“Presidential debate on gun rights”, The Altoona Mirror, PA

Presidential debate on gun rights

Given the statements above attributed to Obama, he should find it easy to promise to veto any bill that tries to reinstate the assault weapons bill that is a scheme to ban semiautomatic firearms, e.g. H.R. 1022, S.2237.

Obama should also fine it easy to repudiate the goals of the Violence Policy Center and Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence formerly known as Handgun Control to ban handguns and semiautomatic firearms. He could also renounce the efforts to ban guns of the foundations that fund VPC and Brady, i.e. Joyce Foundation and Annenberg Foundation.

A poll accompanying the article asks “How big of a role does the right to carry a firearm play in your vote?”

21% say “It's the sole issue for me.”
38% say “It's a major issue.”

:eyes: You're always stirring the pot.

(hides thread)

Single focus idiots should not shape policy.

Period.

The world is complex and these times are too serious to bend over fucking back wards to appease ANY single issue group.

And I say that as a gay man who is highly disappointed with the gay marriage stance of the Obama / Biden ticket. But I will not, no strike that, I CAN NOT let my focus on one issue cloud judgment and override LOGIC in evaluating who is the best candidate for these times.

There are more than enough sane people to simply WRITE OFF the 21% idiots.

And yes, I will call them IDIOTS.

and though it is not a single issue for me it is an important issue. That said it is the single most important issue to a lot of people I know. I am all for getting as many votes as possible.

These are the most dangerous idiots to have firearms. If this is the only thing they think about when voting these stupid fucks shouldn't even have guns.

WHY?

Why do you continue to post this crap here? There's a perfectly good guns forum for you to use...

from gun-owners to win in PA.

I agree with Obama that he needs to keep driving home his message that he supports the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

One anti-gun report estimates there are about 80 million gun-owners in an electorate of over 215 million.

Hard core single issue voters do not shape policy.

The tail does not wag the dog.

They're not democrats and never will be. They're probably not even responsible hunters. They're the guys who drink and shoot from their car into private land posted with no hunting signs. They're the guys who walk the train tracks inside the safety zone and fire into people's yards.

You can't even use semi-automatic or automatic weapons to hunt in PA. The only reason to own them is to collect them and use them on a target range. If that's your 'sole issue' to own an automatic weapon to use on a target range there is something wrong with you. Why not allow grenade launchers and RPG's as well? Hell I just want to use them on my own property and for home defense....

Now, banning handguns poses problems for legitimate uses though. If you're a Trapper and use a box trap to capture game, then the best way to put the animal down is by using a small calibur handgun that you can carry.

I personally think we should have strict controls and licenses on ALL firearms, with laws enforcing correct safety of guns in the home etc (gun cabinets, gun locks, etc) with instant federal background checks on everything, including ammunition sales. This would include gun shows, and ANY transaction, even a personal one, of a firearm. Any unlicensed use of a firearm should be heavily punished with set jail time.

to hunt in PA."

http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=478&q=151077#2308

Title 34 Chapter 23 Subchapter A Section 2308

(a) General rule. - Except as otherwise provided in this title, it is unlawful for any person to hunt or aid, abet, assist or conspire to hunt any game or wildlife through the use of:

(1) An automatic firearm or similar device.

(2) A semiautomatic rifle or pistol.

---

the 'otherwise provided in this title' is laid out in another section where it allows limited use of a semi-automatic weapon to amputees with only one arm to make it easier on them as far as reloading.

"You can't even use semi-automatic . . . weapons to hunt in PA."

Sec. 2308. Unlawful devices and methods.

(a) General rule. - Except as otherwise provided in this title, it is unlawful for any person to hunt or aid, abet, assist or conspire to hunt any game or wildlife through the use of:

(1) An automatic firearm or similar device.

(2) A semiautomatic rifle or pistol.

(3) Reserved.

(4) A semiautomatic shotgun or magazine shotgun for hunting or taking small game, furbearers, turkey or unprotected birds unless the shotgun is plugged to a two-shell capacity in the magazine. <--- which restricts it to being 2 bullets

(5) Any device operated by air, chemical or gas cylinder by which a projectile of any size or kind can be discharged or propelled.

(6) Any recorded call or sound or recorded or electronically amplified imitation of a call or sound of any description or any other call or sound or imitation of calls or sounds which are prohibited by regulations of the commission. The commission shall be authorized, by resolution, to adopt rules and regulations authorizing the limited use of recorded calls or sounds or recorded or electronically amplified imitation of calls or sounds when such use is necessary in the commission's judgment to protect the public health and safety or to preserve that species or any other endangered by it.

(7) A vehicle or conveyance of any kind or its attachment propelled by other than manpower. Nothing in this subsection shall pertain to any motorboat or sailboat if the motor has been completely shut off or sail furled, and the progress thereof has ceased.

(8) Any artificial or natural bait, hay, grain, fruit, nut, salt, chemical, mineral or other food as an enticement for game or wildlife, regardless of kind and quantity, or take advantage of any such area or food or bait prior to 30 days after the removal of such material and its residue.

Nothing contained in this subsection shall pertain to normal or accepted farming, habitat management practices, oil and gas drilling, mining, forest management activities or other legitimate commercial or industrial practices. Upon discovery of such baited areas, whether prosecution is contemplated or not, the commission may cause a reasonable area surrounding the enticement to be posted against hunting or taking game or wildlife. The posters shall remain for 30 days after complete removal of the bait.

(9) Any setgun, net, bird lime, deer lick, pit or pit fall, turkey blind except as permitted under subsection (b)(3) or turkey pen or any explosive, poison or chemical of any kind.

(9.1) Any device which permits the release of two or more arrows simultaneously on a single full draw of a bow.

(10) Any other device or method of any kind prohibited by this title or regulations promulgated under this title.

(4) A semiautomatic shotgun or magazine shotgun for hunting or taking small game, furbearers, turkey or unprotected birds unless the shotgun is plugged to a two-shell capacity in the magazine.

So I'll allow that a two shell magazine semiautomatic shotgun is an exception to my statement, as is the use of semi-automatic's in hunting by amputees.

It is illegal to hunt with a semi-auto rifle or handgun. Semi auto shotguns are legal for anything but big game.
Been like that for as long as I have been hunting or shooting, neraly 50 years.

Those of us in PA who own semi auto rifles have them because we like to shoot them. I have several, and I'm not giving them up, period.

I doubt if Obama is going to risk losing PA for a bullshit issue like the old, pointless and stupid AWB.
Democratic gun opwners have been emailing his staff since he was nominated, trying th educate them against the anti-gun nonsense, and I believe we have made an impression where it counts, even if we still have a lot of jerks who still hate us in the party.

I am 61 years old, ana have voted Democratic all my life, and I have been a shooter since age 10. If that is a problem for some of you, it is YOUR problem - I don't intend to change to make you happy.

mark

infringes upon the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self defense including reinstating the assault weapons ban that is a scheme to ban semiautomatic firearms.

Like you, I have also emailed, mailed, and called his campaign headquarters but to no avail.

Obama's position is still "They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets."

See http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/urban_policy/

have been for 74 years now, and have absolutely nothing to do with the gun control debate in 2008.

Regarding semiautomatics (which are NON-automatic), the majority of guns sold annually in the USA are semiautomatics, and more Americans lawfully own "assault weapons" than hunt.

Only 1 in 5 gun owners hunts. We nonhunters would like to keep our guns, too, thanks.


----------------------
Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What? (written in '04, largely vindicated in '06, IMO)

The reason those weapons are tightly controlled, is the same reasoning for the restriction on automatic weapons.

"Assault weapons" are the most popular centerfire target rifles and defensive carbines in U.S. homes, and more people own them than hunt. BIG difference.

If you can't tell the difference between a machinegun or a rocket-propelled grenade and a non-automatic centerfire .22, I think you are not looking at the issue clearly, IMO.

FWIW, this is an "sssault weapon" per H.R.1022 and the repubs at the Brady Campaign:

About as many people own automatic weapons as own yachts, and they cost about as much.

Automatic weapons have been tightly regulated since the 1930's and have only been used in a handful of crimes since then (the most recent famous one being that bank robbery / shootout in CA where the only dead people were the robbers themselves). They're difficult to get, hard to use in crime, and totally irrelevant to the debate.

of people haven't realized that yet.

mark

It's an online, non-scientific poll on a newspaper's website in the heart of "Redneck, PA".

I've spent quite a lot of time in Altoona. As someone posted upthread, I don't think many, if any of these "single issue" voters would have voted for Obama in a million years, anyway.

I wouldn't get too worked up about it.

Hell yes, the gun issue is a deal-breaker for a lot of voters.

If you doubt that, look at 2006, when PRO-GUN DEMS turned Congress blue.

And will do so this time. Fast Eddie, who was strongly for gun control, was elected TWICE in PA as governor. The subject is irrelevent.

A lot of us 2nd Amendment Democrats are pushing this point really hard with our fellow gun-people:

1) Barack Obama said, before Heller v. DC came down, and I quote, "The 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual's right to own a firearm." Period. That means he accepts what most of us in the gun rights community agree is the framework for regulation: there is an individual right and curtailment of it must be for a demonstrable public good.

2) McCain is one of the strongest advocates for "ending the gun show loophole" which is a feel-good-sounding thing but actually means "all firearms sales must be through a licensed federal dealer (at an extortionate price)". The correct way to close the "gun show loophole" (which might as well be called the "garage sale loophole" -- gun shows are legally no different from any other place in the country) is to extend the NICS background check system to allow private parties to use it (with appropriate privacy safeguards, of course).

3) To the end of 2), he introduced a bill that would for practical purposes outright ban private transfer of firearms, including parents passing down a rifle to their children, as well as a law that leaves open the possibility of random police inspection of gun storage in the home. He's also opposed several aspects of concealed carry in his own state.

McCain is, quite simply, no friend of gun rights, though he plays one on TV. Obama's support for the new "assault weapons ban" is troubling but I don't think it will make it through Congress.

I also stress that he is the only candidate, ever, to have said plainly that the 2nd Amendment recognizes an individual's right to own a firearm: given that as a basis, I and a lot of people like me are more than willing to work with him to figure out what regulations of that right work for what localities.

so, yes, it can be safely ignored. Oh, it moved back up to 18% while I was typing, because clearly it's just an indication of people who read that article - no doubt directed there by people who think this is a vital aspect of the election. While those who don't think that way will largely have ignored the article.

Those figures are useless.