SSSU said:
Mostly agreed, but let's admit that the Publican Party twice gave us Publican President George W. Bush who said that he would sign an extension of the so-called assault-weapons ban, and close the so-called gun-show loophole.
Who are these "Publican"s you write of? Are there Pharisees as well? I didn't know we were getting Biblical.
I know of Democrats and Republicans along with Libertarians and other third parties, and while not perfect, do try to avoid stooping to name calling. May I request that same courtesy from you? GOP will suffice as a non-offense nickname as will simply "Rs" if the goal is to find abbreviations.
And frankly, W was not much liked among much of the conservative right, except in comparison to the Democrats who ran against him.
This in contrast to the unmitigated love of many on the left for Clinton who also had very weak Republican candidates run against him.
SSSU said:
I would say that the promise was a little more egregious than a vote for Minority Leader Pelosi (horrifying as it is) and much worse than "far from perfect."
Exactly how much political capital did W put into pushing gun control? He said he'd sign it if it made it to his desk. It didn't, and I don't recall him doing much to push it. Indeed, there are multiple ways to view his statement. On the one hand, he didn't forcefully oppose an extension of the ban or closing of the private sale law. On the other hand, he didn't give congressional members any cover or license to vote for a bad bill knowing the president would veto it.
IOW, while the promise of a presidential veto can act to erode support for a bill, it can also act to embolden some to vote for a bill they might not if they figured it was likely going to go into effect based on their vote.
I don't read minds and so I don't know W's intentions. What I do know is that the ban on scarey looking guns was allowed to expire and there was no law passed requiring private sales to go through government background checks.
Let's compare that to the Democrat who followed W. Obama started his first term with an EO ending the sale of used military brass to the private, commercial reloading market. He has now issued an EA that bans reimportation of "military grade weapons" sold to foreign governments. This primary affects WWII era M1 Garands sold to Korea in large numbers and popular among collectors who have obtained them largely through the civilian marksmanship program. He is also proposing new rules make it more difficult and costly to obtain suppressors and short barreled rifles. Coupled with these is a rules change to impose new and intrusive background checks those using trusts for ownership of full autos, suppressors, SBRs, etc. In between he and Biden have actually put a lot of weight and capital behind reinstating and greatly expand the ban on scarey guns. Not merely saying he'd sign it if it reaches his desk, but real efforts to get it passed congress. He worked to cut funding for the armed pilots program which I'm told by a commercial pilot neighbor is currently suspended. We might consider "Fast and Furious" which at best was grossly incompetent, and one doesn't need much tinfoil to start to believe it might well have been designed to bolster public support for more restrictions on our RKBA. And the registration requirement imposed on those living in "border States" who buy multiple guns at one time.
SSSU said:
I believe that most of the Colorado Democratic 40-percent who own firearms either chose not to vote or voted for the recalls yesterday; at least they didn't rally and defeat the recalls. So, I believe that my assessment is accurate. Can we say that most of the Publican 55-percent would do similarly if the recalls were about two Publican legislators?
Given the fairly narrow margins, I would guess that most Democrats who voted, voted against the recall. I simply don't see Republicans voting to retain a Democrat legislator. Of course, it is also safe to say that low turnout benefited the recall efforts. Since there is zero evidence that gun owning Democrats voted against their party's candidates in the recall, what Republican voters would do in a similar situation is kind of a silly and childish deflection. But there is some history to suggest that Republican voters are even more likely to withdraw support from their candidates than Democrat voters are from theirs. In fact, the fickleness of the GOP voters is one reason the Democrats often fare so well. We have never managed to figure out how to make "no enemies to the left" (or right) work for us. The Democrats are masters at sticking together, or at least (almost) never speaking ill of one of their own.
HW Bush caused quite a number of GOP voters to sit out his second election with his broken "read my lips" promise about no new taxes. Dole's decades of wheeling and dealing with our rights and his allowing the '94 gun ban to go through didn't help him with GOP turnout either. Romney seems to have suffered from some lower than desired turnout among the GOP faithful and along with evangelical concerns about his personal religious affiliation, it is safe to say that gun owning (along with pro-life) republicans were among those who had a hard time trusting that his conservative conversion was really about a road to Damascus rather than the road to Des Moines.
Locally, GOP delegates booed Gov. Leavitt to a standstill when he suggested "doing something" about guns in the GOP State organization convention following Columbine. Lacking any credible competition, he was forced into a primary against a complete nobody as punishment for not being solid on RKBA.
I think it was growing defections to the Libertarian, Constitution, IAP, and other such solidly pro-RKBA parties among the GOP grassroots that lead the legislature to change election law to prohibit "fusion candidates" in about '98 or so.
So I think a very strong case can be made that pro-RKBA republican voters are willing to withdraw support from GOP candidates or incumbents who attack RKBA. They do so, even though there are no credible/winnable alternatives to support in most cases.
OTOH, Democrats tend to be far more supportive anti-RKBA Democrat candidates even when there are very good pro-RKBA alternatives. While I'm grateful there are democrats who can be pushed too far on guns and act to restrain what seems to be the general hatred of the Democrat party for my RKBA, in most cases it seems that guns and RKBA simply are not an important enough issue for many democrat voters to make decisions on. For most gun owning Democrats, it seems, other issues tend to be a higher priority than RKBA. I think that is less true among GOP gun owners.
I've never suggested there are not pro-RKBA democrats. Though I defy anyone to point out any solidly pro-RKBA democrats sitting in the current Utah Legislature. We used to have a few: Dmitrich and Ed Mayne always come to mind. Which Democrat in the Utah legislature today has even a decent, much less solid voting record on our RKBA?
My thesis is that at the current time, the Democrat party remains largely hostile to RKBA and because of the way leadership is affected by party affiliation, voting for even a pro-RKBA democrat is likely to be voting to advance an anti-RKBA agenda in many legislative bodies.
Charles