On Friday, Bill Mahr complained to Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison that “your party come out against the Second Amendment.” Ellison’s response? “Bill, I sure wish they would. I sure wish they would.”
After talking about how much he wished the Democratic Party he is a member of would come out and actually oppose the very existence of the Second Amendment, Ellison finished up the segment with some false figures to make the case for gun control – figures debunked today by Andrew Johnson.
“I sure wish they would” is the Dem’s “legitimate rape”. Every voter in Michigan should hear his words.
What other amendments would he like to come out against?
Wait… I thought the 2nd amendment only applied to militia?
At least they’re frank enough to admit that what they really want is, currently, unconstitutional.
But remember, no one’s after your guns!
Also note he swears up and down that he’s not after grandpa’s deer rifle/shotgun, but he wants to ban those “military style assault guns”
Huh… so he’s admiting Assault Weapons Bans are unconstititional?
Or does he want to ban something else? Something that he thinks is acutally protected by the 2nd?
I sure wish they would openly admit that they oppose the Second Amendment and get it listed as a party plank, high up on the list.
I’m tired of people saying, “Well, I’m a gun owner and supporter of the Second Amendment, and I vote Democrat because. . . ”
No. You cannot vote regularly* Democrat AND be a supporter of the Second Amendment — not for at least the last ten years. The Democratic Party is simply dishonest about it, even now after they’ve effectively purged their leadership ranks of anyone approaching “reasonable” or “moderate”.
* I’ll admit to individual cases where the Democratic candidate might actually be the least bad choice who has a chance of getting elected, in which case voting for that particular Democrat may seem like a good idea.
I don’t actually agree with that strategy, due to majority party rules in legislatures meaning that in voting for your non-bigoted Democrat is actually supporting and working towards the appointment of the most partisan and bigoted leaders in the Democrat Party having much more influence on the legislature than your one senator or representative does.
As an example, no matter how good Congressman Huntin’ Buddy (D – Your State) is on guns, voting for him is an indirect vote for Feinstein as Speaker of the House.
What if I have a choice between an NRA A-rated Democrat and an NRA rated BQ-rated Republican? What if its an A-rated Democrat and an AQ-rated Republican?
I live in KY so this is entirely possible. Remember the Q in an NRA rating means no voting record, its how they responded to the questionnaire. A non-Q rating means they DID something on scored votes.
Freiheit,
I have the same problem with Begich here in Alaska. He is legitimately at least not anti-gun, but his presence in the Senate means that on things like judicial appointments and other non-directly gun related topics the anti-gun Dem leadership has one less vote to worry about.
Unfortunately, given this is a culture war and the President cheats, at this point I’d agree with Geodykt and violate my own “vote the person not the party” beliefs and go with the R-BQ as it all comes down to a voting majority in the Senate to even get stuff out of committee and block appointments.
I’m glad your brought this up… It is a great example of the issue.
My concerns with Begich also include his reliability on the issue when not immediately facing re-election. He was a member of MAIG once. I’m not convinced he’s ideologically on our side of the 2A issue.
The other big sticking point for me is exactly what has been pointed out — a vote for “D–YOUR STATE” is a vote for Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin for Majority Leader (assuming Reid’s sands are running low — he’s 75 years old).
There’s also the question of getting more pro-gun Dems into the party.
A lot of that has to be done at the primary level and getting pro-gun Dem voters to punish their politicians.
Though once in office the problem comes when pro-gun Dems get kicked out (see the blue dogs).
It should be noted that gun control used to be very, very bipartisan. So progress has been made.
This is the other side of the coin. If we throw out Dems like Begich, then others will conclude that even an NRA endorsement can’t save them. If an NRA endorsement can’t save a Blue Dog Dem in a red state then why bother pandering to the NRA or 2A vote? We also push the Dem party even further into the gun grabbing extreme. Long term I am not optimistic if the 2A issue becomes a purely partisan one. We need friends on both sides of the aisle.
Ultimately I am very unlikely to vote for Begich (primarily due to the court nominee issues) but I am also not too fired up about actively campaigning against him based on this issue.
This is where primaries (especially when they’re not closed) can come in handy. I’m in a similar situation where I’m represented by two Pro-2A Dems of the PA General Assembly. So while I can expect them to be friendly to the cause, they also have no problem turning around and bashing Corbett for everything else going on in the state.
However if an up-and-coming progressive challenges either one of these two guys in a primary, coming to the defense of an “A” and “B” rated state Rep and Senator can be a worthy cause in my book. Of course since PA has closed primaries this would involve changing my registration multiple times.
Begich isn’t anti-gun? Mayor Begich was absolutely no friend of ours. As Senator, he voted for Sotomayor and Kagan. He missed his plane, or he probably would’ve voted for Holder as well.
There’s a difference between direct votes on guns and indirect votes.
Sotomayor, and particularly Kagan, were qualified appointees and the job of the Senate is to “advise and consent”, not play party politics. That a Dem voted to support the otherwise qualified appointees of his party’s president, even if disagreeing with them on a given issue, is not grounds to label them a traitor, not in the real world.
Obama simply was not going to appoint a 2A stalwart.
Let’s also not forget Bloomberg recently made a priority of running pro-gun Dems out of office by supporting anti-gun Dems in primaries.
He has my respect (but never my vote) for being honest and just saying what he really thinks.
Setting aside the appointments and such. Do we not, in principle, allow people to change their minds?
His actions as Mayor aren’t as important as his actions now, which were generally okay on direct votes.
That said, his vote to oppose Sen. Paul’s amendment to the Post Office Carry bill (to allow carry in the actual buildings), on top of the risk of Heller 5 replacement appointment in the next 2 years, is enough to remove my prior equivocal support.
That, and the fact the CO of my old Recon unit, Dan Sullivan, is running against him means he won’t be getting my vote.