Democrats Negotiating with NRA

D.C. will get corrected, one way or another. And the Democrats could lose their "gun grabber" label in the bargain. Things are looking up!

They should stay focused on that and not get embroiled in unrelated right-wing issues which I absolutely despise!

I have never seen anything from the NRA on any issue other than things relating directly to the second amendment.

They don't have a POV on immigration, abortion, foreign policy or anything beyond the 2nd, unless I missed something big.

Their lobbying arm, the NRA-ILA endorses candidates for office, D or R, based solely on their voting record on gun rights issues and their stated campaign positions on gun issues. But their actual track record is the major point of delineation for a rating from them.

I'd be happy to reconsider, if you can poiint to any unrelated issues I may have missed?

The Dems in congress are finally trying to get rid of the gun grabber label.

I know so many people who vote GOP because of the gun control issue. Especially after the things Clinton passed.

If that stuff hadn't have passed in the 90s and the Dems had kept congress then we'd be in much better shape now IMO

stage for Obama to pledge to veto any bill that comes to him that infringes on the Second Amendment.

The two things would take RKBA completely out of play during the GE.

Source: http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pro-gun-house-dems-reach-deal-with-nra-2008-07-30.html

I don't know what "narrowly enforce a June Supreme Court decision" means. I wish they had used less ambiguous language.

i click on the link and it sends me to the homepage and i dont see the story

It works for me, but from the home page, hit the "Leading the News" link in the column on the left under "News" then scroll down to "Current and Previous Articles" under which you will find a link labeled "Pro-gun House Dems reach deal with NRA".

The "narrow enforcement" will basically force D.C. to accept the Heller decision and quit playing games with definitions of firearms like making everything but a six-shooter a "machine gun". It's a real win for the people of D.C.

It will also avoid a costly legal battle that the local government would surely lose.

What would her constituency say?

Moreover, what does the Heller decision say about the expressed will of the people? All I see when I see the Heller decision is a bunch of activist neocon puppets rejecting established precedent and making the Constitution say whatever they want it to say.

More of the same ol' same ol', repukes shoving their radical activism down the nation's throats and bypassing the will of the people of the District of Columbia. Just more of the same, tired repuke lies and people dead at their hands.

Nothing new here.

oh fuck that...

Enjoy your stay at chez DU.

"shall issue" concealed carry permits and none have overturned these laws, I suspect that the will of the people in this country does support gun ownership for self defense. I really haven't read any accurate polls that show how the people in Washington D.C. feel about firearm ownership.

http://www.atr.org/special/maps/data/shall_issue_04.pdf

"I really haven't read any accurate polls that show how the people in Washington D.C. feel about firearm ownership."

Uh...every municipal election since 1975?

George Wallace didn't "feel' like integration was a good idea following the Brown v. Board of Ed. decision either.

Maybe we should have just let the folks in Mississippi and Alabama decide about that for themselves according to your logic? After all, if most of the voters in Alabama wanted to keep segregation they should be allowed to, right?

Maybe every city or town that disagrees with Roe v. Wade should be allowed to ignore that decision too and express the "will of the people" on the issue too, huh?

But since 48 states now allow some form of concealed carry, I'd have to say that "Most Americans" aren't afraid of law abiding citizens owning and even carrying guns.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you don't agree with Heller, too damn bad.

Even those hardcore "Neocon" law professors like Dershowitz and Tribe agreed it was a correct decision.

Which particular school of law do you teach at, so we can read some of your scholarship on the decision?

... and he has no track record of scholarship on the second amendment. He wasn't even a tenured professoor at U of C let alone considered an authority on the second or any other amendments.

But you love him, so that's enough credentials for you to accept anything he says and ignore the Amicii from all the other scholars that addressed the issue, huh?

And I guess you also missed Obama's statement following Heller where he said he believes the court made the right decision and that the RKBA is indeed an individual right.

In the 19th century, repubs didn't have a problem with slavery, which WAS constitutional. But Democrats worked hard to end it, despite its constitutionality.

In the post Civil War era, repubs didn't have a problem with anti-freed-slave legislation, which was constitutional until Democrats got the 14th Amendment passed.

In the 1960s, southern repubs didn't have a problem with Jim Crow laws or hosing down peaceful protesters in Selma, which was constitutional until Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act.

"Constitutional" is a red herring.

After the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1878, most States turned to "facially neutral" business or transaction taxes on handgun purchases. However, the intention of these laws was not neutral. An article in Virginia 's official university law review called for a "prohibitive tax...on the privilege" of selling handguns as a way of disarming "the son of Ham," whose "cowardly practice of 'toting' guns has been one of the most fruitful sources of crime.... Let a negro board a railroad train with a quart of mean whiskey and a pistol in his grip and the chances are that there will be a murder, or at least a row, before he alights." Thus, many Southern States imposed high taxes or banned inexpensive guns so as to price blacks and poor whites out of the gun market.


In the 1990s, "gun control" laws continue to be enacted so as to have a racist effect if not intent: Police-issued license and permit laws, unless drafted to require issuance to those not prohibited by law from owning guns, are routinely used to prevent lawful gun ownership among "unpopular" populations. Public housing residents, approximately 3 million Americans, are singled out for gun bans. "Gun sweeps" by police in "high crime neighborhoods" whereby vehicles and "pedestrians who meet a specific profile that might indicate they are carrying a weapon" are searched are becoming popular, and are being studied by the U.S. Department of Justice as "Operation Ceasefire."
http://www.blackmanwithagun.com/site/cpage.asp?cpage_id=140019513&sec_id=140000845&nc=1217567866640

Much more interesting history of the racist origins of gun control can be found at the above link.

And tho a great extent, I feel that much of the gun control effort today is directed at keeping guns out of the hands of poor racial minorities and poor whites.

The rich and famous appear to have little problem obtaining firearms legally even in New York City:

So what does Republican-In-Name-Only (RINO) Mayor Bloomberg think of all this? He told New York magazine that all of the NRA leaders' comments were "reprehensible." In an interview with New York radio station WLIB on Tuesday, he basically gave rank-and-file gun owners the bird.

****snip****

So will the gun-phobic mayor be revoking the concealed-carry permits of the city's rich and famous any time soon? Licensed gun-toters in New York City include record executive Tommy Mottola, liberal actors Steven Seagal and Robert De Niro, talk show bigwigs Howard Stern and Don Imus, and gazillionaires Winthrop Rockefeller and Donald Trump. While lhese well-connected gun owners are free to walk the streets without fear, nestled in their gated communities and surrounded by bodyguards, it is average citizens who suffer the most from the gun-control paternalism of the elite.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200402/ai_n9367633

Pick one?

Since when is the constitution or striking down a law as unconstitutional a "red herring"?

But what you think is really irrelevant because the decision has been made and the Dems on the hill are cooperating with the NRA and R's to straightne out the Dumbasses that run the District.

Like a whiny, stubbornm child that has been told to "stop it right now" Fenty and his crew have made it clear that they have no intention of allowing even the most common handguns in the country to be registered and are setting up registration fees (yopu know like a poll tax) , a useless ballistic records keeping system (kind of like a literacy test for voting) and creating a bunch of other artificial barriers that will keep the poor and most of the middle class that may want a handgun for home protection from getting them.

With luck, Congress will straighten their ass out before the Supreme Court issues a Writ of Mandamus to force Fenty, Lanier, Nickles and the rest of the crew of circus clowns to follow the rules that will have serious penalties attached for elected officials that ignore their decision.

But If I remember correctly, the Republican party was founded on the basis of ending slavery as one of it's main planks. It was the election of a Republican President (Abe Lincoln)in 1860 that led to the Southern states to suscede. It was a Republican controlled Congress after the Civil War that passed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to legally end slavery in the United States. By 1880 every state in the old Confederacy was controlled by Democratic goverors and legislatures. These were the people that wrote the Jim Crow laws in force until the 1960s. These were the same type of Democrats that supported FDR's New Deal legislation as long as FDR did not take any political or legislative action to alter the status of race in the South.

www.georgiacarry.org Scroll to the Heller brief for a short history of race and gun control. Note the role of 14A.

some excerpts:

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
The Petitioners recite a selective portion of the
history of gun control laws in the District of Columbia,
but omit portions of that history which demonstrate
that the Petitioners’ laws are deeply rooted in a
racist attempt to keep arms out of the hands of the
politically and economically disadvantaged. This brief
will explore the racist history of gun control in the
District of Columbia and throughout the country. It
also will show how the principles of black oppression
via gun control laws of yesterday are used to oppress
the politically weak today via those same, and additional,
laws.
--------------------------------- ♦ ---------------------------------
ARGUMENT
I. Gun Control in the District of Columbia

Gun control in colonial America was virtually
unheard of, with the exception of laws that required
people to be armed, such as Georgia’s 1770 law requiring
all males between the ages of 16 and 60 to
bear a gun or two pistols while attending church,
under the penalty of a fine for failing to be armed.
Don B. Kates, Jr., “Handgun Prohibition and the
Original Meaning of the Second Amendment,” 82
Michigan Law Review (1983), pp. 216-217.
The unfettered right to keep and bear arms was
so commonly accepted that the Founders undoubtedly
would find the instant case puzzling indeed. There
was, however, a common exception:
No negro or other slave within this province
shall be permitted to carry any gun or
any other offensive weapon from off their
master’s land, without license from their
said master, and if any negro or other slave
shall presume to do so, he shall be liable to
be carried before a Justice of the Peace and
be whipped, and his gun or other offensive
weapon shall be forfeited to him that shall
seize the same. . . .

*****snip*****

II. Gun Control in the United States

The history of gun control in the District of
Columbia closely parallels the experience of the
several states, particularly (though not peculiarly),
the southern states. Gun control was used as a tool to
subjugate blacks.
http://www.georgiacarry.com/Heller/07-290bsacGeorgiaCarry.pdf

"In the 19th century, repubs didn't have a problem with slavery, which WAS constitutional. But Democrats worked hard to end it, despite its constitutionality.

In the post Civil War era, repubs didn't have a problem with anti-freed-slave legislation, which was constitutional until Democrats got the 14th Amendment passed.

In the 1960s, southern repubs didn't have a problem with Jim Crow laws or hosing down peaceful protesters in Selma, which was constitutional until Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act."

The Democrats DID NOT PASS the 14th Amendment, that was a Republican Reconstruction Congress.

You must not be old enough to remember "Dixiecrats" or the "solid South" but from 1865 and the next 100 years membership in the Klan and the Democratic party were about equal south of the Ohio river. Lester Maddox and George Wallace were a couple of the last prominent Democrats who would clearly dispute your completely erroneous view on history. LBJ said correctly that passing the Voting Rights Act in 1964 would cost the Democratic Party the South for a generation, despite the fact the MAJORITY of Democrats voted against it.

I can see where you might have fallen asleep in hitory class, it was about all them old dead guys fighting wars anyway, the bastards. But when you could check your facts with a couple of mouse clicks, but have worry about losing your preconceived notions, why bother, right?

I don't have all that much faith in the voters of the District.

David

You apparently have not read the decision or the dissent. Nor do you understand what the established precedent you speak of actually means - if you did, you wouldn't make the following statements and ask the following question:

if they get all 200+ signatures that they need to force a vote

and there is a good chance it will pass

"Moreover, what does the Heller decision say about the expressed will of the people? All I see when I see the Heller decision is a bunch of activist neocon puppets rejecting established precedent and making the Constitution say whatever they want it to say."

established precedent?...the only modern precedent we have is that a short barrelled shotgun isnt protected by the 2nd amendment

the collective rights theory was propogated by lower federal court precedents- none of which apply to the supreme court

if i also remember correctly- there was a case in 1942 in which the supreme court mentioned that the Miller decision was not supposed to set a precedent on the scope of the 2nd amendment- only deciding whether a short barrelled shotgun was protected by it

SCOTUS, We the People, and over 65% of the DU community.

I'm reminded of Monty Python's "Black Knight".

Actually, as reported by the DCist, the Speaker is very much considering letting the Democratic version come up for a vote. She is a politician, and she needs to keep vulnerable Blue Dogs in her Congress. She'll swallow hard, turn up her nose but in the end, throw gun control under the bus to save VOTING seats.

http://dcist.com/2008/08/01/pelosi_may_fold_on_dc_gun_law_legis.php

Moreover, what does the Heller decision say about the expressed will of the people? All I see when I see the Heller decision is a bunch of activist neocon puppets rejecting established precedent and making the Constitution say whatever they want it to say.

The Heller Decision is not about the "expressed will of the people" - it's about the expressed will of the founders and the Constitution they wrote.

You may be interested to note that all 9 justices - including the more liberal ones - were unanimous that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right. What was debated was whether it was an enumerated right nor not.

Some Republicans are angered that the NRA, considered one of the most powerful and effective lobbying operations in Washington, is negotiating with Democrats rather than holding their feet to the fire. One aide called the strategy “naïve.”

Well tough shit, Republicans!

Every month I get my NRA magazine "America's 1st Freedom", and see the page after page of anti-Obama diatribe.

People are no longer going to swallow the rest of the Republican bullshit to protect our right to bear arms now that it looks like we may be able to count on the Democrats to help us.

It would be so great to see the Democratic party embrace the right to keep and bear arms. It would knock one of the three legs - God, Guns and Guts - right off of the Republican stool.

I would be ecstatic to see this wedge issue disappear.

The "true believers" the most fervent and ardent gun control advocates on here would rather the Republicans win than dilute the "purity" of their "superior moral position."

The fact that the "Blue Dogs" are winning precisely because they are giving voters a choice between a pro-gun Democrat vs a pro gun Republican is not on their radar screen. They will deny the obvious, and decry their loss.