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American gun owners remembering a different Ted Kennedy
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“For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts.”
So said Barack Obama on the passing of Massachusetts Senator-for-life Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy. It was an understandable eulogy for a man who played a key role in propelling Obama to the White House and derailing the Hillary Clinton juggernaut.
However, the firearms community knows there is one civil right which Kennedy did his best to abolish rather than advance: The right to keep and bear arms. For many if not most in the gun community, there has been nothing but disgust, disdain and distrust toward the man now being lionized by the press and mourned by the Democrat faithful. My colleague, Paul Valone, writes about Kennedy here. Another colleague, Skip Coryell, has a different perspective here, and Boston Gun Rights Examiner Ron Bokleman speaks out here.
It’s safe to say that there is not a single outrageous anti-gun position Ted Kennedy has failed to support in his long career. - Chris Cox, NRA Institute for Legislative Action
Dislike for Ted Kennedy among gun rights advocates has become very personal over the years. Kennedy’s own behavior – coupled with his annoying talent to get away with it, due to money, political influence or just because the Kennedy clan is treated like royalty – contributed to the animosity. Not that gun owners are saints; we’re all human and we make mistakes, but Kennedy’s errors invariably seemed to get a pass, little more than a wrist slap, including a suspended sentence for driving a car off a bridge and leaving a young woman to die a horrible death.
In the firearms community, the observation that “Kennedy’s car has killed more people than my gun” became not only a rallying cry, but the text of a popular bumper sticker.
Gun rights activists have a genuine feel for the history of this nation, its tradition of individualism, its foundation of liberty and personal freedom, and most of all, its rejection of the notion of royalty.
Let’s be candid. The national press has fawned over the Kennedys for a couple of generations, and Democrats have elevated the family to a position that comes as close to royalty as one can without the jeweled crown. It is disgraceful.
Gun owners share a philosophy of personal accountability. One does not punish tens of millions of law-abiding American citizens for the deeds of individual criminals, simply because they used firearms in their crimes. This was something Kennedy never seemed to understand, perhaps because his own personal accountability never seemed to take a serious hit.
The National Rifle Association’s Christopher Cox put the gun community’s dislike for Kennedy in perspective when he wrote, “It’s safe to say that there is not a single outrageous anti-gun position Ted Kennedy has failed to support in his long career. He has voted to ban semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns. He has attempted to make it a federal crime to purchase more than two handguns in a year. He has proposed 21-day waiting periods on all gun purchases. He has made several attempts to ban centerfire hunting ammunition.”
Kennedy opposed legislation that put an end to junk lawsuits against firearms manufacturers. He voted against legislation that would have disallowed the use of funds by any organization or group, including the United Nations, which would be against the interests of American gun owners.
What Sen. Kennedy either fails to understand or intentionally ignores is that criminals will not stop carrying guns just because it is illegal. - Dr. Peter Friedman, Standard-Times, Nov. 17, 2005
Kennedy represented everything gun owners despise, which is probably why the anti-gun Brady Campaign issued this statement. He supported every major gun control measure introduced during his Capitol Hill career; perhaps understandable from the perspective of a man who saw two of his brothers gunned down. But Ted Kennedy seemed to hold firearms, and the Second Amendment, more responsible for those crimes than the men who committed them. He was seen as a man who worked hard to leave average Americans defenseless while he personally enjoyed the protection of armed guards, which got one of them in trouble a few years ago.
While he certainly promoted the causes in which he believed, Ted Kennedy put equal energy into the ongoing campaign to erode a fundamental civil right held dear by millions of law-abiding American citizens who, unlike the man being mourned this week, never harmed a soul.
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Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
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