Foreign Policy by the NRA? The Prospect of Gingrich and Bolton. [View all]

[ellisonz]

By Josh Horwitz
Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence
Posted: 12/20/11 07:25 AM ET

With the catastrophic collapse of Herman Cain's presidential ambitions, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has clawed his way back to national relevancy in the GOP primary process. But while Cain was mocked for a profound ignorance of world events and his inspirational speeches quoting Pokémon, former House Speaker Gingrich has been called a "one-man think tank," a politician of considerable "intellectual prowess," and even a "historian."

Some very good minds on both ends of the political spectrum, however, have pushed back against this idyllic portrait. Conservative columnist George Will went so far as to call Gingrich a "rental politician" whose "ideas" are based on who is paying his tab (also see recent commentary by Maureen Dowd). Interestingly, some in the right wing gun lobby are making similar accusations. One group, the National Association for Gun Rights, has targeted Gingrich with robocalls in Iowa, attacking him as weak on the Second Amendment because he supported a version of the Brady Bill and voted for another piece of legislation that prohibits domestic violence offenders from possessing/purchasing firearms.

Sensing his vulnerability, Gingrich has worked hard to "evolve" his position to get right with the NRA--the one player in the pro-gun movement that matters in a Republican presidential primary. In recent speeches, Newt has parroted the NRA line so effectively that he sounds more like a self-appointed militia leader than an erudite intellectual. Speaking to the organization's members in April, he said:

The right to bear arms is not about hunting. It's not about target practice. The right to bear arms is a political right designed to safeguard freedom so that no government can take away from you the rights that God has given you and it was written by people who had spent their lifetime fighting the greatest empire in the world and they knew that if they had not had the right to bear arms they would have been enslaved and they did not want us to be enslaved.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/foreign-policy-by-the-nra_b_1159972.html

It gets even richer: "Gingrich was likely aware of this fact when, on December 7, he tapped Neoconservative Iraq War architect and NRA International Affairs Subcommittee Chair John Bolton as his presumptive Secretary of State." - The GOP and gun-nuttery go hand in hand. I'm not contesting anyone's right to keep and bear arms - I'm question their right to keep and bear dangerous amounts of arms. I think we'll be hearing much more about gun rights as the GOP tries to use the whole brouhaha as a shank with which to stab our Democratic candidate in the back. They are going to do it no matter what we say, so why not take a responsible position on gun control?