2010 Election – Page 12 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Onorato Blaming Corbett for Non-Loophole

Onorato is blaming Tom Corbett for the so-called “Florida Loophole,” showing that the candidate for Governor in 2010 is not shy about sending his gun control views up the flag pole. This is in contrast to Governor Ed, who conveniently dropped the issue like a hot potato during his 2002 and 2006 runs.

I’m convinced that Governor Ed has convinced fellow Dems that the NRA can’t touch them. His evidence? His two terms, and Barack Obama’s ten point win in this state. Except Ed ran against two lackluster candidates, and so did Barry. Corbett isn’t a weak candidate. He’s a hard campaigner and a good fundraiser.

It’s absolutely important we send Dan Onorato packing this fall, or it’s going to be over for us in Pennsylvania. Democrats will say the NRA can’t hurt them, only then they will be right.

Harry Reid is Doomed

Obama is heading back to Nevada to help Harry Reid. At first I was thinking that meant he was going to campaign for Sharron Angle, but that doesn’t seem to be the plan.

Hat tip to Sister Toldjah

Anti-Gun is now the “Right Flank” of the Democratic Party for PA2010

Supporting gun bans, wanting to reargue Heller, and completely dismantling the state gun laws to overturn the Pennsylvania Supreme Court puts you on the pro-gun side of the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania, at least according to this article on PA2010.com. Really? That would be news to the many pro-gun Democrats in this state who actually support the rights of gun owners.

During the primary battle, we learned that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Dan Onorato, was one of the farthest left candidates you could find on the gun issue. The only guy to his left was Joe Hoeffel. The only Democratic gubernatorial candidate who gun owners could come reasonably close to voting for if they were voting single issue was Jack Wagner.

We captured video from most of the Democratic forums before the primary and studied his statements on “public safety,” and those hit on a range of policy issues on the matter of Second Amendment rights:

	Onorato	Hoeffel	Wagner	Williams
Ending Preemption (overturning Ortiz)	Support	Support	Oppose	Support
Semi-Auto Ban	Support	Support	Support	Support
Mandatory Locks on Guns (overturned in Heller)	Support	Support	Oppose	Oppose
Castle Doctrine	Oppose	Oppose	Maybe	Oppose
Shut Down Gun Stores Near Homes, Schools, or Parks	Maybe	Support	Maybe	Support
Limit on # of Guns	Maybe (through local laws)	Support	Oppose	Support
Eroding Reciprocity	Support	Support	Maybe	Support
Ban Gun Ownership w/out criminal conviction	Support	Support	Support	Support

On this list of what I consider to be “big” issues right now, Onorato goes against gun owners 75% of the time. The other two issues are unknowns, or he would support other government officials in their quest for more gun control. That’s not what we usually consider “on our side” in the gun owning community. (Hoeffel strikes against us 100% of the time, Williams at 88%, and Wagner at 25% of the time with another 38% of the issues as possibly against us.)

If you want to look at the issue from the gun control handbook from CeaseFirePA, their big issues show a similar breakdown. Onorato is with them 85% of the time, and they classify the remaining 15% of the positions as unknown, not in opposition to their agenda. (Hoeffel is with them 100% of the time, Williams 85%, and Wagner 46%. In fact, Williams is actually against them with the other 15% of the proposals which actually makes him more solid on the issue with gun owners than Dan Onorato.)

For context on how Onorato’s positions compare to legislators who have recently voted on some of the policies Onorato is pushing or opposing, here’s another chart. I’ve broken these charts down by NRA grade. (It was too wide with all of them in one, so forgive the repetition, it’s to prove a point.)

	Onorato Not Rated	Lentz F	Manderino F	Vitali F	Wagner F
Ending Preemption HB 1044	Support	Support	Support	Support	Support
Semi-Auto Ban HB 1045	Support	Oppose	Support	Support	Support
Castle Doctrine HB 40	Oppose	Support	Oppose	Oppose	Support

This table shows that Onorato is farther to the left on recent gun rights policy debates than two of the four F-rated lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee.

	Onorato Not Rated	Waters D-	Brennan D	Caltagirone D	Shapiro D	Costa C
Ending Preemption HB 1044	Support	Support	Oppose	Support	Oppose	Oppose
Semi-Auto Ban HB 1045	Support	Support	Oppose	Support	Oppose	Oppose
Castle Doctrine HB 40	Oppose	Oppose	Support	Support	Support	Support

Let’s look at some who probably fall on the left of the issue, and another who falls squarely in the middle of the issue based on previous grades. Onorato’s policies fall in line with the D- lawmaker, but he’s exactly the opposite of two D legislators and our single C-rated guy on the committee. That doesn’t seem to be very “right flank” to me.

	Onorato Not Rated	Casorio A	Kula A	Pallone A	White A	Petrarca A+
Ending Preemption HB 1044	Support	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose
Semi-Auto Ban HB 1045	Support	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose	Oppose
Castle Doctrine HB 40	Oppose	Support	Support	Support	Support	Support

All of these lawmakers are probably the “right flank” of the gun issue for the Democratic Party since they are all A-rated or higher. Most of them carry the NRA’s endorsement. And Dan Onorato doesn’t agree with them on anything – from banning guns to gutting gun laws to even a law dealing with self-defense in your own home.

So, based on statements and specific policy plans, both gun owners and gun controllers agree that Dan Onorato is not on the “right flank” of the Democratic Party on gun issues. So I’m challenging the fine folks at PA2010.com to back up his claim that Onorato is in any way considered to be pro-gun. It would enlightening, especially to all of the Democrats I talked to this weekend who are planning to vote against their party on this specific issue in this race come November.

What We Need More Of

Bloggers running for public office. At some point, we have to stop talking and start doing. While I can promise you that I will never run for public office, my contribution offline is going to be something else, I’m happy to support others if they give it a go. I wish Bruce the best of luck.

Not Running from Guns in Alabama

This candidate is pretty up front in his campaign ads with who he stands with on gun control, even though this ad has nothing to do with gun control. Wait until the end.

Implications of Castle Doctrine Vote in November

Over at PA Gun Rights. We did very well, even among politicians who often don’t take our side. In addition, some who went against us are easy targets in this coming election year.

We Have Work to Do

Rasmussen shows that Sestak is ahead of Toomey by 4 points. It also shows that 61% of Pennsylvanians want the health care reform repealed. I have a feeling that Sestak’s numbers are going to drop once people get to know him, but I don’t want to count on that. I like what Xlrq said, “Congratulations, Pennsylvania, you just jumped out of the frying pan. Step two is not to land in the fire.” This is truth.

GOP Going After Carolyn McCarthy?

This is promising news. Jacob talks about the fact that she’s actually in a district that could easily elect a Republican, it’s just that, much like with my district, the GOP is fragmented and disorganized, and has run bad candidates. Maybe this is the year. If they have a stab I hope they take it. It would be nice to get Carolyn “The shoulder thing that goes up” McCarthy out of Congress.

Where’s Your Bloomberg Now?

We’re quite pleased with the result of last night’s primary, a summary of which Bitter put up over at PAGunRights.com. There were two races we were keeping a very close eye on were two State Senate districts where a MAIG mayor was trying to move to a higher office. These are solidly Democratic seats, so this was essentially the election.

We helped raise money for both pro-gun candidates through ActBlue, and we are happy to report we won one of the two races, but most pleasing was that both MAIG mayors lost their primary. We’d like to congratulate NRA endorsed State Rep. John Yudichak on his commanding primary victory over anti-gun MAIG mayor Tom Leighton. We are very pleased to have thoroughly trounced Bloomberg in this race.Â In the second district, our endorsed candidate did not win, but it doesn’t look so bad. Here’s what Bitter had to say:

This is a mixed bag election for gun owners. On one hand, the NRA backed candidate â€“ State Rep. Jim Wansacz â€“ did not make the final cut for November. On the other hand, the extreme anti-gun Mayor of Scranton did not survive either. A dark horse candidate won the race, and we hope to find out more about his position on guns rights in the future. This is his first elected office, and he was backed by the retiring pro-gun Senator for this open seat. For anti-gun Chris Doherty, this is his second setback in a few months after his campaign for governor floundered. Calling in the big guns, the anti-gun leaderÂ brought in Bill Clinton to record phone calls for him, though it did no good.

The important thing is this race is that Doherty didn’t win. It was a multi-way race, and we had some other issues in this district that could have affected the outcome. This is a pretty clear message that no matter what Bloomberg is promising to MAIG mayors, if you try for higher office, NRA will notice, and we will kick your ass.

Specter is Gone

The man who switched parties to avoid getting beat in his primary just got beat in his primary. As much as I’m enjoying the poetic justice, the words “Senator Sestak” scare the living hell out of me. I’ll work like hell for Pat Toomey.