Mitt Romney a hunter?

[originalpckelly]

Sweetie, I think we all know that if he wins and goes hunting, the secret service will have to protect him from himself.

[NNN0LHI]

1. Wonder if Romney and Cheney have ever went hunting together?

[Autumn]

8. I hope they do. Deer hunting would be a nice bonding experience.

Would be interesting to see which one would apologize.

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. He's a life member of the NRA, you know.

He joined when he was Massachusetts governor, just to pander to the NRA and the gun crowd.

He's a cheap whore anyway.

[safeinOhio]

3. That is what every republican does

when they try to move to the right.

[customerserviceguy]

4. I'm sure his wife

kills all the spiders in the house, Willard couldn't hunt down a clean pair of socks.

[The Genealogist]

6. Nah, he probably gets Jeeves or Cook or Driver to do that kind of work

and then rewards them with a shiny new nickel.

[OmahaBlueDog]

5. He is a "varmint hunter"!

Mitt Romney, Varmint Hunter: "I've hunted a number of times"

[XemaSab]

7. He was invited to go moose hunting

er, elk hunting, er, it was big and it had antlers, okay? Now stop asking so many questions!

[spin]

9. Attenpting to pander to gun owners by claiming to be a hunter...

is a typical but disgusting tactic often used by politicians.

I suppose that many politicians assume that gun owners and hunters are fairly stupid people and therefore can be easily fooled. Unfortunately for the politician who is merely pretending to be a hunter, he often loses far more votes than he gains.

I own firearms, have enjoyed target shooting for 45 years and have a concealed weapon permit but I have never tried hunting. Even with my knowledge of firearms, I would never try to fool a real hunter by telling him that I too was a hunter. If the conversation lasted a couple of minutes he would realize that I was just spouting bull shit.

Romney is trying to hide his record on supporting gun control. Some say he is a flip-flopper on gun control and many other issues, but he is actually far worse. He is in reality a shape shifter.

Mitt Romney on Gun Control
Former Republican Governor (MA)

2008: "Lifelong" devotion to hunting meant "small varmints"

Romney's efforts to get right with the right landed him in trouble. Running against Ted Kennedy for the Senate in 1994, he declared, "I don't line up with the NRA" on gun control. By 2008, Romney had reversed himself on his [and other issues], which quickly gave rise to charges of hypocrisy and opportunism. A YouTube video began making the rounds that captured him firmly stating his liberalish social views, comically juxtaposing them with his newly adopted arch-conservative stances. From then on, th flip-flopper label was firmly affixed to Mitt's forehead.

Oh, and also the one about this "lifelong" devotion to hunting, which turned out to mean he'd done it twice. "I'm not a big-game hunter," Romney said, then explained that his preferred prey were rodents, rabbits, and such--"small varmints, if you will."...emphasis added

***snip***

GovWatch: 1994: did not “line up with the NRA”
Top Romney Flip Flops: #3. Gun Control:

Campaigning for the Senate in 1994, Romney said he favored strong gun laws and did not “line up with the NRA.” He signed up for “lifetime membership” of the NRA in August 2006 while pondering a presidential run, praising the group for “doing good things” and “supporting the right to bear arms.”
http://www.issues2000.org/Governor/Mitt_Romney_Gun_Control.htm

I suspect that if Romney actually became President, he would be more likely to reinstate the expired assault weapons ban than Obama if he is reelected. I don't believe for a moment that Obama is overly fond of firearms or the Second Amendment as viewed by the NRA, but at least he is more honest than Romney and authored these comments in an op-ed to the Arizona Daily Star.

"Now, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. And the courts have settled that as the law of the land. In this country, we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that's handed from generation to generation. Hunting and shooting are part of our national heritage. And, in fact, my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners - it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

The fact is, almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible. They're our friends and neighbors. They buy their guns legally and use them safely, whether for hunting or target shooting, collection or protection. And that's something that gun-safety advocates need to accept. Likewise, advocates for gun owners should accept the awful reality that gun violence affects Americans everywhere, whether on the streets of Chicago or at a supermarket in Tucson."
http://azstarnet.com/article_011e7118-8951-5206-a878-39bfbc9dc89d.html

The sad part is that if Romney does manage to effectively buy the Republican nomination by running countless attack ads and runs against Obama, the NRA will probably support him. After all John McCain got the support of the NRA in the last election despite his shabby record for supporting gun rights.

Romney Claims NRA Endorsement He Didn't Receive


Mitt Romney on "Meet the Press" Sunday. (Getty/Meet the Press).

Maybe it was the pressure of the moment. Being under the Tim Russert spotlight can get to anyone. Under Russert's grilling about guns on this morning's "Meet the Press," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney claimed an endorsement he'd never won.

***snip***

He was never endorsed by the NRA, and didn't have their official support during his 2002 gubernatorial campaign. The NRA declined to endorse in that race, as was acknowledged by Romney's spokesman this morning.

"The NRA did not endorse in the 2002 campaign," said spokesman Kevin Madden, when asked about Romney's comments. "Mitt Romney as a candidate received a respectable B grade rating from the NRA, and when he was governor he had the support of the NRA and the Gun Owners Action League in relaxing some of the state's burdensome licensing regulations."

What Madden didn't say was that Romney's Democratic opponent in the governor's race, Shannon O'Brien, was given a more than respectable "A" grade by the NRA, according to its website....emphasis added
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2007/12/romney-claims-nra-endorsement.html

If during the last election Obama would have decided to dress up in designer hunting gear from L. L. Bean; grabbed a shotgun and went on a photo shoot to hunt pheasants, he would have never got my vote. I would have simply sat out the election as I had no interest in voting for McCain. I realized that Obama had a record of supporting gun control but I also understood that as a politician from Chicago he would have never won a higher office than Chief Dog Catcher if he had been pro-gun. His comments on the issue of gun control during the campaign struck me as honest and fair. For example:

On Gun Control: Respect 2nd Amendment, but local gun bans ok

Q: You said recently, “I have no intention of taking away folks’ guns.” But you support the D.C. handgun ban, and you’ve said that it’s constitutional. How do you reconcile those two positions?

A: Because I think we have two conflicting traditions in this country. I think it’s important for us to recognize that we’ve got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of law-abiding citizens use it for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets. And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of background checks for children, the mentally ill. We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment and people’s traditions.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/2008_Politico_Barack_Obama.htm

In my opinion, honesty trumps pandering and flip-flopping.

[BOHICA12]

10. He doesn't understand that hunting has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment

Until you are glad to have your fingers wrapped around the grip of a handgun when you answer the knock on your door at 3:00 AM - you won't understand the 2nd Amendment.

Mittens has never understood.

[pgeturner]

11. Gun-toting Democrats, Unite!

You really can't be a Republican if you don't shoot things, or at least hold a gun for the cameras.
If Democrats do it, it's considered posing.