(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
"Is Sotomayor Obama's 'declaration of war' on gun owners?" I asked in my May 27 column, reacting to a comment by Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell.
I don't have high hopes the Republicans are motivated enough to put more than a show opposition into this. They will calculate the political costs of mounting a resistance as well as the outcome should they succeed. Then how long will they be willing to sustain a campaign against the next nominee, or the one after that?
Particularly if they don't hear well-articulated reasons from you, their constituents, that credibly convince them there will be a price to pay for displeasing you?
That was then. Where are we now? There's been a lot of sound and fury. We'll know soon. In the mean time, particularly since I've been occupied on other stories, I'd like to highlight what some of my Gun Rights Examiner colleagues have been saying about the nomination and hearings.
In Boston, Ron Bokleman presents "Sotomayor: Unfit to serve", where he asks:
Whatever his or her attitude—toward your ownership and use of weapons—conveys is their real attitude about you. And if they don’t trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust them on this or any other issue?
Mike Stollenwerk in DC writes about "Sotomayor: latinas, guns, and werewolves" and tells us:
...Sotomayor's joining of the Sanchez-Villar opinion's preemptive ambush on the Second amendment is a smoking gun example of her stealth activism against gun rights.
John Longenecker in Los Angeles brings us several posts:
"Gun Control: Sotomayor and citizen authority."
"Question for Nominee Sotomayor: I'll go first."
"Will Congress ask Sotomayor my question?"
"Republicans ought to ask Sotomayor one more question . . ."
"On Sotomayor: The Judiciary Committee needs to get it, too."
What questions might John be asking? Click and read.
Seattle's Dave Workman has also been on top of this throughout:
"Surprise! Obama nominates liberal to Supreme Court"
"Why Sonia Sotomayor is simply wrong for the Supreme Court"
"Gun rights leaders tell U.S. Senate ‘No’ on Sotomayor nomination"
"Showdown looms over Sotomayor nomination, in Congress and in firearms community"
"Sotomayor hearings begin, more gun groups weigh in against her"
"Sotomayor will not answer how she would vote on incorporation of 2A"
"NRA’s LaPierre comes out swinging; Sotomayor remains evasive on gun rights"
As you can see, we've been working hard to bring you information on where this nominee stands on your right to keep and bear arms, raising questions that will no doubt be put to her if she is confirmed to the Supreme Court.
Hopefully, gun owners realize this, have been keeping themselves informed and have communicated their concerns to their senators.
You have, right?
Check out the latest from other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: You bet it's personal!
- Austin:
You can change the course of history
- Boston: Sotomayor: Unfit to serve
- Charlotte: Dangers of gun registration: 'The Belgian Corporal'
- Cleveland: Ohio Highway Patrol may get carbines next year
- DC: Sotomayor: latinas, guns, and werewolves
- Denver: Lessons from "bring your guns to church day"
- Los Angeles: On Sotomayor: The Judiciary Committee needs to get it, too.
- Minneapolis: It takes a gun to stop a gunman
- Seattle: NRA’s LaPierre comes out swinging; Sotomayor remains evasive on gun rights
- St. Louis: The Brady Campaign to create 'gun crime'
- Wisconsin: Gun rights advocates make progress
Comments
Face reality.
Barring Sotomayor getting up before the Senate Panel and slapping the snot out of Jeff Sessions--she'll be easily confirmed. In fact, if she did beat down Sessions, she might pick up a few more votes.
I really hate to burst your balloon but the GOP really doesn't care for 'gun rights' as you espouse. They paid it a bit of lip service and invited a couple of fourth-rate hacks like Kopel and Halbrook to sit in on the proceedings--but that's all your NRA contributions bought you.
Boy you keep coming in here urinating new streams while running away from a direct question put to you several times now in other threads.
What a fraud you are.
It's all about attention he can get for himself--the loser has nothing but insults of his betters, and gets off derailing conversations to be about him. It's what trolls do.
I'm sure there is a pathology to it and if you ever unmasked him you would find a very defective human being.
Krummy Kidd said, "fourth-rate hacks like Kopel and Halbrook"
Well sense either one has far more education then you will ever have and they are not your pocket monkey. I can see how you came to this conclusion, being an uneducated cool-aid drinker that you are.
Sotomayor will be confirmed. But the way the republicans have handled these hearings are going to have far-reaching consequences. They grew a spine because people flooded their offices with calls, letters, and emails and demanded that they do more than just pro-forma rolling over and playing dead. One of the staffers I talked to said the contact volume was off the charts on this one.
She will be confirmed, BUT Obama is going to pay a much higher price for that confirmation than he expected to. He and the other democrats were forced to go on record rather publicly about some rather unpopular views. And, gee, there's a mid-term election coming up soon, isn't there? Just ask Bill Clinton how dangerous that can be.
The longer I watch the Obama administration in action, the more I realize they are their own worst enemy. They've managed to get several big constituencies REALLY annoyed with them and energized for the midterms. Not real bright.
the Hunter gets it...but only partially.
As I said, the GOP and NRA got a lot of your money for doing nothing. You'd have been better off burning it--at least you could get a little warmth. But by all means, keep sending 'em money.
What Hunter misses, however, is the 'gun rights' crowd isn't as big a constituency as you believe. In fact, it's very small.
Answer the question, Kidd fraud
Sent this to my Senator. Jeff Sessions:
Senator,
Sotomayor's description of self defense as "going home and getting a gun" in her response to Mr. Coburn should be enough to disqualify her.
Someone who so clearly doesn't get the basic human right to self-defense isn't suited to be a judge at all in my opinion. Not to mention a Supreme Court justice.
I pray that you will represent my views in your vote.
I personally can't stand that she is going to be confirmed and how little the NRA really did about it. But I do conceed that the cost benefit just wasn't there on this one. If you expend the capital to fight her and win, you have to fight the next one too. When she gets confirmed, she's not affecting the 5-4 gun rights decsions anyway. The NRA really was best to keep the money for a more important and winnable fight. If she had been changing the outcome the way Bork would have changed it back in the 1980's I think we'd have seen a big campaign against her.
Odd you should mention NRA. Besides the 60-odd senator's I contacted when she was nominated, I made a point of contacting NRA-ILA and urging them to oppose the nomination. Their response amounted to "we're reserving judgement for now". Lapierre DID come out strongly against her in an Op-Ed in the Washington Times today.
Fairly typical for NRA - there's a reason I don't waste my contributions with them. They do a lot of good work on firearms safety, on basic rights they often have to be dragged into the fight.
And let's not kid ourselves, very few republicans are our friends on real RKBA, either. Fortunately they are political cowards, and if you can apply enough pressure they timidly stand up and do the right thing. And if there's one thing the pro-rights movement is good at, it's ginning up grassroots pressure. There's a reason most political analysts cite us as one of the most influential of the special interest groups.
" And if there's one thing the pro-rights movement is good at, it's ginning up grassroots pressure. There's a reason most political analysts cite us as one of the most influential of the special interest groups. "
That's why we have President McCain....oops.
Kiddo probably doesn't remember the NRA's description of McCain as "being no friend of the 2nd Amendment."
I actually received an email press release last year that the NRA was going to endorse Bob Barr for president in an official press conference later in the day. I should have saved that to put next to my friends 1975 World Champion Red Sox pennant.
It must have been a slow week for the anti-rights crowd. troll kiddie has been polluting some of the other GRE too.
Sadly I finally found one small at least a little truthful statement he/she/it made right here: "the GOP really doesn't care for 'gun rights'" Of course I could say the same thing about the dems and 'minority rights'. The dems actions on 'minority rights' is even more pathetic then the reps actions on guns.
They merely lie to gain power, much like kiddie and his ilk do.
Or admit you're a fraud. Pathetic how you keep running away from it.
The weenie NRA takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, but refuses to stand and fight the big fights; why, if the NRA refuses to openly, and vociferously, oppose the Sotomayor nomination, even bother belonging to this eunuch run group?
Larry
Gun Owners of NJ
908-277-1111
NRA is a mixed blessing. WHEN they choose to act, they can be VERY effective. It is indeed true, though, that McCain was not perceived by the gunnies as pro-gun. Check his GOA rating C-. IIRC it had been even lower.
There were people openly arguing before the election that we'd be better off from a pro-gun standpoint with Obama than McCain, because it would be easier to really opposition. And all you have to do is check the ratings of the "blue dog" democrats to realize that the gunnies have a decent position. The reasoning was that we held the line against Clinton in the same situation in his first two years. (shrug)
All you have to do is look over David Codrea's articles here since the election, and you can see that that theory was not without some merit. The Obama administration has tried several anti-gun moves, and been quickly stymied on all of them. Hell, even Pelosi was cool to Holder's proposal to renew the AWB. Burned hand teaches best I guess.
The NRA is not monolithic; even if they were--they're still a pretty small group.
I realize we can't all spend our time at rodeos, but the only real aim of the NRA and various gun groups is to collect money. To do that, they have to convince the rubes that they're in some kind of imminent danger.
Wayne LaPierre needs a new Mercedes.
I have come the realization, after suffering some massive head trauma, that I have been wrong from the offset. I come to these threads to post comments in hopes of finding someone to listen. I have daddy issues. I only wanted to be held. Wont someone please hold me? Please?
David, have or are you going to write about the government health care/electronic medical records and people who apply to buy a gun?
If the govmint runs both. will they start to deny gun ownership due to medical records they have ?
Would not surprise me at all if there's some of that sort of nonsense buried in the 1000+ pages they are trying to railroad through even as we speak. Just keep slogging, man. The analysts are poring over the thing now, and if there's anything like that tucked away somewhere it will be found RSN.
HI--I typically like to keep threads on topic, but I'll take a brief detour. I mentioned it in my Jan 14 post Kill (the) Bill about Bobby Rush's HR 45, currently stalled and going nowhere, where one of the application requirements is "an authorization for the feds to access your medical/mental health records."
If it passed, current gun owners would be required to become compliant. That is, those inclined to obey such an intrusive act of tyranny- the rest of us would be criminals.
GOA also did an April 9 release, "Congress Trying To Implement The Medical Records Gun Ban," where they warn about how some in congress want to mandate an anti-gun database/health mandate in their budget resolution.
The whole process is very convoluted. I'm keeping my eyes and ears open but probably won't do a column until I learn more as things unfold.
Now back to the Sotomayor topic...
He's fixated on David. It's a man crush thing. Ain't dat right, Kidd?
I managed to catch Halbrook's testimony on CSPAN. Did his usual fantastic job. Senator Whitehouse needs some SERIOUS education on RKBA, he was asserting that Heller "created a new right", that had "never been asserted for 230 years". I was hoping somebody would give Halbrook a chance to respond to that remarkable distortion of the record.
Hunter, I had to read that a couple times and then go check. I kept seeing "Senator Winehouse" and thinking, I know they're on drugs and a bad lot, but have we gone down the tubes that far.
I guess so, we do have Al couldnt-be-funny-if-his-life-depended-on-it Franken.
Well, yeah, we HAVE fallen that far in a lot of ways. I am not too familiar with Whitehouse, despite him being from a nearby state. I think this is his first term.
Earnest enough, well spoken, and clearly intelligent. But either WOEFULLY undereducated on Second Amendment jurisprudence, which seems a bit odd considering he's a former US attorney who says he argues the issue with Sessions frequently (also a former US attorney). Given all that, I wondered quite a bit whether he was just taking the golden opportunity to get that particular bit of discredited propaganda out to the public.
Yeah, upon checking his ratings, he's not just disinterested - he's got a solid F rating. I wish Sessions had been on the ball enough to take the opportunity to set the record straight, but that is probably asking a bit much I suppose. Good odds we'll see some soundbites out of Whitehouse's distortions used by the presstitutes.
If gun owners put all of their eggs/hope in the Republican Party, NRA and even the GOA basket were screwed.
That said right now the big dog in the show is the NRA.
The NRA has now come out against Sotomayor but they have yet to say that a vote for Sotomayor will be held against Senators in the NRA rating system.
If we want to take this country back we as individuals must get involved in building a grass roots movement across this nation that can counter the anti-gun movement.
I believe the key is women, if we can get women to socially accept the idea of a gun in the house and in society then we when.
75% - the total of votes Sotomayor will receive from the Senate to be named to the SCOTUS.
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