Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) must be wondering what else he needed to do to make his pandering to the gun lobby pay off politically. In a recent statement, the National Rifle Association has made it official. Despite Reid's recent record of carrying the NRA's water on Capitol Hill, the gun lobby will not endorse the Majority Leader for reelection against his Tea Party Republican challenger, Sharron Angle.
When it comes to advancing the NRA's agenda from the Democratic side of the aisle, Harry Reid recently has had few peers. Time and again, Reid has supported Republican-sponsored amendments to weaken the nation's gun laws - from the Coburn Amendment to allow loaded guns in national parks, to the Thune Amendment to undercut existing state law restrictions on concealed carry, to the Ensign Amendment to gut the District of Columbia's gun laws. Reid has used every means at his disposal to block Senate consideration of bills sponsored by Democratic Senators to close the lethal loopholes in our gun laws - even legislation to bar gun purchases by persons on the terrorist watch list or to extend Brady background checks to private purchases at gun shows.
As distasteful as Reid's record has been, it apparently was not good enough for the NRA. According to Chris Cox, Director of the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, Reid could not be forgiven his support of Supreme Court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both strongly opposed by the gun lobby for failing to commit themselves to its absolutist vision of Second Amendment rights. The NRA is not satisfied with the power to dictate our nation's gun policy. It also insists on the power to determine the composition of the Supreme Court.
Senator Reid just learned (the hard way) a few lessons about pandering to the gun lobby.
First, no matter how much you appease the NRA, it will always want more.
Second, because the NRA serves an extremist political ideology, you cannot successfully appease it without becoming extremist yourself.
Third, as a Democrat, you are always vulnerable to being "outgunned" by an even more extreme pro-gun Republican. Harry Reid, meet Sharron Angle.
Although Chris Cox's statement about the NRA's refusal to endorse Reid mentions only his support of President Obama's two Supreme Court nominees, it may well be that Reid's recent attack ad against Angle's Second Amendment nuttiness also played a role. Angle has become infamous for her interpretation of the Second Amendment, which she has said is intended to ensure that the people have the means to engage in armed revolt "when our government becomes tyrannical," suggesting that the time to employ such "Second Amendment remedies" may arrive if politicians like Harry Reid are not voted out of office. "[T]he nation is arming," says Angle, because the people "are afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways."
Reid has responded with a powerful attack ad in which a police officer (and self-described Republican and NRA member) calls Angle's rhetoric "way over the line" and "crazy" because "what she's actually talking about is armed resistance." Indeed, she is.
The irony here is that there is little daylight between Angle's insurrectionist views and those of the NRA itself. Some years ago, an NRA official told the New York Times, "The Second Amendment is literally a loaded gun held to the heads of government." Just last year, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre put it this way to the Conservative Political Action Conference, "Freedom is nothing but dust in the wind till it's guarded by the blue steel and dry powder of a free and armed people . . . Our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules." Was Angle saying anything different? It may be that the NRA simply could not endorse Senator Reid once he had attacked its core belief that the Second Amendment really is about armed revolt against our government.
Senator Reid's political advisors may still believe his record of weakening our gun laws will help him with gun owners, regardless of his being snubbed by the NRA. But it is a myth that politicians sacrifice the support of gun owners by supporting sensible gun laws. There is evidence that Reid himself once understood this. As recently as 2004, for example, he voted to close the "gun show loophole" by extending Brady Law background checks to private sales at gun shows.
A revealing survey taken last year by Republican messaging maven Frank Luntz shows that most gun owners - even most NRA members - support many of the gun control measures Reid has successfully blocked in recent years. For example, Luntz found that 69% of self-described NRA members, and 86% of gun owners who do not belong to the NRA, support closing the "gun show loophole."
So, Senator Reid, what did you gain by pandering to the NRA? Only your pivotal place in the recent failure of our political leadership to address the continuing tragedy of 300 Americans killed and injured by gunshots every passing day.
For more information, see Dennis Henigan's Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009)
Mitchell Bard: Is the GOP Looking Out for You?
Names?
Reid is the former and Angle is the latter....and now the NRA can't decide on who gets their attention.....Notice I said attention, not endorsement, because it is much the same....just semantics......
Sorry about all of that pandering, Harry.
But until you change that "D" to an "R" you will not be endorsed by the NRA. Angle would need to be driving the "gun confiscation wagon" down Main Street, USA before the NRA would endorse you.
NRA = Shill for the Republican Party.
http://www.nrapvf.org/Elections/State.aspx?y=2010&State=NV
Neither Angle nor Reid are mentioned.
The NRA has stated they will not support Reid
http://www.nrapvf.org/news/Read.aspx?ID=14170&T=1
And in an email to The Atlantic, NRA spokesman Andrew Arulnanandam stated the NRA would also not be endorsing Angle.
Repeating claims by the candidate does not refute the actual statements from the NRA.
I have given you the pertanent NRA webpages showing no grade or endorsement.
Again, repeating the candidates claims do in no way refute the NRA website.
Sharron has been endorsed by the Gun Owners of America and has an "A" rating with the National Rifle Association (NRA).
*There may be a problem with Sharron Angle's veracity. Would someone check with Wayne LaPierre so that we can get to the bottom of this "A" rating controversy. Thanks.
Reported on Huffington Post:
LAS VEGAS — A company has sued Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, claiming she reprinted two Las Vegas Review-Journal articles on her campaign website without permission.
Las Vegas-based Righthaven is seeking unspecified damages in its complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.
The suit alleges Angle neither sought nor received permission to display a Review-Journal article and editorial on her website this summer.
An Angle spokesman says he would not comment until the campaign's lawyers have reviewed the suit.
Righthaven tracks Internet traffic for copyright infringements of Review-Journal stories. It then buys the copyright for a story from the newspaper's owner, Stephens Media LLC, and sues the alleged infringer.
___
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
The NRA announced earlier today that it won't endorse Reid, after a history of backing the Senate majority leader. The group cited his votes in favor of Supreme Court nominees Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
The group did not mention Reid's opponent, the Tea-Party-backed Sharron Angle, in its announcement, saying only that it would not support Reid.
An NRA spokesperson confirms that the group will not endorse Angle, either.
"We will not be making an endorsement in the NV Sen race," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulnanandam wrote in an e-mail. The group declined to comment on its specific reasons for not endorsing Angle.
(Source: The Atlantic, 27 Aug 2010 -- http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/nra-will-not-endorse-sharron-angle-either/62193/ )
Issue Brief: The Movement of Illegal Guns Across the US-Mexico Border
September 7 – A new report by Mayors Against Illegal Guns reveals that Texas and other border states are the top sources of U.S. crime guns recovered in Mexico. The issue brief, which examines previously unavailable ATF data about guns recovered in Mexico and traced back to the U.S, finds that roughly 75% of the U.S. crime guns recovered in Mexico originate from the four border states - with roughly 40% originating from Texas alone. When controlling for population, three of the four border states - Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico - supply guns recovered in Mexico at a rate three times greater than the rate of the fourth border state, California. In addition, the time between the original sale of guns at U.S. gun dealers and the recovery of those guns at Mexican crime scenes is decreasing - a sign of ever more sophisticated gun trafficking.
See MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org
"The issue brief, which examines previously unavailable ATF data about guns recovered in Mexico and traced back to the U.S, finds that roughly 75% of the U.S. crime guns recovered in Mexico originate from the four border states "
75% of the firearms that were submitted for tracing and were able to be traced.
Reported on HuffingtonPost:
"I'm hoping that we're not getting to Second Amendment remedies. I hope that the vote will be the cure for the Harry Reid problems," she said, generating a slew of questions about her intent.
When CNN asked about Angle's ominous-sounding warning, she laughed off the notion she was promoting an armed revolution. "Those are not the issues people are concerned about. They're concerned about our economy, our homes, our jobs. That's what people are concerned about," she said, not offering an explanation of her remarks.
Angle also refused for the third time in recent weeks to disavow a suggestion she made last year that some members of congress can be classified as "domestic enemies."
Perhaps you don't believe the candidate's claim. That's up to you.
Sharron has been endorsed by the Gun Owners of America and has an "A" rating with the National Rifle Association (NRA).
NRA gives Sharron an "A." That's pretty close to an out-and-out endorsement.
Would that be an endorsement of her comment about "Second Amendment solutions"? If the NRA disapproved of her "Second Amendment solutions" comment, I think they would have given her an "F."
Please show us where the NRA is giving her a rating.
Also note:
“We will not be making an endorsement in the NV Sen race,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulnanandam wrote in an e-mail to Chris Good of The Atlantic on Friday (27 Aug).
"An accounting firm hired by Al Sharpton's National Action Network found the civil-rights group in such financial disarray that it flunked its record-keeping -- and may not even survive, The New York Post has learned.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/09/07/sharptons-nonprofit-brink-audit-finds/?test=latestnews
Looks like the cost of bussing people into Chicago for anti-gun rallies has finally caught up to the good Reverend.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/al_net_lo_es_f52rRrLNnBRAZagK0TgvwN
A Progresive/Lib playing the race card. Shocker.
But I was sad to see that the same attempts to demonize my friends is still going on. I've received my share of sophomoric vituperation here. My adversaries frequently claim my own posts cross the line into insult. The difference is that I have NEVER flagged any post as abusive, while they have flagged many of mine. The further difference is that these flaggers have a strategy of non-stop interruption of discourse on subjects they don't want discusses, through censorship, distortion, diversion, and drowning of opposing posts beneath a tide of responses. I will always succeed in reading my friends, but people just following an article would have to sift through some ratio of twenty comments of the censorship/attack/distort/divert type to reach one of the alternative arguments.
But then you can always tell the strength of an argument by how its adherents advance it. If they can't take opposition, you know just how weak their positions are...
And the arguments by the gun controllers are advanced by playing spelling police, ad hominems, character attacks and outright distortion.
And I am still looking forward to those links disavowing the Cook's articles....
For more information, see Dennis Henigan's Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009)
does anyone here believe that dodge city has been a gun free zone for the last 125 years...
Typical: you lie.
Let's review quickly: I *called OE* for making this statement:
+++ Dodge City never banned handguns. +++
I did not make the "claim", I proved it false.
You're not very good at this, are you?
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barefoot2626 6 hours ago (4:31 PM)
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They did.
Oops. Look like he did make that claim. Now comes the part where he doesn't take responsibility for what he actually says again.
The "Guiding Principles" state that HP does not discriminate and, further, they do not tolerate lying "about communications with a staff moderator".
kaveman3 (1:20 PM) 33 Fans Become a fan Unfan
Again, we have been asked to flag abusive comments by the mods.
Then they review the comment and decided whether or not to delete it. If you have a prblem with that, I suggest you take it up with the mods.
"they do not tolerate lying "about communications with a staff moderator"? Really? You're now in a position to say what they 'tolerate'? Any evidence that Kaveman lie.d?