2010 Election – Page 8 – Shall Not Be Questioned

LA Times Favors Boxer

Hopefully they’ll remember to call her “Senator.” Either way, the Brady folks are thrilled because their issue got a mention in the LA Times, which hasn’t really been focusing very heavily on the gun issue:

Boxer supports California’s ban on assault weapons and the revival of a similar law at the federal level. Fiorina has criticized the federal law’s definition of assault weapons as “extremely arbitrary” and emphasizes other ways of combating gun crimes, none of which is a substitute for a ban. She also believes that travelers on the federal government’s no-fly list should be allowed to own firearms

I’m not sure how thrilled I’d be though, given that they balanced it with Fiorina’s view on the matter, which has a basis in fact, and they failed to frame the “terror gap” issue properly. I think most Americans understand the “No-Fly” list is a sham, but the “Terror Watch List” sounds much more ominous. Ten years ago the LA Times would have said “Fiorina wants to legalize assault weapons, which are the weapons of choice for gang members in California, and ridiculously wants terrorists to be able to buy guns.”

I guess when you’re down and out, you’ll take any piece of bread thrown at you, but given what we’ve seen from the LA Times in the past, I consider this progress.

More Castle Doctrine Fights Today

According to some state representatives on Facebook, we’re back on to fight for our right to defend ourselves on/in our own property today. From Rep. Seth Grove:

Going to be an interesting a fun week in Harrisburg. Supposedly we might have some transportation funding votes, but we will be voting on “Castle Doctrine” and I will thoroughly enjoy voting NO on all the gun control amendments and enjoy voting YES on a clean HB 40!

FYI – I think he’s my new favorite legislator. This update comes from another co-sponsor, Rep. Bryan Cutler:

HB 40, or the Castle Doctrine bill, is expected to come up for a vote today. I know many of you have been asking about this legislation, which I am co-sponsoring. I’ll let you know how the vote turns out.

Interestingly (and wisely, IMHO), NRA-PVF has opted to withhold state legislative endorsements and grades until the vote on Castle Doctrine & the half dozen or so anti-gun amendments that will be introduced.

Good News for Pat Toomey

Jim Geraghty notes that, historically, if you’re six up thirty days out from the election, you’re quite statistically likely to be the winner. This is good news because I find Joe Sestak particularly loathsome.

Don’t Forget Your State Races

I have been harping on the importance of state representative and senate seats for ages, but this news from Governing just makes the point all that more stark:

When Governing last assessed the 2010 state legislative elections in July, the situation looked grim for the Democrats. The Democrats had 21 of their chambers in play, compared to just four for the Republicans — by far the most lopsided split we’ve seen in any of the past five election cycles.

Now, a few months down the road, the Democratic outlook for the state legislatures has only worsened. …

Putting it all together, we estimate that the Democrats are on the verge of losing a net of four to 12 Senate chambers and six to 15 House chambers. At the higher end of those ranges, the control numbers for state legislative chambers would be fully reversed. Today, there are significantly more Democratic-controlled state Houses and Senates. But if the GOP makes strong enough gains, it could hand the Republicans sizable leads in both chambers — just as the decennial redistricting process is set to begin.

In all, we’ve shifted 18 chambers from their July ratings — all in the Republicans’ direction.

Found via NCSL.

The Second Amendment Post 2010

Jim Geraghty has pointed out a serious issue with the 2010 elections, from a gun rights perspective:

[…] it seems like a lot of rural Democrats who represent districts that voted for Bush and McCain have figured out that when theyâ€™re accused of being liberals, as long as they never vote wrong on guns, they can always point to their NRA endorsement and use that as cover. […]

This is the primary mistake many of these Democrats have made. Voting the right way on the gun issue can offer you some cover, but it’s not absolute protection if you get all the other voters out there angry at you. This means you can’t run in right leaning districts, vote for deficit busting government takeovers of health care, and expect to stay in office because you voted the right way on the gun issue.

The big question is what effect is this going to have on the Democrats disposition toward the Second Amendment going forward? Certainly after November, our opposition will be hammering on the point that, because NRA could not offer perfect protection, Democrats obviously have nothing to gain by being pro-gun. I worry that 2010 will undo many of the bipartisan gains we have made in this issue.

But it is worth pointing out, at least for Democrats, that adopting pro-gun views did lead to electoral success in rural districts before the Obama/Pelosi Health Care Reform Express started barreling down the tracks, with little concern over what political careers might get run over in the process. The lesson for Democrats is not that they have nothing to gain by being pro-gun, but that you can’t piss off multitudes of voters on other issues, then expect the single issue gun vote to save you. Even if all our people voted in lock step this election, we can’t stop an anti-incumbent tidal wave this big.

Pat Toomey Gets Formal NRA Endorsement

It was obviously expected, but now it is formally a done deal, and well deserved. It will also, hopefully, keep the pressure on Casey. This means, for EVCs, that we can direct our armies of volunteers to Toomey’s campaign for Senate. I jest about that a bit, but actually, despite the fact that the gun issue hasn’t gotten much play, I’ve gotten more people this year wanting to volunteer than any year previous. Hopefully we can really make an impression on the local political establishment this year when it comes to the gun vote.

I should also note that every person to contact Bitter in her district (which mostly covers Philly and some of Montgomery County) have been Philly cops, who can’t really get involved in campaigns, but care about the issue and wanted to know who to support. The ones that care enough to call are the ones who CeaseFire PA and the Brady folks will tell you are on their side.

A Look at the Senate Elections

Dave Kopel does a thorough analysis of what we stand to gain in 2010.

Does He Even Know What He’s Talking About?

Bryan Lentz says Pat Meehan wants to allow evil, armor-piecing ammunition. I’m going to wager Bryan Lentz has no clue what armor piercing ammunition is, or what properties it has. He’s delving into a highly technical topic here, where advocates of gun control have successfully created a lot of confusion and beliefs out of ignorance. Does Rep. Lentz know, for instance that:

Grandpa’s hunting rifle ammo will punch through the armor typically worn by police like a hot knife through butter, as will just about any centerfire rifle cartridge.
Gun ban advocates have been going after lead ammunition lately, which has no ready alternative because bullets containing metals other than lead can be construed as armor piercing under federal law and are therefore not legal to sell to civilians.

Tread carefully on this topic, Representative Lentz. You’re heading into gun banning territory, and going back to positions that were politically untenable even in the 1980s. I should say tread carefully if you want to have a chance of winning. We still have a lot of gun owners in the 7th District, and we’ve done a pretty good job of educating them that when someone starts talking about “armor piercing” ammunition, that’s code for banning grandpa’s hunting ammunition. Anything that will effectively kill a deer will go through soft body armor. This is a manufactured issue, much like your “Florida Loophole”

We have to defeat this guy. I hope people in 7 are pulling out all the stops for Pat Meehan.

UPDATE: If you’re on Twitter, please join my “Retweet the truth” campaign, which doesn’t strictly have to be a retweet, butÂ include Kopel article shortened URL, along with something that suggests Bryan Lentz is a gun banning radical, out of touch with mainstream gun owners, and use the hash tag #PA07. I want Lentz to know were out there, and he has more to lose by the anger he’s whipping up than by the friends he’s winning spreading Teddy Kennedy’s old tricks around. Keep in mind this also shows Pat Meehan he can make friends by standing with us.

Looks Like Corbett Gets His Endorsement

It’s hardly a surprise that NRA is planning events to announce the endorsement of Tom Corbett for Governor. Normally Bitter would have attended and reported, but we haven’t gotten around to getting her car inspected yet. Onorato is trying to make gun control an issue in the campaign, and he’s on the wrong side. It’s really important that gun owners punish the Democrats for this. I’m convinced Rendell has the state party convinced NRA is a paper tiger in Pennsylvania. This is the election we show them that’s not the case.

Maybe She Should Have Shared

The kind of story Capitol Ideas is reporting, that a high ranking member of Dan Onorato’s Campaign staff was arrested for growing 28 marijuana plants in her home, probably shouldn’t hurt his campaign as much as it will. That many plants can’t be for personal consumption, unless she smokes a lot of weed. On top of that, what caused the discovery was the twelve ounces of ganja postal inspectors found being shipped to her home. Apparently 28 pot plants generates quite an odor.

I’m not a huge fan of our current drug policies, so to me her big sin, given the state of Onorato’s campaign, and how poorly he’s polling, is that she didn’t share with the rest of the campaign staff.