatives worth endorsing and/or maybe mean the only real Republicans around?
We can start with the Senate. There were a total of 33 Senate races. 21 held by Democrats and 12 held by Republicans. ACU only supported 5 Republican candidates. Does that mean the other 28 were all RINOs worthy of casting aside? Furthermore, only 1 of these 5 was a sitting Senator. I guess that means there simply aren’t any Real Republicans. Of course, of the 5 they did endorse, only 2 won. The others, to put it mildly, got their asses handed to them – largely because they were loser unelectable candidates from the get go (I’m willing to cut some slack for Wendy Long, who ever was nominated faced tough odds in New York – But she got blown out by 40 points. She did worse than almost anyone else possibly could have).
Its even worse in the House where you need 218 votes to win anything. So, while 5 of their 6 supported candidates won, that essentially means they only have 5 on their side. And 430 people against them. Doesn’t sound like a winning strategy to me.
I live in PA’s 5th Congressional District. It is very solidly Republican and could have been the model of Obama’s quote about “bitter clingers.” If Thompson’s a RINO, I’m a monkey’s uncle. Any act of RINOism in the 5th would get him voted out at the earliest chance.
I guess if supporting hunting, in addition to supporting the Second Amendment, is the qualifier to make one a RINO, then most people here are RINOs.