Saturday, November 24, 2007

Thompson touts gun rights, blasts rivals

From Yahoo News:

By Jim Davenport


LADSON, S.C. - White House hopeful Fred Thompson called his trip down an aisle of rifles, shotguns and pistols at a gun show Saturday "a day in paradise," and criticized his leading Republican opponents for past positions on gun control and abortion.

Talking to reporters after the gun show visit, Thompson singled out former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Giuliani "never met a gun-control bill he didn't like until he started to run for president and now I understand he very much approves of the Supreme Court taking jurisdiction of this Washington, D.C., case which most Second Amendment advocates think will establish that the Second Amendment means what it says and grants individual rights to people to possess firearms," Thompson said. "So, ah, maybe he's changed his mind about that, but his record is clear otherwise."
I do not know anyone who is buying Giuliani's "new" stand on gun control. His past actions speak much louder than his words ever can. Good on Fred for continuing to point that little fact out. I guess Rudy feels that if he keeps repeating something enough, we will start to believe him.
A Giuliani campaign spokesman was quick to reply by e-mail to Thompson's criticism: "Mayor Giuliani is a strong supporter of the second amendment and believes our focus should be on making sure criminals are the ones who can't get guns. It's the same tough-on-crime approach Rudy took in bringing historic crime reductions to New York City, and we'll match that experience against Fred Thompson's record of chasing moonshiners any day of the week."
Fred also had words for Mitt Romney and his "new" stand on abortion:
"Until about two years ago, when he decided he was going to run for president, Governor Romney was the most adamant pro-choice advocate that I've ever seen," Thompson said. "You know, pull it up on the YouTube sometime of his debates and when he was running for governor and see the fervor with which he held his pro-choice beliefs. Now he's entitled to change his mind, but I don't think that he ought to be casting aspersions on anybody in terms of pro-choice — pro-life, pro-choice — issues," Thompson said.
Mitt Romney, another "front runner" "Republican" taking his talking points straight from the talking heads. I would have a bit more respect for these guys if they would be honest with us. Romney is another East Coast Gun Grabber, one who actually signed an "Assault Weapon Ban" into law. Romney is a smart man, with a very large bank roll, and good advisers. He is going to do all that he can to help us forget his prior stands on abortion, gun rights, gay marriage, and the fact that he was the Governor of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the Union.

You know, the only thing that allows Giuliani and Romney look even half way conservative is the fact that we are comparing them to what the Democrats have to offer. During earlier elections, either one of these guys would have made decent Democrat candidates. Personally, I think Rudy made a mistake not running on the Dem ticket. I honestly believe that if Rudy had ran as a Dem, he would have this election pretty much sown up.

My favorite candidate pretty much has no chance if things continue as they are. Duncan Hunter couldn't get press coverage if he single handedly wiped out a terrorist cell as they were about to destroy downtown San Diego. The press are just not interested in him.

This leaves me with Fred Thompson, a strong supporter of individual and states rights. He is not interested in amending the Constitution, and I believe that he will not be raising our taxes. I am fairly positive he won't be signing any more bloated transportation or prescription drug plan bills, and he understands that there are millions of Muslims out to kill us. He has not lived his life planning and scheming to become president, and I honestly believe that he is running because he feels he must, not because he wants to. It has taken me awhile to make up my mind, but it is time.

Fred Thompson is the candidate I am supporting for president.

2 comments:

the pistolero said...

Fred Thompson has his flaws, granted, but I do think he's the best of the so-called front-runners. I like Hunter as well, though, and I would love to see him end up as Thompson's running mate.

Anonymous said...

I just love it when people take credit for a trend that has so many possible factors. The nation as a whole experienced a drop in violent crime. Actually, I shouldn't say that. I should say: The high-crime urban areas in the country experienced a drop in violent crime. Other areas pretty much stayed at existing low levels.

I know that city leaders like to claim it was their doing, and disarmers like to think it was one law out of hundreds that has had a special influence, or that the pro-armament crowd likes to think it was carry permits (as compared to actually carried and used), or that Steve Levitt likes to think it was legalized abortions... but it was probably most influenced by the fact that the violent criminal element thinned out the herd in the 90s.

A murder always has at least one dead person. No sane person would argue about whether or not death prevents further criminal activity, but this factor doesn't appear to generate any discussion. Perhaps it will, now that it has been suggested that, in New York anyway, most of the perpetrators and victims knew each other.

Just remember that the selection process favors the bigger, meaner criminals, because the weaker ones end up dead. That's not exactly a comforting thought to a disarmed citizen living near gangland. The disarmers can pretend this isn't so; perhaps they should discuss the matter with the patrol officers who were so surprised at the willingness of contemporary criminals to suddenly introduce lethal force into any confrontation with police.

Giuliani can take credit for a national trend if he wants, but I'm not fooled. The disarmers argued about buttstocks and black paint during the violent crime peak in the 1990s -- effectively doing nothing while the criminals murdered each other out of existence, taking some of the innocent with them -- and I won't be voting for yet another disarmer who will squander the treasury attempting to punish non-criminal, inanimate objects in the hands of people in low-crime areas of the country, who are not currently engaged in any criminal activity that risks the property, limb or lives of others.

Mitt "Extreme Weapons" Romney isn't even on my radar. In fact, an "extreme weapon" is using the Congress and two para-military federal agencies to do a job that could more efficiently be done by some 13 cent justice in the hands of a Citizen.