Damn, someone has added pro-AWB verbage to barackobama.com...

[benEzra]

and whoever wrote it thinks it's about military automatic weapons. Damn, damn, damn.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/urbanpolicy/

As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

"Assault weapon" ban proposals are about popular NFA Title 1 CIVILIAN guns, not NFA Title 2 restricted military weapons. Aaargh.

I can't believe party strategists are doing this again. For pete's sake, this same approach BOMBED in 1994, 2000, and 2004.

Any constructive suggestions as to how to avoid another 1994 in 2010? (Or worst-case, another 2000 this year?)


---------------------

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

[Fresh_Start]

1. one issue voters

let them all reap the consequences of their votes

[zbdent]

2. surround their compounds, don't let anybody out ... and send in lots and lots of alcohol ...

problem eventually solved ...

[benEzra]

3. Like in 1994, you mean? And 2000?

Yeah, THAT worked out well, didn't it?

The "Dems'll-take-yer-guns" meme died with the AWB in 2004, and pro-gun Dems turned the Senate blue in '06. I have no idea why the DLC feels it's so damn important to resurrect the "we'll take yer guns!" BS now.

[virginia mountainman]

7. One issue voters..

Outright misleading statements on the candidate's website...

Their is consequences for everything...

[SteveM]

8. We've ALL been reaping the consequences of gun-control votes (nt)

[one-eyed fat man]

4. the whole "assault weapon" terminology

was coined with the notion it will confuse people into thinking it means "machine guns". Just like "cop-killer" Teflon bullets, or the infamous "heat-seeking" bullets only those persons with some technical acumen are upset. The "emotional" gun-banners don't care about technical accuracy, they hate guns and don't know and don't want to know. The anti-gun policy wonks who do know the technical differences have worked hard to frame the argument intentionally in such a way to take advantage of the general public's confusion.

[aikoaiko]

5. If there is any Obama staffer who peruses this forum, I beg you...

...please convince Obama to have an epiphany that "what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne" means that he cannot support a federal AWB. He is losing votes that matter over some concession to his gun-grabbing buddies.

All he would have to say is that after traveling this country far and wide that he has seen the light and he will veto any new federal gun ban, but supports keeping guns out of the hands criminals. His rhetoric is already so close that anyway, but then he negates it with support for a AWB.


I beg you, staffer or campaign volunteer with Obama's ear, its not too late.

[slackmaster]

6. I have run out of steam on this fight for now

I give up. We failed to convince the DNC or the Obama campaign that pro-AWB language will result in a net LOSS of votes.

They didn't listen. If we should lose in a close election in November, they'll all be hearing from me again.

[benEzra]

11. I went through all of this in 2003 and 2004 on the John Kerry forums...

now Common Ground Common Sense. The gun-ban zealots carried the day, unfortunately, making exactly the same arguments that they're making now.

Those of us who warned that repeating the 1994 and 2000 strategies would bomb were right in the end, but it didn't matter; the DLC and party strategists would rather lose than drop the fight to ban popular guns. And here we goddamn go again.

Maybe we'll get lucky and still win this time. But Dems had the trifecta in 1992 also, and threw it away in 1994. My biggest fear is that if we DO win this year, the zealots will ram another AWB through again, and pull another 1994 in 2010.

This is ridiculous.

[Major Hogwash]

37. Neither John Kerry nor his campaign had anything to do with that other forum.

If you look at the owners of the Common Ground Common Sense forum, you will find it is not affiliated with John Kerry nor his campaign in any way, shape, form, or fashion.

Never was, never will be.

[benEzra]

9. From President Clinton's autobiography _My Life_, on the 1994 debacle:

"Just before the House vote (on the crime bill), Speaker Tom Foley and majority leader Dick Gephardt had made a last-ditch appeal to me to remove the assault weapons ban from the bill. They argued that many Democrats who represented closely divided districts had already...defied the NRA once on the Brady bill vote. They said that if we made them walk the plank again on the assault weapons ban, the overall bill might not pass, and that if it did, many Democrats who voted for it would not survive the election in November. Jack Brooks, the House Judiciary Committee chairman from Texas, told me the same thing...Jack was convinced that if we didn't drop the ban, the NRA would beat a lot of Democrats by terrifying gun owners....Foley, Gephardt, and Brooks were right and I was wrong. The price...would be heavy casualties among its defenders." (Pages 611-612)

"On November 8, we got the living daylights beat out of us, losing eight Senate races and fifty-four House seats, the largest defeat for our party since 1946....The NRA had a great night. They beat both Speaker Tom Foley and Jack Brooks, two of the ablest members of Congress, who had warned me this would happen. Foley was the first Speaker to be defeated in more than a century. Jack Brooks had supported the NRA for years and had led the fight against the assault weapons ban in the House, but as chairman of the Judiciary Committee he had voted for the overall crime bill even after the ban was put into it. The NRA was an unforgiving master: one strike and you're out. The gun lobby claimed to have defeated nineteen of the twenty-four members on its hit list. They did at least that much damage...." (Pages 629-630)

"One Saturday morning, I went to a diner in Manchester full of men who were deer hunters and NRA members. In impromptu remarks, I told them that I knew they had defeated their Democratic congressman, Dick Swett, in 1994 because he voted for the Brady bill and the assault weapons ban. Several of them nodded in agreement." (Page 699)

--William J. Clinton, My Life

[iverglas]

14. you emphasized the wrong bit

The right bit is:

... the NRA would beat a lot of Democrats by terrifying gun owners.

But hell. Why not help them along?

[benEzra]

17. Gun owners were afraid Kerry would do exactly what he promised to do...

with regard to nonhunting guns; while the NRA blathered endlessly about "sportsmen" and ran ads catering to hunters, Kerry's real problem was with nonhunters.

Kerry courted hunters, and got that message across loud and clear. Problem was, hunting was irrelevant, NRA hunter-centric bullshit to the contrary.

[iverglas]

20. your point?

I'm not getting it.

Clinton believes that the NRA succeeded in scaring voters away from the Democratic Party.

You disagree?

[benEzra]

22. The NRA gleefully trumpeted Dems' support fo the AWB, yes...

but Mr. Clinton IMHO gave far too much credit to the NRA for the outcome. I watched the issue VERY closely, before and after the ban was passed. At the time, the NRA was obsessed with hunters and hunting, as were the ban proponents; the NRA because that's where a lot of the money is (though not most of the votes), the ban proponents because they wanted to think they were affecting a few fringe guns and a few fringe gun owners, instead of an estimated half of U.S. gun owners (then, primarily through the vastly increased handgun-magazine prices, since the Feinstein law banned no rifles and few rifle magazines).

The grassroots efforts that unseated so many pro-AWB candidates (both Dem and repub, though Clinton didn't necessarily care about repub losses) wasn't hunting-centric; it was AWB-centric. And while the NRA took advantage of it, it didn't drive it; the NRA had at the time perhaps 2.8 million members, compared to ~40 million handgun and "assault weapon' owners even then.

And I quoted Clinton not to argue the NRA vs. grassroots component, but to point out that contrary to the claims of AWB proponents in 1994, 1996, 2000, and 2004, the AWB was a losing issue. Blame whom you will, and regardless of one's views on whether the guns in question are "good" or "bad," it was a STUPID fight to pick, and there WAS a backlash that unseated the sitting House Speaker for the first time since the freaking Civil War.

The repubs wanted Dems to pass the Feinstein law; Gingrich knew he had a good chance of riding the backlash into the Speaker's chair, and he did. Which is why he played stupid in conference committee and let Dems work it into the final bill, even though he was fully capable of stopping it if he wanted.

Today, in 2008, support for an AWB is ten or twenty points lower than it was in 1994, gun owners are far better organized and connected (1994 was still the FidoNet era, remember), and "assault weapon" owners now outnumber hunters even without considering the tens of millions that another mag freeze would affect.

Given that rifle crime is practically irrelevant to the U.S. violence picture, that police-officer deaths are at the lowest level since 1961, and that even a ban and confiscation wouldn't affect the potential lethality of U.S.-owned civilian firearms, the fact that the DLC and party leadership are still pushing the issue suggests either (1) supreme idealogical committment to the AWB ("Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!) or (2) continued ignorance as to what the U.S. gun owners actually give a fuck about (it is NOT about $5000 skeet shotguns or bolt-action deer rifles). I strongly suspect the latter; even AWB advocates admit it's primarily a symbolic measure that does very little to address criminal violence.

The arguments you and the DLC are making, pooh-poohing the anti-AWB backlash, aren't new. They are precisely the same arguments Clinton's advisors, the Bradys, and the DLC made to Clinton in 1993 and 1994, they are the same arguments made to Gore in 2000, and they were the same arguments made to the Kerry campaign in 2004 (a debate I was part of, BTW). They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.

[Chevy05truck]

42. I dont' trust Obama on guns.

We should have nominated Richardson or atleast Hillary. Hillary wasnt' "gun friendly" but maybe she learned her lesson with the AWB bullshit.

Obama has voted against guns every chance he has gotten. Dont' expect him to shed his sheeps clothing untill after the election...

[gorfle]

30. Be afraid...

When the "reasonable" gun control crowd sees 4-month long waiting periods as you traverse the bureaucracy in an attempt to get permission from your government to own a gun to be fine and dandy, people are right to be afraid.

When the Democratic Party Platform calls for the banning of weapons most like the ones our founders intended us to be armed with, people are right to be afraid.


The NRA is not generating the fear - the NRA is generating the AWARENESS. Anti-gun folks are generating the fear.

[iverglas]

35. oh for pity's sake

I explained that it would likely be around four months for *me*, because of where I'll take the PAL course, if I do. The time from completion to getting the licence would be about 6 weeks, as I understand it.

Someone really anxious to get hold of a shiny new gun could undoubtedly find somewhere other than the big public recreation complex where I'd choose to do the course, like a private for-profit range, or just a certified instructor, that would very probably arrange a private course for a fee, and have it done in no time.

Yup, it's such an idiotic idea to have an actual screening process before letting someone toddle off and buy a firearm and disappear into the crowd with it. The fact that the rest of the comparable world does it ... well it's all the millions of us who are out of step, of course. As evidenced by our sky-high firearms crime and homicide rates ...



Just to be clear: I may have time in my schedule in the not too distant future for something I'd mused about long before DU existed -- joining that recreation centre and going back to archery, a sport I was always fond of as a youth, and maybe shooting while I'm at it. I have no plan ever to acquire a firearm myself.

[Redneck Socialist]

26. Wow, he mentioned Dick Swett!

I live in NH and worked as a County Coordinator for the state Democratic Party that year. Swett's was among the campaigns that I help coordinate field events for. Come election day early returns had him winning. National media called the race for him and the campaign started pouring the champagne. Then, the returns from the small, rural towns started to come in and when it was all said and done Swett narrowly lost to Bob Smith, one the biggest buffoons to ever grace the Senate floor.

What's the point of my rambling reminiscences you ask? Simply this: As a Congressman Dick Swett pledged to oppose the AWB, then, presumably under pressure from the party leaders, turned and voted for it.

He'd actually had a pretty decent record on gun issues up until that point. That one vote, that one misstep cost him a senate seat and inflicted Bob Smith for another six years upon the country.

Don't think that gun issues can't swing an election, because in that one case they sure the hell did, and our country is poorer for it.

[Major Hogwash]

38. Bubba is full of shit, trying to pass the defeat on to the NRA.

The NRA did NOT have the heavy influence on the 1994 election that he is was trying to attribute to them.

Bubba fails to mention his forcing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" agenda on the military - which had much more impact than the AWB ever did.
Bubba also fails to mention his own wife's failed attempt to pass her version of her healthcare policy onto the public - which was a MUCH more talked about issue in 1994 than was the AWB or the influence of the NRA.

The NRA only had 3.5 million members in 1994.
They didn't have the heavy influence that Bubba says they did.

[iverglas]

41. damn those lying, cheating Democrats

when will your country be rid of them???

[spoony]

10. So they shouldn't be on OUR streets

they should be on IRAQIS' streets. Very poorly worded. One shouldn't want there to BE battlefields.

[benEzra]

13. That's a red herring; they AREN'T on Iraqi streets...

because the guns the DLC is pushing to outlaw are not military guns; they are U.S.-market CIVILIAN guns, that happen to be the most popular centerfire target rifles and defensive carbines in U.S. homes.

And they're not on U.S. streets either; only ~3% of U.S. homicides involve ANY type of rifle, "assault weapon" or not. They DOMINATE competitive and recreational target shooting in this country, though, and more Americans lawfully own them than hunt.

Think about banning hunting in this country, and then multiply the backlash by 2 or 3. That's why it bombed so badly in '94.

[spoony]

16. Yes, it's certainly a red herring as well, I was only

thinking of the odd wording of it. The logic, well, you just put paid to that.

[iverglas]

12. you read minds?

You quote: "They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets."

You say: "whoever wrote it thinks it's about military automatic weapons".

How the hell do you know?

Some people do think that the items covered by the "ban" don't belong on the streets. Why not just acknowledge that and say you disagree?

[benEzra]

15. Why would U.S.-market civilian guns "belong on foreign battlefields"?

They are laboring under the misconception that the AWB covered military AK-47's and such, and the campaign has recently issued statements to that effect. JUST LIKE the Kerry campaign did in '04.

Like Yogi Berra said, "it's deja vu all over again." This is the exact same debate we had on the John Kerry forum in 2004, and I was right then, too.

[Major Hogwash]

39. The military has used weapons available to civilians for a long time.

The Army uses a sniper rifle that is a derivative of a civilian rifle.

[spoony]

18. When reading policy stances we shouldn't have to read minds

The people writing them should know what the hell they're talking about and be able to communicate something a little more specific than this. As it stands the sentence is a garbled lump of incoherence and old, faulty thinking.

[iverglas]

19. funny thing is: you don't

There is no reason whatsoever to read what is in that document to mean anything other than what it says.

What it says is absolutely plain.

You disagree with it. Tough shit, eh?

[spoony]

21. It's plain if one has no understanding of the issue, I suppose.

To those of us who know what assault weapons actually are, though, it's an almost entirely meaningless sentence.

[one-eyed fat man]

24. Quoting "fully automatic weapons" from his own website.

then why military automatic weapons given as the reason, yet again, to justify a ban on guns that are not?

http://obama.3cdn.net/84b2062fc4a5114715_ftxamv9ot.pdf

Note especially the part about "As a long-time resident and elected official of Chicago, Barack Obama has seen the impact of fully automatic weapons in the hands of criminals. Thus, Senator Obama supports making permanent the expired federal Assault Weapon Ban."

Read that again, "FULLY AUTOMATIC WEAPONS in the hands of criminals" are a problem he proposes to solve by banning guns that are not fully automatic and not in the hands of criminals.

Again, how much more directly or more plainly can he say he supports reinstating the ban on semiautomatic weapons by alluding they are machineguns?

Would it be any different to looking at it this way?

Does he think we don't know the difference between apples and oranges?

Does he think we will believe a ban on oranges will fix the apple problem?

Does he know what his website says?

Does he mean what his website says?

In his speeches he says, "I'm not here to take your fruit!"

Does he hope orange owners can't read?

Does he hope peach and plum owners outnumber the orange owners?

Does he hope orange owners "... drink beer, don't vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend?"

Does he really mean what he says now or is his website is wrong?

And if his website is wrong, why after all this time and all these questions hasn't he told someone on his staff to fix it?

[jody]

23. I'm depressed. We pro-RKBA Dems have made little progress on DU where we are treated with contempt

by many DUers.

Given their resistance to understanding the AWB issue and the continued opposition to RKBA by a very few prominent Democratic senators from MA, NY, CA, NJ, CT; I don't believe there is anything anyone can do this close to the election.

Sadly, FL, PA, OH, MI have 77 congressional districts and over 70% of their representatives are rated "A" by pro-gun groups and "F" by anti-gun groups.

Obama and Biden are rated "F" by pro-gun groups and "A" by anti-gun groups.

It's beginning to look like 2000 and 2004 all over again.

IMO the only thing that may alter voting trends is the bailout of financial institutions.

[spin]

27. True, it's probably a waste of our time...

to argue with the anti-gun faction of the Democratic Party. But your posts may gain the attention of other Democrats who haven't really taken the time to become familiar with both sides of the gun issue.

The pro-gun advocates present facts and the anti-gun advocates present emotion. An undecided reader can quickly gain some understanding of the AWB issue and perhaps learn the difference between true assault weapons and semi-auto weapons that look similar. He may discover that people who have met all the requirements to obtain a concealed carry permit hardly ever commit crimes with the weapons they carry. He may revise his opinion that all gun owners are illiterate racist rednecks. He may realize that the anti-gun position of the Democratic Party has cost close elections and the result has created the mess we face today.

So you might change a few minds. While it's not much, it's a start.

And occasionally some lurker who usually posts on a conservative board may wander over to DU and realize that not all Democrats are anti-gun. It may be just enough for him to consider voting Democratic for a change.

Keep up the good fight.

[gorfle]

31. I wouldn't worry too much.

There are too many Republicans pissed off over the economy and the war.

If Obama was smart he'd run a TV ad that said: Thus far, we've spent nearly $560 billion on Iraq. That could have gone a long way towards the $750 billion we're using to bail out Wall Street.

Bang - you've just won the hearts and minds of most of the Republicans.

No, I'm pretty convinced Obama is going to win. I know I'm voting for him.

But if, upon winning, they turn up the heat on firearms, well, my vote is theirs to lose.

[jody]

32. Like many other pro-RKBA Dems, I'm not worrying about my vote but I am concerned about votes in

FL, PA, OH, MI.

The looming depression may convince Independent voters to vote Dem this election.

[Redneck Socialist]

25. But, but, they took a POLL!

And it said that people LIKED the AWB! Realy! And they'd like, vote for people and stuff, that like, supported it!

ben I'll buy you the donut of your choice if you can convince me that there is even one high level person in the Obama campaign that knows a damn thing about guns, much less knows what the AWB actually banned.

Face it, this ticket is completely tone deaf when it come to guns.

[benEzra]

28. The party leadership has apparently convinced themselves...

of what the party leadership in 1994 equally was sure of...that most gun owners care about hunting guns and skeet guns, and those guns only, and that nonhunting guns can be banned with impunity. Have your cake at eat it too, with regard to gun bans. Didn't work that way.

Even if this doesn't cost the election like it did in 2000, I am afraid we are heading toward another 1994 in 2010 if the party leadership doesn't figure this out.

[SteveM]

34. It really is about cultural hatred and fear, the usual outcome of prohibition.

It frustrates me as well because I think the average Democrat would rather ditch an issue that has weighed down the Party most of it 40-year history. But the "prohis" are in the pilot house spoiling for a fight with their own crew, now. Win or lose in November, folks here will have to move on beyond this forum and make our presence felt -- in the pilot house.

[iverglas]

36. here

It really is about cultural hatred and fear

You seem to have got it in one. Ah, the resentment of the ones who are overtaken by modernity and all its pesky diversity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRwwYWlbP2U

Not what's really going on in your post, but one can only respond to what's said.

[SteveM]

40. I have noticed a lot of paranoia among gun-controllers (nt)

[jody]

29. The Scary Brady Bunch must have written that passage based on “Capital Under Fire”

Capital Under Fire

Envision a Washington, D.C. in which it would be entirely legal for individuals or groups to carry loaded AK-47s, or set up .50 caliber sniper rifles that can bring down aircraft, near Cabinet buildings, motorcades, or blocks from the Capitol, ready and able to fire at any number of high ranking government officials or foreign dignitaries. It may sound ludicrous, but that would be the legal reality if H.R. 6691 becomes law.

[benEzra]

33. Even for them, that is an unusually bold shipment of BS. (n/t)