“The National Rifle Association threw its weight Friday behind Donald Trump, as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee personally assured the group’s members he would protect Second Amendment rights if elected – and claimed that likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton would threaten them.”
Will it help unify the Republican Party behind Trump? Some. Gun owners and Second Amendment activists are a significant part of the GOP coalition. But Clinton and the Democratic Party are so clearly hostile to civilian gun ownership that it’s hard to imagine any NRA members voting for her, and culturally most gun owners seem to hail from the fraction of GOP primary voters which has already embraced Trump.
Trump’s official policy statement on Second Amendment rights is fine, and whoever wrote it (clearly not Trump) has a firm grounding in the issue, and Trump has even said he has a concealed carry license himself. Whether Trump follows through or not remains to be seen, but he already starts so far ahead of Clinton on the issue that I’m not sure his past support of the idiotic “assault weapon” ban some 15 years ago really matters anymore. (And even then he was saying “Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed.”)
If Trump wins in November, Republicans will almost certainly retain the House and possibly the Senate, which means no anti-Second Amendment legislation will be headed to his desk for at least two years. Trump could do absolutely nothing on guns during his presidency and still be a vast improvement over Obama or either Clinton.
Early voting started in Texas Monday, which means I’m way behind on covering state and local races. Oh well, maybe later this week…
Hillary Clinton didn’t do as badly as expected in New Hampshire. She did worse.
Sanders’s margin of victory — 60 percent to 39 percent — was the largest ever by a Democrat who wasn’t a sitting president. It was a come-from-behind win: Eight months ago, Sanders was at 9 percent and Clinton held a 46-point advantage. And Sanders overperformed the polls. Only 1 of the last 15 polls had him above 60 percent; the Real Clear Politics average in New Hampshire had him at 54.5 percent going into the vote.
Then there are the crosstabs. The exit polling for Clinton was brutal. Sanders won men by 35 points; he won women by 11. He won voters under the age of 30 by 67 points. People expect that of Sanders and his children’s crusade. Clinton took home senior citizens, 54 percent to 45 percent. People expect that of Clinton’s boomers. But in the big band of middle-aged Democrats, ages 45 to 64 (who made up 42 percent of the electorate), Sanders beat Clinton 54 percent to 45 percent. He beat her among Democrats with a high school diploma or less; he beat her among Democrats with postgraduate degrees. Among people who’d voted in a Democratic primary before, Sanders won by 16 points; among first-time voters, he won by 57. He won self-identified “moderate” voters by 20 points.
Clinton made gun control a substantial part of her pitch in New Hampshire. Sanders won voters who own guns by 40 points. But he won voters who don’t own guns by 14. He even won voters who said that terrorism was their number one concern.
The biggest problem for Clinton, however, came in the candidate-perception categories. The second-most important quality voters said they wanted in a candidate was someone who “cares.” Sanders won these voters by 65 points. The most important quality people said they wanted was “honesty.” Sanders took those people home 92 to 6. Look at that again. When asked “Is Clinton honest and trustworthy?” 53 percent of all voters — not just Sanders voters, but everyone casting a Democratic ballot — said “no.”
The topic is the Clintons, so it’s time for another glimpse of Good Maureen Dowd: “It turned out that female voters seem to be looking at Hillary as a candidate rather than as a historical imperative. And she’s coming up drastically short on trustworthiness.”
The Coen Brothers aren’t fans of cramming diversity for the sake of diversity into individual movies. “Not in the least!” Ethan answered. “It’s important to tell the story you’re telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity—or it might not.”
After his fellow Democrats went down in flames during the recall election, Colorado’s incumbent Senator would probably prefer you forget his own support for gun control,. After all, his own campaign website is silent on the issue, and his Senate website includes the usual insincere blather about supporting the Second Amendment.
Colorado’s Mark Udall indicated support for two key proposals of President Obama’s legislative package to reduce gun violence, taking a stand slightly to the left of his fellow Senate Democrats who also are up for re-election in 2014.
The Colorado Democrat told Denver’s FOX affiliate last month he supports a renewal of the assault-weapons bans that lapsed in 2004.
After Obama rolled out his legislative proposals and signed executive orders Wednesday, Udall released a statement that indicates he also supports a ban on magazine clips of more than 10 bullets.
NRA-ILA just sent out an alert stating that a proposed TABC rule change, ostensibly to liberalize rules regarding the presence of lawful firearms in venues that sell alcohol, could ironically have the opposite effect:
Under the proposed changes in regulations, FONRA dinners and similar events with firearms displayed for auction or raffle could no longer be held in private venues such as hotel ballrooms if the property owner has been issued a TABC license – even if the events were dry! And if event organizers wanted to sell or serve alcohol and display firearms as prizes, they would be limited to locations “owned or leased by a governmental entity or non-profit civic, religious, charitable, fraternal, or veterans’ organization.” Governmental entities such as Travis County have recently considered banning gun shows from public facilities entirely. It’s not hard to imagine local officials using their authority or terms of contracts to limit the ability of pro-Second Amendment or pro-sportsmen’s organizations to hold fundraising events where alcohol and firearms are present – even if the event organizers signed written agreements to adhere to the new conditions and limitations being proposed by TABC.
NRA_ILA further notes:
even though, as mentioned earlier, these new regulations were ostensibly drafted to allow alcohol sales at gun shows, they could actually end these events as we know them – even if the promoter had NO plans to sell alcohol on-premises. In the proposed rule language, the mere fact that the event is taking place at TABC-licensed premises triggers the new restrictions, NOT whether alcohol would be sold and served during the show. Gun shows could no longer be held in a private venue that has a TABC license, period.
Insert the usual I Am Not A Lawyer disclaimer here, but the NRA can certainly afford some of the best lawyers focused exclusively on gun rights issues, so I would take their warnings seriously. It’s probably a good time to contact your state representatives to make them aware of the issue…
One of the first polls of doctor’s offices dealing with ObamaCare patients. Tidbits:
“We are going to have to hire additional staff just to manage the insurance verification process.”
“Identification of ACA plans has been an administrative nightmare.”
“Patients have been very confused about benefits and their portion of the cost. Once the patients find out their deductible, they’ve cancelled appointments and procedures.”
ObamaCare is also sowing union/management discord and threatening to cause strikes across the nation.
The Bundy Ranch story is part of the Second Amendment story (and the Tenth Amendment story), but is too big and sprawling to unpack here. So here are some of the other things that have been happening:
Gun grabber Michael Bloomberg has pledged $50 million to defeat the NRA. Since every time Bloomberg opens has wallet, it seems like more Republicans win, we’ll see how long that commitment lasts…
But Bloomberg is sure that his Big Gulp and gun banning antics have earned him entry into the kingdom of heaven. “It’s not even close,” says he. Well, when you’re so exalted that you know the mind of God, why bother with the opinions of puny mortals?
“We gun owners have been utterly unreasonable and lacking in common sense for roughly 20 years. And by golly, look where it’s got us! We’ve whomped the enemies of gun rights into quivering submission.” (Hat tip: Borepatch, who offers further thoughts.)
Beaver County, PA Sheriff has around 700 guns seized from his home for violating a court order. Guess what party he’s from? Hint: The media decline to name the party when reporting the story. (Hat tip: Ditto.)
Silly Joanne Chesimard. If she had just served her time, she’d have tenure by now.
Europe is “bleeding out”. Youth unemployment? “59.1% of those under 25 are unemployed in Greece, 55.9% in Spain, 38.4% in Italy, 38.3% in Portugal, 26.5% in France.” More: “Hope and Change economies are crony capitalist systems which pick winners and losers. They maintain the status quo at all costs — and reward those who have captured government over those who innovate.”
So which is funnier, violence against women, or intimidating crime witnesses? Mountain Dew puts both in the same ad! Hilarity ensues! (Oh, and some people think it’s racist. It is, but not any more than a random gangsta rap video.)
People don’t like being bossed around by the political class. But that’s the Democratic Party’s entire model!
“We found 15 Trial Court cases, and 12 Appellate Court cases, where Shariah was found to be applicable in these particular cases. The facts are the facts: some judges are making decisions deferring to Shariah law even when those decisions conflict with Constitutional protections.”
Former New Mexico Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson says that Ted Cruz isn’t allowed to be a Hispanic because he opposes illegal alien amnesty. Maybe they should just declare that you can’t be Hispanic unless you’re a Democrat and be done with it.
Speaking of Cruz, here’s a piece in The New Republic that, when stripped of standard TNR talking points, boils down to “Yes, Ted Cruz could be elected President.”
Another day, another another 20 dead in an Islamist attack on a Christian church.
I couldn’t go to the NRA annual meeting in Houston this weekend, as much as I would have liked to, because I went to a family even in Houston last week.
But fortunately, Ted Cruz is there.
“The Constitution matters. All of the Constitution matters. You don’t get to pick and choose.”
A random basket of gun news, including more fallout from the Senate’s failure to restrict gun rights:
“Why is opposing the will of the majority a mark of “cowardice,” as Giffords says, rather than a mark of courage?… I suspect that Giffords credits the majority with wisdom only when the polls are going her way, just as she credits politicians with integrity only when they agree with her.”
Here’s one woman who isn’t having any of the gun-grabbing blather: “You say, ‘If it saves just one life.’ I hear ‘Except yours, you stupid bitch. We’d rather you get raped and murdered while waiting for the police to arrive.'” (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Gun owners care year in and year out. And they vote on the issue. This had little to do with the fearsome power of “the NRA”, or their fundraising efforts. It had to do with gun owners who will do their best to unelect any politician who votes to deprive them of what they view as constitutional rights. Those gun owners are more likely to live in swing states than the most avid gun controllers: progressives who cram themselves into a handful of cities. And they vote on the issue, unlike progressives, who, for all their furor at the outcome, put a large number of issues–taxes, abortion, welfare programs, and so forth–much higher on their list of priorities. By 2014, the odds of any “No” vote losing their job over it are pretty slim.
