Obama and Guns

[sjfcontrol]

Any man on this discussion who thinks that compromise is a terrible, liberal idea has never been married to a conservative republican.

I'm married to a conservative republican, and I believe compromise is a terrible liberal idea.

[C-dub]

Any man on this discussion who thinks that compromise is a terrible, liberal idea has never been married to a conservative republican.

The problem is that liberal Dems are not willing to compromise. They say they are, but then stick it to you when you aren't looking. We're starting to wise up, but to quote Loki, "Are you ever not going to fall for that?"

[jdkinman]

Let me get this straight.

A few here are arguing that Obama has no interest or desire to limit our rights to own guns. . .

Are we discussing the same Obama who had the knives and forks taken away from the Latino Leaders luncheon not long ago?

JD

[Slowplay]

Any man on this discussion who thinks that compromise is a terrible, liberal idea has never been married to a conservative republican.

Apples & oranges. Libs whining about conservatives not wanting to compromise and not wanting to find common ground in politics are being dishonest.

The common ground IS the U.S. Constitution (which they all take an oath to uphold), but the libs are only interested in ever-expanding the role of the federal government beyond the powers enumerated. Republicans have been compromising all along the way, helping erode the limits placed on the Feds (except passing Obamacare, which was all the dems) and put us where we are today.

[Slowplay]

Let me get this straight.

A few here are arguing that Obama has no interest or desire to limit our rights to own guns. . .

Are we discussing the same Obama who had the knives and forks taken away from the Latino Leaders luncheon not long ago?

JD

Brilliant point -

[jimlongley]

I have to admit, I'm pretty pleased with how active this post has been, and it will take me a little more time that usual to reply to it all.

. . .

Really quick, I want to apologize for mistating that Obama was an Illinois State House Rep, when we was an Illinois State Senator. Honest mistake on my part.

. . . And I understand why other things would have been brought up on this topic to show cause and example as to Obama's record of lying/flip-flopping and thats what influences someone's belief as to why he can't be trusted about guns.

However, all I'm trying to do is deal with the issue of both options of Obama and Romney and their records regarding fireamrs. In the end, I'm not really that worried with either of them regarding this. The NRA is too powerful of a lobby to let something like Clinton's AWB to happen again. I don't think Congress would ever seriously look at this topic again, unless we have a severe frequent occurance of more mass shootings occur. I hope that doesn't happen, primarily because I hate hearing about people being senselessly murdered. Still, I'm just not worried about Obama on this issue. And side by side, I also don't think Romney is a better choice to protect this issue either. He's probably better for others, but based on the arguements, not necessarily better than Obama.

So your entire statement “So, how far back do you want to go? What did Illinois House Representative Obama, then US Senator Obama lie about regarding his support for gun owners? I'd like to know specifically when and what statement you are referring to so I can answer you properly.” was an “honest mistake”?

Bambam solicited the support of the ISRA and lied to the gun owners present and by extension the entire ISRA membership and all gun owners in Illinois, like I said, that makes him a liar, particularly about gun issues, once and for all. Unfortunately I don’t have the exact date and time, nor the exact words, but I was then and am still a life member of ISRA and got the word from people who were there when this charismatic young politician asked my organization to support his candidacy because he was not an enemy of gun owners. HE IS A LIAR!

I am worried about bambam, and I am worried about Romney, but I think bambam is worse, and my only issue in this thread until now has been bambam and his lies.

[The Annoyed Man]

Search TXCHLFORUM for topics regarding James Holmes or Wade Michael Page. You'll see the few topics regarding the facts of the shootings and how tragic they were.

Then the anti-liberal/anti-democrats/anti-Obama comments. Heck, one person said his 16 year old had a theory that the Colorado shooting was probably orchestrated by anti-gun liberals to help further their gun control agenda. I understand free speech, but that comment still has me upset. That is as bad as the 9/11 conspiracy theorists suggesting that was planned by Bush's administration to allow them to pass the Patriot Act and sidestep laws so they could go and do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Both are wrong.

You can even search "Obama", and you'll get a ton of hits of anti-Obama sentiment over a huge range of issues, particularly gun. 

Moreover, try searching the forum for comments regarding condemnation or punishment or hatred of James Holmes and Wade Michael Page. You won't find any, at least I didn't. That's a problem. Its people like these two sick and deranged men, who actually bought hand guns and an AR15 legally and proceeded to go on shooting rampages, that have caused us gun owners to have this discussion right now. These killers screwed us! They bought their guns the same way we did, except where we are responsible and hopefully good Christian people, these men are/were evil with like intentions of doing harm. You wan't to be mad at a President who hasn't messed with our gun rights? Fine.

For one thing, you'll find plenty of blame for Holmes and Page here. I've seen it. But also, they were patently crazy. I'm not making excuses, but it is hard to hate a crazy person, just as it is hard to hate a rabid dog. They have a disease, and that disease is running them not the other way around. Also, if you look at developments in the wake of the Colorado episode—which have been discussed here—there were university officials and mental health practitioners who failed to respond to the signs of Holmes's mental illness, and communications sent by one to the other in that regard which were either ignored or failed to be delivered. Both parties have lawyered up pending the lawsuits which are sure to follow the revelations.

Regarding search hits about "guns" and "Obama," well.......this IS a gun forum. To me, it is not only surprising, but gratifying to see that there are other topics covered.

I have personally dissuaded others from pursuing the conspiracy angle in Colorado—including with my own son who is vocally pro-2nd Amendment. However, as regards Obama and his attitude toward guns, he is on record, multiple times, and given his record of using executive orders to bypass Congress—which, 100 years ago would have gotten him impeached—there is reason to worry that he will try other end-arounds of Congress with regard to the RKBA. If you check my post in the "posse comitatus" thread, you will see however that, while I don't put such shenanigans past him, I also would argue that he will not succeed in some of these things for the simple reason that he's not the only elected democrat with an ego. Democrat governors are NOT going to sit quietly by and surrender their powers to an overarching Obama for the simple reason that—even if they agree ideologically—they may some day have to confront a republican president with whom they profoundly disagree and who could legally and successfully claim the Obama precedent over them.

As to the other issues, there is PLENTY to criticize, and Obama is a dirtbag whose policies are harming me personally and directly, in my pocket book—not counting his serial mismanagement of the economy which nearly killed off my business. By 2013—unless a Romney adminstration is successful in fulfilling its promise to repeal Obama's destruction of our healthcare system—I will being paying an annual fine to the IRS. With a stroke of a pen, Obama made me into a payer of fines. That fine will be used to provide health insurance for others, insurance that I can neither afford for myself nor as a small business owner will I qualify to receive it myself...........even if I wanted to act like a democrat and be part of the problem and not the solution. I cannot afford to buy health insurance, and I am self-employed. I was happily paying out of my pocket for my annual healthcare needs—which are substantial—and able to do so, with a reserve on hand in case of medical emergency. Now, because of his immoral fines, I will not only be LESS able to afford health insurance, but I will be LESS able to afford to pay for my own healthcare needs. Not more than 10 days after they passed their abomination of a law which we were not allowed to see before it passed, my wife's health insurance premium (which we can afford) went up. Then she got the checks back from her insurance company reimbursing premiums which were mandated by the new law. So how does an insurance company account for that so that they can still remain profitable (which is their right)? They do so by increasing even more the premiums to cover guys like me, and people like my wife. Insurance companies are not compelled by the law to participate in those stupid "exchanges," and so quite consequently, most won't. When the law forces exchange participants to provide certain coverages which take away their profits, they will quite reasonably opt out of participation. The end game is now, and always has been, to force a single payer system on to us which even a majority of the law's supporters did not want!!!

Obama is a scoundrel. So are Pelosi and Reid. I cannot stand them and believe them to be evil and manipulative people, motivated by evil notions, and never having enough power over the lives of individuals to be satisfied. Ask Harry Reid how he's worth over $10 million on an annual salary of $193,000, without having married into wealth the way Pelosi did.....and then wonder how he can have the unmitigated gall to say what he said about Romney's taxes on the floor of the Senate. Hey Reid, do you still beat your wife? WHAT? Prove to me that you don't! I hate what they stand for, which is the increasing loss of individual freedom as the federal government grabs after more and more power. I hate their adherence to Saul Alinsky's revolutionary teachings. I hate their adulation of Bill Ayers and his murderous wife. You mentioned that we are "hopefully good Christian people?" Can you countenance an Obama who sat in the pews listening to the (allegedly) "Reverend" Wright declaim racial hatred and call for God's damnation upon the United States of America for 20 years?

Can you countenance an Obama who golfed while Rome burned?

Here is a very telling blog post from the Heritage Foundation dated August 2nd: Economic Freedom: The Freedom to Choose. The results are telling. Conservatives are actively engaged in preserving the uniquely American vision of the individual. Liberals are actively engaged in converting that to the European view of the individual, in the belief that surrendering rights to purchase comfort is preferable to preserving individual freedom, with the inherent risks that are inseparable from freedom. In that pursuit, conservatism is the bastion of classical liberalism, which holds that the rights of man are natural and God-given (whichever term suits your fancy), versus what passes for liberalism today, which is more properly labelled "progressivism" or "leftism"—both of which are terms describing a philosophy which states that the rights of man are granted by government, and they can be legitimately taken away if the peasantry grows too unruly.

Modern liberalism, by dissecting and picking apart the ancient human rights of private property and the right to retain the fruits of one's labor (which includes the responsibility of doing what is necessary to avoid the risk of starvation), is dissecting and picking apart the very underpinning of all human rights, and most particularly those which are enumerated in the Constitution. MUCH better and more highly qualified constitutional scholars than Obama would disagree strongly with the meanings of the terms "well regulated," "militia," "the people," and "shall not be infringed." He is flat wrong.

And while we are on his alleged brilliance as a constitutional scholar (brilliance which we can NEVER confirm until he releases his Columbia and Harvard transcripts, by the way), I for one am damned tired of democrats constantly retelling the lie that Obama was a professor of Constitutional Law. Obama was NEVER a professor, not even for 5 minutes. He was a lecturer, a discrepancy akin to a chemistry TA who lectures in place of the professor for whom he works claiming that he is actually the professor of chemistry. Both of my parents were professors with 30-40 year long careers at Caltech, a premier institution of higher learning. If a lecturer at Caltech had presumed to claim he was a professor he would be laughed off-campus. They are not even close to the same thing. But democrats love the sound of that blatant lie so much that they keep repeating it, and the media gladly repeats it, all in the hope that repeating a lie often enough will make it true. Furthermore, and shamefully so, Academia has been silent on this transgression because they love his narrow behind. They just love it, love it, love it! If Obama had been a republican, this quite massive discrepancy in the narrative would have been quickly pointed out back in 2007 when his campaign started up. To add insult to injury, the twit wasn't even a "Constitutional Law" lecturer! He lectured on "The Law," which delved into a lot of different aspects of "The Law," including some lectures on "Constitutional Law." So the bottom line is that he knows no more about Constitutional Law than does any other law school graduate who passed the bar—which is to say that his "knowledge" of the Constitution is informed by his ideology more than it is his knowledge of history. 

How does one edit the Harvard Law Review without ever contributing to its pages? That's just pathetically dumb! I spent nine years laying out the publications of the largest legal publisher in the Western U.S......Daily Journal Corporation. I can promise you that all the editors, from the Editor in Chief on down contributed content to those law journals. What's Obama's record? ZIP!

He won't release his transcripts, his academic narrative is a massive falsehood, and the entire arc of his alleged intellectual accomplishments IS A FRAUD! That alone disqualifies him from the presidency. All of these things are very clearly documented. I'm not making it up. I'm not spinning it. It's all there for anyone with a modicum of curiosity to see. I'm not even twisting the truth. I am UNtwisting it, to apply the same standard that would be required of any other candidate!

Guns is only a small part of the picture. I don't doubt for a minute that if he thought he could get away with it, he'd do it. But even without that particular issue, there is MORE than enough reason to throw this particular and most singularly unqualified liar out of office.

Other than that, I have no particular opinion.

[C-dub]

Well, obviously, that is what I meant to say.

Thank you TAM.

[sjfcontrol]

Darn, I was just about to say EXACTLY the same thing, but TAM beat me to it! (Again!)

[The Annoyed Man]

Last comment, and then I don't think I have anything of further value to add to this thread.....

Regarding Romney and the Massachusetts AWB: Romney was a republican governor of an overwhelmingly democrat state, dealing with a legislature that was something like 80% democrat. That law was going to pass, with or without his signature on it. He had the following choices:

1. Resign, so that he wouldn't have to deal with it.
2. Stay in office, and veto the bill. The MA legislature would have easily overridden his veto and rammed the bill up his wazoo.
3. Stay in office, refuse to engage its proponents, resign himself to the inevitable, and sign the bill.
4. Stay in office, engage its proponents, and have a part in shaping it to be even slightly less poisonous if possible.

Of those choices, #4 was the toughest, and the most adult. That is the path that Romney chose. I think that on the AWB part of it, he kind of stuck his finger up, checked the wind, and went with the popular sentiment. The AWB passed, but, and this is the tough adult part, he did get included some concessions making licensed CCW somewhat less onorous than it previously was—a concession that NOBODY in the legislature would have agreed to without his engaging in the process, and which would have never gotten out of commitee in a free-standing piece of legislation.

So the end result is that the Massachusetts AWB is known as the Romney AWB (and he had literally no control over the naming of it), and he gets stuck with the credit/discredit for it, but Massachusetts CHL holders have some easing of the restrictions on them because of it........something which very few people in the gun world ever give him credit for.

Do I think that makes him the best defender of the RKBA we have? Not in the least. But I do think that he is not quite as poisonous as some people fear. And I want to make sure, when I hear these arguments, that Romney gets credit for making a VERY tough VERY adult decision in a VERY difficult circumstance.

And to forestall the natural counter—that Obama signed concealed carry in national parks into law—they aren't remotely the same thing.

Obama wanted and asked for a banking bill. Conservatives attached the CCW in national parks rider to it. He would have signed the bill without it. He would have preferred the bill without it. He was forced into accepting the rider to get the bill that he wanted. Of the above 4 possibilities, #1 would have been most preferable because it would A) get rid of Obama and B) Congress would have likely let the bill die. #2 would have been next best because it would make him look like an even bigger idiot having demanded a bill and then refused to sign it....although he doesn't need much help in that regard. #3 is effectively what he did, signing the bill that was put before him, "warts" and all. #4 would have inevitably made things worse for CHL holders.

Peace out.

[lbuehler325]

Last comment, and then I don't think I have anything of further value to add to this thread.....

Regarding Romney and the Massachusetts AWB: Romney was a republican governor of an overwhelmingly democrat state, dealing with a legislature that was something like 80% democrat. That law was going to pass, with or without his signature on it. He had the following choices:

1. Resign, so that he wouldn't have to deal with it.
2. Stay in office, and veto the bill. The MA legislature would have easily overridden his veto and rammed the bill up his wazoo.
3. Stay in office, refuse to engage its proponents, resign himself to the inevitable, and sign the bill.
4. Stay in office, engage its proponents, and have a part in shaping it to be even slightly less poisonous if possible.

Of those choices, #4 was the toughest, and the most adult. That is the path that Romney chose. I think that on the AWB part of it, he kind of stuck his finger up, checked the wind, and went with the popular sentiment. The AWB passed, but, and this is the tough adult part, he did get included some concessions making licensed CCW somewhat less onorous than it previously was—a concession that NOBODY in the legislature would have agreed to without his engaging in the process, and which would have never gotten out of commitee in a free-standing piece of legislation.

So the end result is that the Massachusetts AWB is known as the Romney AWB (and he had literally no control over the naming of it), and he gets stuck with the credit/discredit for it, but Massachusetts CHL holders have some easing of the restrictions on them because of it........something which very few people in the gun world ever give him credit for.

The Bill was titled something like the Public Safety Act or something along those lines. It was essentially a state level bill to replace the '94 Clinton AWB, and was championed by Gov Romney. He could have stood on principal and vetoed it. The legislature could have overridden his veto, but at least he could have stood firm. Oh, those concessions weren't concession for Romney, they were concessions for GOAL (Gun Owners Action League... state level organization of the NRA), and those concessions were extremely weak, and the Governor wouldn't even allow the GOAL representative on stage at the very public signing. For those that are unfamiliar, the ONLY concession was increasing the licensing period of a License to Carry (which you actually needed to own a weapon... not just carry) to five years from three. Only thing was it also raised the cost from $25 to $100, so it effectively raised the cost from $8.33 per year to $20 per year. So, no, I don't give him any credit for doing anything positive for our rights. This was a tax increase and another unnecessary and unconstitutional burden on our ability to bear arms.

It created a licensing hurdle to own a firearm, one that local law enforcement could (and often did) deny without any legal justification (especially in areas like Boston, Somerville, and Cambridge). It placed further limitations on the amount of ammunition one could possess. It banned certain brands of firearms based solely on the Sec of State's assessment of safety. The list goes on, but sufficed to say, Mitt Romney is no defender of my right to bear arms. I experienced this first-hand when I had the unfortunate displeasure of being a subject of the state there for two years.

Romney called semi-automatic rifles evil and said their sole purpose was to kill people in public statements, renounced the NRA, saying he didn't "line up" with their beliefs, and promised to strengthen MA's gun control laws in office.