Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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CVX
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

Post by CVX »

KERRY COSPONSORED BILL BANNING GUN HE WAVES

http://www.drudgereport.com/dncg.htm

Was Dem presidential hopeful John Kerry seen this weekend waving a gun which would have been banned if legislation he co-sponsored became law?

Kerry co-sponsored S. 1431 last year (“The Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2003) which would have banned a "semiautomatic shotgun that has a pistol grip.”

Opponents of the bill successfully argued how nearly all guns have "pistol grips," inluding millions of Browning Auto-5 shotguns produced since 1903.

Photos show Kerry's hand resting on the "pistol grip," as loosely defined in the bill. [Section SEC. 2; (H) (ii) and (b)(42): The term 'pistol grip' means a grip, a thumbhole stock, or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.]

Kerry was presented with the semiautomatic shotgun during a Labor Day stop in Racine, West Virginia.

"I thank you for the gift, but I can't take it to the debate with me," Kerry told a cheering crowd as he held up the device.

But Kerry's gun bill would have also banned any "gift" transaction!

[It is not clear if Kerry completed the required paperwork (Form 4473) before he claimed the gun.]

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anastrophe
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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we have an utterly pointless, meaningless 'assault weapon' ban due to this kind of hypocrisy. i have no doubt he'll go there. which is one of the reasons i'm voting against him.

the rich and privileged have never seen a gun control bill they didn't like.
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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where does bush stand? basically, 'not as bad as kerry'. he's not the ideal pro-gun-rights candidate, but he's better than kerry, no question.
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CVX
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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So now Mr. Kerry is going to deny that he was involved with Bill S. 1431? :thinking:



XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE SEPT 07, 2004 17:01:00 ET XXXXX

KERRY CAMPAIGN REBUTS

For Immediate Release

September 7, 2004



FACTS SHOW ANOTHER REPUBLICAN LIE

Charleston, WV-John Kerry West Virginia Communications Director Amy Goodwin made the following statement today in response to misleading claims made by the West Virginia Republican Party and Bush campaign.

"Let's do some straight shooting on the gun issue. John Kerry's opponents are worried because he's the first Democratic candidate to support Second Amendment gun rights and to be an avid hunter.

"The facts are clear. John Kerry opposes banning this gun and always will. John Kerry was proud to receive this union-made gun at the United Mine Workers Labor Day picnic in Racine, West Virginia.

"The Republican Party and George Bush's campaign will stop at nothing to mislead voters about John Kerry's record. We challenge Bush to engage in honest debates--West Virginians deserve to hear the truth."
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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CVX wrote: "Let's do some straight shooting on the gun issue.gosh i do enjoy the double entendre. not.



John Kerry's opponents are worried because he's the first Democratic candidate to support Second Amendment gun rights and to be an avid hunter.the latter fact which has absolutely, positively, nothing to do with supporting the second amendment. the second amendment is not about hunting, although a great many people would try to mislead you to think so.





"The facts are clear. John Kerry opposes banning this gun and always will. John Kerry was proud to receive this union-made gun at the United Mine Workers Labor Day picnic in Racine, West Virginia. interesting. 'john kerry opposes'. that's great. but this doesn't address at all whether or not he *used to* be in favor of banning that gun. i'm sure that today, in order to appear to be X in front of audience Y, mr. kerry is happy to say that today he is opposed to banning the gun. that has nothing to do with whether he supported the legislation mentioned.



"The Republican Party and George Bush's campaign will stop at nothing to mislead voters about John Kerry's record. We challenge Bush to engage in honest debates--West Virginians deserve to hear the truth."
either he co-sponsored the bill referred to, which would have banned the gun in question, or he didn't. anyone want to go poke at senate.gov and get the straight poop?



i suspect this is mr. kerry/his minions engaging in anti-flopping. so to speak.
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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CVX wrote: KERRY COSPONSORED BILL BANNING GUN HE WAVES.


Don't care about the gun, at all - but he's not very well dressed, is he!
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anastrophe
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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What would you be attempting to accomplish? It won't stop the suicide bombers. it won't stop the random car bombs. it won't stop the beheadings. it won't stop those operating outside the law, since they won't abide by the law. certainly someone willing to blow himself up or cut off someone's head in the name of allah is neither going to recognize 'gun control' as a legitimate law.

curiously though, there already is gun control in iraq, imposed by the coalition forces early on. it limited each family to one assault rifle. they had to make that allowance because they met so much resistance from non-combatants - regular iraqi citizens - who balked at having their ability to defend their families from insurgents taken away from them.



disarming the insurgents won't be made any easier by imposing gun control, since the insurgents are combatants and by definition if they shoot at coalition troops, the troops aren't going to say 'hand over your weapons', they're going to shoot back until the combatants are killed.



so, what would you hope to accomplish with gun control in iraq?
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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plazul wrote: Do you think owning an assault rifle would be much use

against a terrorist attack against a household?


It didn't help at Beslan School No 1 either. When private individuals turned

up armed to "help", the troops found it hard to distinguish friend from foe.

I will be surprised if no-one "innocent" was not shot because of this.
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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plazul wrote: Okay, I'll play *devil's advocate*. Do you think the American troops getting sniped at almost daily favor the one assault rifle rule? do you think the snipers are individuals actually sniping from windows in their own homes? or would it be more plausible that they are mobile, roving combatants? going door to door to confiscate weapons will only confiscate them from those who are within a home, and willing to open the door, and not likely to just shoot right through the door. not a typical description of a sniper.



Is there at least a possibility that one of those *legal*assault rifles was used to kill an American soldier?of course it's a possibility. it's also a good possibility that the weapon is an american made assault rifle, sold to iraq by us. of course, we are getting into the silly nether-lands of 'legal' and 'illegal' weapons, rather than 'legal' and 'illegal' USE.



Do you think owning an assault rifle would be much use against a terrorist attack against a household? um. if terrorists send a 757 plummeting into my house, i'm pretty sure an assault rifle wouldn't be of much use. if terrorists were roving the streets of my neighborhood, i'd have a good chance of taking some of them out with a decent deer rifle. if a terrorist walked up to my door with six pounds of C4 strapped inside his jacket, i doubt i'd even realize it before it was too late.



I think the best case for allowing rifles to be in the hands of private citizens is that they have little protection against crime. I'd sure want one. Still, if I were running the country and people were taking pot shots at police and soldiers in places like Fallujah I'd have to declare marshall law and go house to house in search of weapons. That's what our Special Forces do in Afganistan but when they just find guns they don't arrest or punish the owner.fallujah is a battleground. marshall law is absurd - again, it's a battleground. and is it really the case that the average iraqi joe is taking potshots at police and troops? it sure doesn't look that way. it looks to me like roving bands of combatants, finding wherever they can to take their potshots - although generally it isn't a sniper battle, it's all out battle. and bombings are responsible for most of the casualties.



Yes, gun confiscation would put people at risk but that's the price you have to pay, in my opinion, to suppress insurrection. so, disarm the very people most at risk? confiscating a gun from someone requires their consent - someone who won't be disarmed is going to simply shoot back at you. so going door to door trying to confiscate weapons may place forces at *greater* risk.



Having said all that, I can sympathize with the law abiding gun owners in Iraq. I would be one of them if I lived there.so you would willingly give up your weapons when asked, even though it would significantly increase your risk?
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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I would hope he wouldn't go skeet shooting with a suit and tie!



Bill Sikes wrote: Don't care about the gun, at all - but he's not very well dressed, is he!
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Pearl Harbor wrote: I would hope he wouldn't go skeet shooting with a suit and tie!


So would I, Pearl. A shooting vest and breeches would be far more suitable.
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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plazul wrote: I strongly disagree with your viewpoint. An American gun rights mindset just doesn't fit with this situation.
i agree. i don't believe i've presented one.



While Republicans claim that Democrats don't want our soldiers to have the tools they need to protect themselves this administration pulled forces back from Fallujah when we had the chance to take it.the administration is directing every battle from washington? or are the commanders in the field making their own decisions based upon the situation? i think it's disingenuous to make fallujah a partisan issue.



And how can someone say they want kevlar vests for our soldiers and then allow the population, especially in hot spots like Fallujah, to be armed with assault rifles?
who is saying that? i certainly didn't. you are begging the question: how are you going to disarm enemy combatants without putting troops at even greater risk? how many troops do you think it would consume to go door to door confiscating weapons? the population of fallujah is half a million people. assume an average 5 people per household, that's 100,000 homes to go to, door to door, confiscating weapons. you are putting forth a fantasy as a solution.



On BBC you see clips of snipings all the time, some of them directed at reporters. I don't know if the buildings those gunmen shot from were homes or not. All I know is that armed men are shooting at our soldiers.
who could disagree?



Should the Palestinians be allowed to have assault rifles? Maybe they should when you see what the IDF does to the homes of noncombatants suspected of harboring terrorists.
let's stay focused, at least minimally. this is a red herring.





I don't think the average homeowner in Iraq would go down in a blaze of glory fighting off a surprise assault on his home with a deer rifle but it's a noble image. I think it's more likely that the typical homeowner in Fallujah would harbor the insurgents.
since neither of us knows, this is another fanstasy. perhaps it's just as likely that the average homeowner would go down in a blaze of glory as the american troops come banging on their door.



let's think about this a minute. 100,000 homes to search. let's say for the sake of argument, it takes five soldiers to perform an inspection of a single dwelling - two guarding outside the door, three inspecting the premises. presume it takes no more than two minutes to search the house.



i don't think i need to spell out the math here. going door to door in fallujah is a fantasy you are presenting.





You admit that there's a possiblity that the guns in the hands of the general public could be used against our troops.
of course. how could i not 'admit' that? any gun in the hand of any person can be used against our troops. i don't understand your point.



Who cares about *legal use* or whether those weapons are in friendly hands?
huh? that's what it all hinges upon! the guns in non-friendly hands are the ones that are killing soldiers. how could it be otherwise? again, your proposal to confiscate all weapons in fallujah is a fantasy. it has no basis in any reality that could be envisioned. the guns in friendly hands are not the problem, but you'd have massive numbers of troops, in a battle zone, go door to door, where they will either confiscate weapons from those who are willing to allow them to be confiscated - thus, not the problem and not the threat - or be faced with hostile fire while approaching one dwelling in, what - 100? where the insurgents might actually be lying in wait. while the rest of the insurgents roam the city, taking potshots at the troops dutifully searching all those houses that aren't a threat.



fantasy.



They pose a threat to our soldiers and our soldiers safety should be placed ahead of the safety of a citizenry engaged in a guerilla war against them.
then all cars should be confiscated as well. a significant proportion of the casualties in iraq since the initial fighting have been via car bombs. any car could hold a bomb, and clearly, many have. they pose a clear and direct threat to the safety of our soldiers.





I don't think that the NRA or any other gun rights organization thinks that we should extend the Fourth Amendment to Iraq in time of war. I never heard them saying that Vietnamese villagers should have arms to protect themselves from VC and NVA.
again, this is far afield. i don't know what the NRA has to do with the discussion. i certainly haven't been arguing for fourth amendment rights or any such nonsense in the midst of a war. i'm arguing that confiscating weapons is effectively a fantasy, and will put our troops in greater danger, not less.



No, it is a pathetic situation when our soldiers have to patrol Iraqi neighborhoods knowing that there could be a *legal* AK-47 in every house
the military in iraq chose to allow the one assault rifle rule. apparently they *don't* believe the average household poses much of a threat at all. you know better than they?
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we'll have to agree to disagree. the notion of 'gun control' in the midst of a war is in my opinion just silly. weapons are explicitly confiscated from captured enemy combatants, and from the dead. passing some silly law to have people turn in their weapons will accomplish nothing - besides accumulating the weapons that weren't being used against you in the first place.



you are arguing the standard gun control arguments - get rid of the guns, and the crime/killing will go away. it never works.
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plazul wrote: Okay, we disagree and I'm just silly.not that it makes much difference, but i make a distinction between *someone* being silly and an *argument* being silly. i don't think you're silly, i think the argument is.



but i tend to parse things too tightly most of the time anyway.



When I started this debate I said I was playing the devil's advocate. I realize that some of what I said is akin to the rhetoric of anti gun types in our civil society but we're not talking about a civil society here. The devil's that are killing our men on a daily basis don't deserve any rights, least of all gun rights.
i agree. but they aren't the ones who are at issue. those who are killing soldiers don't have any gun rights. that's implicit in wartime, and in their actions.





To have a law that allows Iraqi citizens to possess automatic rifles is an insult to our soldiers and a disgrace. I think a law with serious penalties would make people think twice about weapons possession, considering the state of Iragi jails, but even if it didn't the principle of the law would still be important.
but do you really think that the true enemy here, those who are willing to blow themselves up to go to paradise, who will behead innocent people, do you really think they give one moments thought to the law? do you think they will be at all affected by the law?





I'm glad you told me about the law though. Now I have a gun control issue to use against George Bush.
you lost me there. i don't see what it has to do with bush at all. it's not his law, it's the policy that was agreed upon between occupation forces and the local authorities when bagdhad was taken, and coalition forces started disarming simple families in the midst of a crisis, leaving them with no protection at all. the local, middle class families balked, rightly so. they aren't the ones shooting at our soldiers. madmen don't stay home protecting their wives and children. they go off in search of their enemy. they don't bring the war to the threshold of their own home.
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Kerry Co-Sponsored Bill Banning Gun He Waves

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plazul wrote: If a weapons ban prevented just *one* American death, and I think it would prevent more, it would be worth it.okay. so, you believe that notion for iraq, but you don't believe that for here in the US? if a weapons ban would prevent just one american death here in the united states - and that is your basis for supporting it in iraq - then why don't you support it here? why not, on the basis of that argument?



I wonder if you really see that you are putting the rights of Iraqi citizens to keep and bear arms above the safety of American soldiers. this is getting just tedious and annoying. i wonder if you really see that you are IGNORING the points i have made in this regard. the people who are shooting at our soldiers are not sitting at home, and aren't going to answer the door when US soldiers come a knocking to confiscate their weapons. your ban on weapons isn't going to save a single american life. what it will do is put more american lives in jeopardy, sending troops to meander down every single street in a city of half a million people, exposing them more than they would otherwise be exposed, and taking them away from supporting the troops who are actually fighting the people who are shooting at them for real.



let me reiterate, for the nth time: I AM NOT PUTTING THE RIGHTS OF IRAQI CITIZENS ABOVE THE SAFETY OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS. how many times do i have to explain this? i am arguing that your ban would be pointless, ineffective, and put troops at GREATER danger. i am not arguing for or against the rights of the citizens of iraq - other than their own desire to protect themselves, which is their choice.



you seem to fail to grasp that in that city of half a million people, the insurgents are a tiny minority. but you would have our troops go door to door confiscating weapons from those who aren't using them against our troops. it's ridiculous.



Why don't you tell me how the government distinguishes between good gun owners and bad gun owners? The masked insurgents attack and then fade into the background just as fighters do in all guerilla wars.YOU MAKE MY ARGUMENT FOR ME!! the masked insurgents, as i've said several times now, are not sitting at home, with wife and kids, waiting for the knock at the door from US troops searching for weapons! so how will door to door searches in any way disarm the actual fighters in this guerilla war?



i am baffled by why you either can't or won't acknowledge this. iraqi citizens are allowed to have one rifle, at home. that's the exception that was put in place in baghdad shortly after the occupation. when coalition forces began disarming homes, they met so much resistance(*) that they backed off and stopped disarming non-combatants.



(*) and in this instance, the resistance they got was not people shooting at them, it was fathers arguing and pleading with the soldiers, begging them not to take away the only means they had to protect their families.



American forces are not equipped to do ballistics tests on every gun in a sniper's neighborhood so they have to rely on informants who are routinely tortured and executed by the militias.okay. i'll take your word for it. i'm not sure what it has to do with this discussion.



With regard to my remark about using this situation against Bush, you don't understand politics.why thank you! again, you display exactly the arrogance i've pointed out before - 'liberals read more' for example. yep, i don't agree with you, i'm not liberal, therefore i can't possibly understand politics.





I can just about guarantee that the majority of Americans would be outraged if they knew that the Bush Administration went along with the interim government in allowing citizens to possess machine guns for personal protection. I'm going to email the DNC about it today.seeing as this was covered by all major news organizations shortly after we took baghdad, i guess it must only be the illiterate, non-informed republicans who aren't aware of it. what is shocking is that you and all the other supremely intelligent liberals, who do all the reading and have extraordinary powers of political observation and keep yourselves far more informed about things than the dumbass republicans - what's shocking is that you somehow missed the front page articles that went into detail about this more than a year ago.
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