The NRA Doesn't Get What It Wants?

The Senate shot down the Thune amendment to the military budget bill, which would have allowed concealed carry of firearms rules to be portable, essentially, from state to state. This amendment would have made the most forgiving state on concealed weapons - Texas, I'm guessing - the new national standard. So much for state's rights.

It got majority support in the Congress, but Democrats filibustered this time, enough to block passage. Amazingly, the NRA was denied a goodie today in the US Congress. Color me shocked.

Total Victory

It shows you how decisively the NRA has won the debate over gun control, that a rampage of gun violence throughout the United States over the past couple weeks can happen, that mass deaths in Mexico can be attributed to the sale of guns smuggled across the border, and the White House still can't bring itself to advocating for banning assault weapons, for which there is no legitimate hunting or personal protection use.

THOMAS: Is the president concerned about the epidemic of killings by guns and is he willing to move towards reinstating the ban on assault weapons?

GIBBS: Obviously, we, while we were overseas last week, were surprised and shocked at the news at what had happened in New York. … That’s one of the reasons that increased money to hire more police officers as in the Recovery Act. I was asked specifically about assault weapons. I think the president would — the president believes there are other strategies we can take to enforce the laws that are already on our books.

I fully recognize that Obama's in a tough spot - the far right has basically claimed he would ban all guns, which he never advocated. But this is of course the Overton Window in action. Obama has to respond to those charges by taking even sensible gun control off the table. The NRA has been one or two steps ahead of this game for a long time.

The Paranoia Industry

I know that everyone is scratching their heads over why every conservative and their brother is freaking out over how Barack Obama is going to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine and kick Rush and Sean off the air, even though that was never part of his platform, no bill has been introduced in Congress to that effect since the Democrats got the majority, and the sum total of the "evidence" for this nefarious scheme is a couple off-hand comments made by two Democratic Senators. James Rainey writes about it today.

Now, you can argue out whether or not there should be a Fairness Doctrine. But the answer to why conservative hucksters keep harping on it, of course, is that this is how the conservative movement keeps flush with direct-mail cash during their years in the wilderness. During the Clinton Administration there were all sorts of crackpot delusions about what Bill Clinton was preparing to do to stick it to conservatives and bring about the second coming of Armageddon. But you always have to read to the end of these missives, when they ask for "just $5 or $10" to save the Republic and fight the efforts to silence their voices. Conservatives understood the sense of engagement that comes with small-dollar donations long before Democrats caught up to them. The difference is that conservatives basically use it as a con game, stirring up emotional furies to part unwitting folks from their money. Rick Perlstein has a phrase for this: Conservatives treat their constituents like suckers.

It's exactly the same with this run on gun sales. While the actual evidence of an increase in gun sales since the election is somewhat thin (although FBI requests for background checks are way up), it is clear that gun sellers are using the spectre of Obama taking away Second Amendment rights to hawk their wares.

Some gun sellers like Wild West Guns in Anchorage, AK are holding “Obama Sale” events to take advantage of their customers’ misinformed fears and news outlets from NPR to Fox News have produced reports documenting the gun buying binge [...]

What the major media outlets overlook is that the Obama gun sale boom appears to be the result of a multimillion dollar effort launched by the National Rifle Association last summer to misinform voters about Obama’s gun policy proposals. As Politico reported in June:

The National Rifle Association plans to spend about $40 million on this year’s campaign, with $15 million of that devoted to portraying Barack Obama as a threat to the Second Amendment rights. … This fall, NRA members will get automated phone calls, mail pieces and pre-election editions of the group’s three magazines making the case against Obama.

So the NRA whips up fear about the imminent loss of gun rights, leading to a run on gun sales that benefits gun stores and manufacturers. Quid, pro, quo.

Fortunately for them, there's a conservative born every minute. (though hopefully more liberals!)

Just Words

Hey, before you go off on this, just lighten up, 'kay? Mike Huckabee was only joking about the assassination of a leading black candidate for President in front of the NRA.

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Why can't you libruls take a joke? Sure, the jokes normally take the form of violence against political opponents, but it's not their fault if you don't know what FUNNY is!



Yuk it up, you bastards! You know you love it!

“I Perform The Same Lame, Fake Campaign Stunt At Every Speech Because of 9/11.”

Conservative John Fund of the WSJ reveals that Rudy Giuliani's taking the phone call from Judy bit is an old standby.

Even members of Mr. Giuliani's own staff are appalled at how he handled the incident in which he answered a phone call from his wife, Judith, right in the middle of a nationally televised speech to the National Rifle Association.

What was that about? Columnist Robert Novak cites "supporters from outside the Giuliani staff" who claim that taking phone calls from his wife as been "part of his political bag of tricks all year." But Mr. Giuliani's deputy press secretary Jason Miller told me the NRA incident was definitely not a stunt. Instead it was a "candid and spontaneous moment" that would humanize the tough-guy former mayor with voters.

Nice try. Just in case this isn't obviously ridiculous, Fox News commissioned a poll on the subject. It found that only 9% of Americans think a candidate should ever interrupt a speech to accept a call from his spouse.

The fact is that people inside the Giuliani campaign are appalled at the number of times their candidate has felt compelled to interrupt public appearances to take calls from his wife. The estimate from those in a position to know is that he has taken such calls more than 40 times in the middle of speeches, conferences and presentations to large donors. "If it's a stunt, it's not one coming from him," says one Giuliani staffer. "It's an ongoing problem that he won't take advice on."

That last part from the staffer I disagree with. It's clearly a stunt. Rudy thinks it humanizes him to play cute with the wife in the middle of the speeches. Either that, or if Judy gets voice mail, the pet rabbit gets boiled.

Of course, the absolutely crazy part is when, asked why in God's name he would take a phone call in the middle of a nationally televised speech, Rudy succumbed to his long struggle with 9-11 Tourettes again. Here's the quote:

Giuliani also addressed a cell phone call he took from his wife, Judith, last week during his speech to the National Rifle Association...

"And quite honestly, since Sept. 11, most of the time when we get on a plane, we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other," he said.

I think we all have to prepare ourselves for the reality that Rudolph Giuliani has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Anyone who has to call their loved ones before getting on a plane SIX YEARS after the fact is probably also waking up in the middle of the night with the sweats, getting the thousand-yard stare, seeing scenes from The Deer Hunter in his dreams, etc. This is irrational behavior.

Shoot

The Republican candidates can't rouse themselves to attend debates sponsored by Univision or hosted by Tavis Smiley and PBS, but of course they will madly scramble to any event organized by the three million member NRA.

Giuliani spoke at the NRA convention yesterday - a dicey proposition due to his prior words. In the following clip from Charlie Rose, Rudy! says "the NRA is involved in a strategy that I don't understand":



He goes on to call the NRA "extremists" who unwisely employ the slippery slope argument.

Then there's the federal lawsuit Rudy! filed against gun manufacturers while mayor. Here, Rudy! dances as fast as he can, tap-tap-tapping away from his affront to the gun lobby's sensibilities (which d-day also references below):

Yesterday, Giuliani backed away from the lawsuit, saying he might not uphold it if he were a judge.

"That lawsuit has taken several turns and several twists that I don't agree with," he said, without going into specifics. "I also think that there are some major intervening events -- September 11, which cast somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment, doesn't change it fundamentally but perhaps highlights the necessity of it."

This quote and Cook's Tour courtesy of Steve Benen from TPM. But I must part ways with Steve's assessment:

By any reasonable measure, this is a fairly silly thing to say. Giuliani couldn't even chalk it up to flubbing a question, since he was reading from a prepared text.* In other words, he meant to say that 9/11 helped change his mind on gun control.

Asked to explain the shift, a campaign spokesperson said Giuliani was "making a point that personal rights such as the 2nd Amendment are even more critical in a post-September 11th world."

It's hard to believe a serious presidential campaign could offer such a foolish rationale for obvious nonsense, and yet, here we are.

Would that large swaths of the American electorate might view this rationale for Rudy's about-face as "nonsense." I'd be happy to be proved wrong, of course. But I can't imagine Rs or swing voters seeing anything wrong with Rudy's answer whatsoever. It's just the type of rationale the Republican party has been offering for six years now, a sort of collective alibi for politicians and Americans who both went screaming yellow bonkers after 9/11.

Candidates and strategists would be well-advised to remember that victims of cons will do anything to admit it to themselves. Don't count on people who readily identified with a hastily invented faux demographic cluster such as Security Moms to mock those who continue to solemnly intone that 9/11 Changed Everything. Such words are talismans against any feelings of foolishness or shame that vast numbers of people allowed themselves to be hoodwinked by The Big Con.

So how did Rudy! do at the NRA?

For the most part, Rudy! seemed to ruffle few feathers. About the best outcome he could have imagined, really, given his challenges with this audience.

But the oddest moment was when he took a moment while on stage to answer a call from his wife.

As the NYT's Caucus reports, Rudy! answered his cell phone while addressing the assembled gun advocates:

“Hello dear. I’m talking to the members of the N.R.A. right now. Would you like to say hello?” he said, apparently speaking to his wife, Judith. “I’ll give you a call as soon as I’m finished. Have a safe trip. Bye bye.”

Though there was some scattered laughter, the audience was mostly quiet as Mr. Giuliani ended the call and added: “This is one of the great blessings of the modern age – to always be available.”

This is not the first time Rudy!'s answered a call from his wife while onstage.

I haven't yet found video of this, so I can only imagine this odd moment. Rudy, speaking before a gathering of the noisiest troops of the phallic insecurity brigade, pauses to take a "Hi honey" call from his wife.

It's fascinating to see two candidates running breathlessly toward the Alpha Male prize (awarded to the Republican nominee, regardless of merit, upon nomination) who have such uncharacteristic relationships with their wives.

First we had Grandpa Freddie's controlling trophy wife chasing away one consultant after another.

Now we have Rudy making goo-goo eyes at his third wife - she of the permanently manic, Jennifer Wilbanks-like expression - while speaking to the gun lobby. What does he think this looks like? He may think it's a charming profession by a man unafraid to tell his wife he loves her in front of a bunch of hunters. Let's hope he's that clueless. Because what it really looks like is a man who has no idea how weird his relationship with his current wife looks.

Does he think this public declaration of love business will score points with women? If so, an even bigger mistake: since Judi is the prototypical marriage-wrecking Other Woman that women love to hate, this is unlikely to work with women. Rudy! sounds like just another creepy guy trying to convince his kids of their new stepmom's charms. All he ends up saying is how much he likes her. Since we can't quite see why we should like her but are repeatedly forced to consider her, our thoughts naturally roam to speculation abut why Rudy! likes her so much. And the less we dwell in that realm, the better. For all of us.

I'm waiting for the ad with Rudy holding his wife's purse.

9/11 Changed My Mind On Fees In National Parks

At what point is Rudolph G. just going to start showing up for press conferences dressed in an elaborate Twin Towers costume?

September 11th has persuaded him that gun rights are necessary. He said:

"I also think that there have been subsequent intervening events — September 11 — which cast somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment and Second Amendment rights. It doesn't change the fundamental rights, but maybe it highlights the necessity for them more."

Because a plane flew into the 106th floor of an office building, people on the streets should have guns? Why, so they can shoot up at the plane? What the hell does this even mean?

I know we are all members of the 9/11 generation and everything, but Rudolph is turning it into a catch-all for every societal issue, much like how everything for Tancredo is about immigration. It's embarrassingly poor logic.

Then again, this is coming from a man who thinks we can balance a tax cut with another tax cut.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Friday that the alternative minimum tax — which is expected to generate as much as $1 trillion over the next 10 years — could be eliminated over the long term by balancing it out with even more tax cuts.

Giuliani's remarks prompted a bewildered response from his audience of technology executives. Both Republicans and Democrats said they assumed that the candidate must have misspoken as he responded to a question about the tax and its affect the middle class.

But a Giuliani spokeswoman said later that Giuliani meant what he said — tax cuts could replace the lost revenue from the AMT by boosting the overall economy.

...and anyway, after 9/11 I learned that less revenue actually means more, and maybe if you were patriotic like me, you would too. Also everyone knows my name, so shut up.

First Gun Control Law In A Decade

People claim that the Democrats have given up the gun debate, but maybe they're just being smarter about it.

The House Wednesday passed what could become the first major federal gun control law in over a decade, spurred by the Virginia Tech campus killings and buttressed by National Rifle Association help.

The bill, which was passed on a voice vote, would improve state reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to stop gun purchases by people, including criminals and those adjudicated as mentally ill, who are prohibited from possessing firearms.

This closes the loophole that allowed Seung-Hui Cho to buy guns in Virginia.

If you can get the NRA aboard on gun control legislation, you can strike a balance between Second Amendment rights (which I generally support) and ensuring public safety and the needs of law enforcement, without electoral consequences. The argument that "the Democrats are going to take your guns away" has little resonance when the NRA is signing on to their legislation. This is a game of inches, and so I'm happy that the Democrats appear to be playing it that way.

Some Things Are More Important Than Terrorists Getting Uzis, K?

This was actually a brilliant bit of politics, and just because something is designed for political means doesn't mean it isn't revealing. Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey created legislation called the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act and somehow got the Justice Department to support it, daring gun groups to oppose it. They obliged.

The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms. Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects.

In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat."

I guess the idea is to use the terrorist watch list in background check screening, and if that's the same watch list that is used for airline passengers I'm against it too, considering how awful that list is (Ted Kennedy's on it). But Sen. Lautenberg has cited a GAO study showing that "35 of 44 firearm purchase attempts over a five-month period made by known or suspected terrorists were approved by the federal law enforcement officials." And there are apparently various protections and challenge options in the bill. I'm wary of denying constitutionally protected liberties based on suspicion, so hopefully if it is enacted there are safeguards. Of course, there are already background checks for purchasing firearms, so if this adds something to else, well, maybe.

I'm ambivalent on the bill. But regardless of that, the NRA is now on the record for allowing terrorists to buy guns. This is, as thereisnospoon said, a brilliant wedge between the authoritarian "stop the terrists" crowd and the pro-Second Amendment crowd. They literally don't know what to do on this one.

I would imagine you could create 20 bills like this, that get in the cracks of 21st-century conservative ideology, and just drive the wingnuts crazy.