How weird is this? NRA urges support for Marc Dann.

[Deep13]

Well, to have access to the rifle range, I have to have an NRA card. (That's how they getcha). Like Ted Strickland, I support citizens' right to own firearms. Still, I know that the NRA leadership is really not much more than a paranoid mouthpiece for the Right. I was pretty surpised, therefore, to get a postcard from them today urging support for Democratic AG candidate Marc Dann. Dann was instrumental in exposing corruption in the Taft administration. I was, of course, planning to support any candidate that is not Betty Montgomery (R) or part of the Taft cabal and have already sent him money. I hope this will help his numbers as presently he is trailing behind Sweaty Betty.

[benEzra]

1. No suprise...

Strickland and Dann are IIRC pro-gun, and Taft, Montgomery, and the other Ohio repubs are ban-more-guns types straight out of the Sarah Brady mold.

Taft fought CCW reform in Ohio tooth and nail, and IIRC Montgomery has been pushing the Bradyite "assault weapon" bait-and-switch, aka bans on protruding rifle handgrips and over-10-round civilian guns.

Found this in a thread on the High Road (popular gun board), from an Ohio gun owner, speaking of CCW reform:

Bob Taft didn't want it passed. Neither did Governor George Voinovich, nor did Senator Dan White or currently Senator Bill Harris, as well as a House Speaker that kept holding it up. Also the head of the state Republican party hates CCW too. Mike Dewine and George Voinovich are now representatives to the US Senate, and they are among the most ANTI-GUN Senators, even by "anti-gun Democrat" standards that everyone seems to be harping on. This has been going on for over a DECADE.

The Republican party in Ohio are spineless cowards who only give lip service to gun owners and then stab them in the back. I'd take Ted Strickland and Marc Dann over psycho dominionist Blackwell and anti-gun Betty Montgomery any day of the week. Saying that Blackwell is the real deal, well, after Shaft, can you expect ANY gun owner to believe a GOP politician in the state of Ohio?

I've been saying for a long time that when Dems DROP the "we're-gonna-take-yer-guns" agenda, it can swing a significant portion of the gun vote. FWIW, our Dem governor (Mike Easley) and most of our Dem state gov't here in NC is NRA "A" rated and NRA-endorsed.

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What?

[adeshell]

2. I don't think they ever had a "we're-gonna-take-yer-guns" agenda

Its the way they have been false portrayed by the NRA and the right wing. They are, and should be for sensible gun control. Hearing this makes me more inclined the vote for Montgomery as I can't stand the NRA. I think Democrats should move more to the right on abortion, not gun control.

[Kolesar]

3. Any hint of gun policy and the gun-nuts go, uh, ballistic

if you will pardon the pun.

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/?lnk=v&ml_video=71138

[benEzra]

5. Dude, the Dem in this race is pro-gun...

Any hint of gun policy and the gun-nuts go, uh, ballistic, if you will pardon the pun.

Dude, the Dem in this race is pro-gun; it's the REPUB in this race (Betty Montgomery) that wants to take guns from the law-abiding.

If your notion of "gun policy" includes banning half the guns in our family's gun safe, even though neither I nor my wife have ever had so much as a speeding ticket, then yes, I'd be critizing that. But the party has largely dropped that position, except for a few holdouts, and I'm cheering that on. I think it's one reason why Dems are polling better this year than any time in the last decade.

[Kolesar]

7. Yeah, I know the Dem is in this race is progun--because I read the subject line in the original post

Further, your last paragraph is pure projection. I follow Ohio politics obsessively and I have a pretty good idea why Dems are polling better this year than any time in the last decade and it has about nothing to do with firearms. It's about things that are not a wedge issue. Welcome to the Ohio forum. Did you like the Colbert video? :hi:

[benEzra]

4. I was referring to the push in the early/mid '90s to ban

Its the way they have been false portrayed by the NRA and the right wing. They are, and should be for sensible gun control. Hearing this makes me more inclined the vote for Montgomery as I can't stand the NRA. I think Democrats should move more to the right on abortion, not gun control.

I was referring to the push in the early/mid '90s to ban civilian rifles with protruding handgrips, shotguns holding more than 5 shells, and rifles and pistols holding more than 6 or 10 rounds, as well as a handful of other guns that the prohibitionists don't like. S.1431/H.R.2038 (2004 session) would have even banned my Ruger mini-14, by name:



The ban-nonhunting-guns position wasn't a leftist position, it was a DLC position. The Democratic left has historically been neutral on guns, and it was the DLC, not the left, that spearheaded the push for sweeping bans on nonhunting guns in the early to mid 1990's, and thereby helped cost Dems the House, the Senate, and two presidencies.

Dropping those bans is merely returning to the traditional Democratic position on the issue, and IMHO is a major reason why a lot of swing voters in pro-gun states are feeling more comfortable with national Dems since '04, as you're now seeing in the polls.

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What?

[Deep13]

6. Hmmmmm, Mini 14.

Wish it came in a heavy barrel version. That would be a fun rifle.

[benEzra]

8. I've never understood why Ruger doesn't make one...

the rifle's biggest weakness is lack of consistency, and a cantilevered gas block + thin barrel = lots of bad barrel harmonics, which get worse when it's hot.

Reliability is awesome, though.