This is another post where I start off by saying how much I respect his work, but disagree with him.
I respect Clayton Cramer's work but I really disagree with him.
(Told ya that's how it'd start off)
He makes another pitch for Bush. No surprises there & that's not my main point of contention.
He starts vilifying "purists" again.
"There is one group of gun owners that I am especially upset with--and those are the self-righteous gun rights purists, who complained that Bush wasn't pure enough. They insisted that because Bush agreed to sign a renewal of the federal assault weapons ban, they could not vote for him."
Um, nope. Bush's support of the AWB, McCain's bill to close down all gun shows, & his insistence upon government regulation of the 2nd amendment as exemplified through Project Exile would be it. It's not that Bush isn't pure enough; it's that he's anti-gun.
"If the choice a few days ago had been between George Bush and a wishy-washy Democrat, I could understand the purists who voted Libertarian or did not vote for President at all.
But that wasn't the situation this election day. John Kerry was clearly our enemy. President Bush appointed an Attorney General who has defended the Second Amendment as an individual right. Do you think Attorney General Ashcroft made a decision like that without consulting President Bush?"
Ashcroft: the second amendment is an individual Right subject to reasonable government regulations.
Brady: the second amendment is a collective Right subject to reasonable government regulations
Kerry: I like to hunt, but not with AK-47's. 7 about the other day: it was the wrong goose at the wrong place at the wrong time. (couldn't resist that one)
The difference between Bush & Brady amounts only to the level of lip service given gun owners. It does not matter if you believe it's an individual right or a collective one if you feel government can regulate it.
You cannot regulate a Right. You can regulate a privilege. A Right, at least an individual, inherent Right, is beyond legitimate government regulation. By adding the qualifier, Ashcroft turned his meaning around & nullified what most assume he meant.
"I believe that you can do whatever you want to do, unless I say you can't."
In principle that's exactly what Ashcroft said.
But Mr. Cramer is too easily enamored with certain phrases, like individual Right, to realize that it's not as cool as it seems. He has the same problem with "shall-issue".
"If a federal assault weapons ban had made it to the Oval Office, and Bush had signed it, I could understand the purist disdain for Bush. But it didn't happen, because George Bush and House Republicans did an incredibly sly job of making sure that no assault weapon ban came to his desk. This largely defused the assault weapon issue as part of the campaign."
Nope. It didn't happen because us "purists" (the term I prefer is Absolutist) raised hell on the phone with our senators & talked a bunch of non-purists & Fuddites into doing the same..
Bush acting behind the scenes seems as plausible to me as the Governator being a "stealth pro-gun" candidate.
Bush may have wanted the AWB issue to fade away. If so it's not because he was against it, but because he realized that pissing off the gun owning base was not a way to ensure employment for the next 4 years. It's not that he was on our side; it's that he was (rightly) afraid to cross us.
"If you are one of those gun rights purists who did not vote for President Bush this year--and are now cringing at the prospect of what President Kerry is going to do to your gun rights--I sure hope that you learned your lesson. The rest of us are going to have four years to repent for your decision."
Oh bloody hell. Ever think that if we're repenting the decision to accept "reasonable gun control" (like licensing & background checks & permits) made by non Absolutists? Ever think that the real cause is not that we started taking a stand but that y'all never did?
If Kerry gets elected then he'll push for more gun control. A renewed AWB & McCain's de facto gun show prohibition are likely. Oddly enough it's just as likely with Bush. What strikes me as different is that Kerry would have a much harder time getting either through a Republican controlled Congress than Bush would.
Bush would be more dangerous cause you’d have people like Mr. Cramer & Hugh Hewitt either defending or excusing his actions while most people thought that it wasn't really gun control or bad gun control cause Bush is pro-gun & wouldn't do something like that.
With Kerry we'd all (at least most of us) see it for what it was & do what we could to stop it. There wouldn't be a large faction of gun owners defending Kerry's moves or motives.
I'm like Han Solo - I'd prefer a straight on fight to sneaking around. I'd have preferred to have a case before SCOTUS like Silveira simply because it'd put things out in the open. Either the court would agree or disagree & we could take it from there. Now we have circuit courts that are against us, with one partial exception.
& that is where the danger for us lies. If Bush or Kerry signed a bill that prohibited weapons possession outright & appropriated funds for confiscation, we'd all know what to do. We'd realize who was on our side & who wasn't.
But now we have a "reasonable measure" here & a "common sense measure" there which in the end will accomplish the same thing, only there won't be a clear & concise rallying point for us to mount a defense.
Kevin of The Smallest Minority has a few quotes up on his page.
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." - Ayn Rand
I always liked that quote, which is why I included it even though it's not the quote I was going to use. Here's the one I'll talk about:
"This far, no further." - Me ("Me" would be Kevin)
He means that there's a line drawn. He will not accept any more restrictions on his Rights. & it's a good sentiment, but I have one that's better:
"Start backing that ass up; we 'bout to start repealing stuff"
We cannot win if we hold the line. If we try for simply a stalemate then we will lose. We must retake ground we've lost. We have to go on the offensive. We have ot start getting rid of prior restrain based gun control laws & we must change the mentality that is accepting of them.
With Bush if we're lucky we'll stay where we are. Odds are though in November or February he'll push for more gun control. It's not a question of him not being "pure' enough, but of him being anti-gun.
With Kerry he'll try to push for more gun control, but we'll have an easier time blocking him. It's that grid lock thing everyone keeps saying is bad.
Mr. Cramer is upset with people like me. Good. I've been upset with people like Mr. Cramer (that'd definitely include the NRA leadership) for a long time now. While he's mad that we'd not vote for a candidate he approves of some of the same kinds of gun control he does (I'm speaking generally, not specifically) I'm mad that any gun owner fails to see the dangers of all forms of prior restraint based gun control &/or acts to counter those dangers.
I hope his anger will make him act, but not against the ones who he calls "purists" (again. Asbolutist has a much nicer ring to it) or accuses of being Democrat trolls. I hope he writes a nice angry letter to his reps telling them that he's not going to condone any more gun control & he'll put his vote where his ideology is.
Posted by Publicola at October 29, 2004 04:51 AMI generally like your blog. I disagree very strongly on this issue though.
Bush has taken a lot of flak for not being libertarian enough on guns. I think he's not being given nearly enough credit on guns. With 9/11, the DC Sniper, and Columbine, he had not only an excuse to press for the AWB but huge pressure to do it. He had the best political opportunity to press for new restrictions that I can think of ever. We in the pro-gun community tend to forget that the general populace that didn't know what the "assault weapons" "ban" was supported it 3 to 1 and the gun owning populace supported it 2 to 1 (because they're Fuddites, as you so aptly describe them.). He took flak in the debates because of it, and had to just take it. It was just not a political reality that he could have tried to defend it there. But despite 9/11, despite the DC Sniper, despite Columbine, we had the first plain increase in gun liberty on a federal level since the Fourteenth Amendment applied the Second Amendment to blacks.
>>>>Bush's support of the AWB, McCain's bill to close down all gun shows, & his insistence upon government regulation of the 2nd amendment as exemplified through Project Exile would be it. It's not that Bush isn't pure enough; it's that he's anti-gun.>>>It didn't happen because us "purists" (the term I prefer is Absolutist) raised hell on the phone with our senators & talked a bunch of non-purists & Fuddites into doing the same..
Posted by: Charles at October 29, 2004 11:53 AMSome problems posting this comment as a whole, I'll keep trying.
“Bush's support of the AWB, McCain's bill to close down all gun shows, & his insistence upon government regulation of the 2nd amendment as exemplified through Project Exile would be it. It's not that Bush isn't pure enough; it's that he's anti-gun.”
If Bush was anti-gun, the AWB would have been renewed, and the gun shows would have been closed. We haven't the numbers to have stopped him. We are loud and dedicated, but in the end we have one vote each.
We spend most of our time just trying not to slide any further on the slippery slope. But this one time, just when events were most against us, we gained ground. Usually we have a choice of a Republican who's only a minor enemy, a Democrat who's a major enemy, and Libertarians or Constitution Party cadidates who are friends but won't get elected. Despite Bush's lip service to the AWB, I think he genuinely took a risk to come through for gun rights, even if it was sub-rosa rather than standing on principle.
“It didn't happen because us "purists" (the term I prefer is Absolutist) raised hell on the phone with our senators & talked a bunch of non-purists & Fuddites into doing the same..”
Yes. That's a big part of it. And to reward them for our first advance in a century, in a hostile political environment, we'll vote Libertarian anyway. And our calls will be worth what next time? They will be worth CRAP. They will be calls not from potential supporters, but from the enemy. They will know that pissing off gunnies is as inevitable to a Republican as pissing off Communist Party supporters.
I think if we ignore that to be gun absolutists or purists and vote Libertarian/Constitution in this race we no longer send the message "You must become more libertarian before we'll vote for you", but the message, "You can't convince us vote for you until John Q. Public thinks you're a dangerous lunatic."
Think about it: the first federal ground gained in a century. I think the first federal ground gained for the general populace, besides Supreme Court decisions, since the Second Amendment in 1789. This is not a small thing.
Charles,
Forgive the delay in responding to you, & further pardon me cause it'll be a day or two before I can give your points the attention they deserve,