Clinton changes handgun position

[ballsalicious]

Source: Gazette State Bureau

Clinton changes handgun position
Registry not appropriate for all states, senator says
By JENNIFER McKEE
Gazette State Bureau

HELENA - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton told Montana reporters Friday that she no longer favors national handgun registration and licensing, even as she supports such measures in her adopted state of New York.

"What I came out for was the New York law," the U.S. senator said in a noon conference call Friday. "I don't think there is any contradiction between defending Second Amendment rights and trying to keep guns out of the hands of" criminals and the mentally ill.

In 2000, as she was beginning her campaign for senator from New York, Clinton came out as first lady in favor of licensing and registering of all new handguns sold in the United States. She also supported a bill that would create a registry of all guns sold in the U.S., along with requiring buyers to get a license and undergo a background check.

Clinton said Friday that guns are "reaping all kinds of damage" in some parts of the country and that governments there ought to be able to license and register handguns if it makes streets safer. But she said such laws may not be appropriate in Montana.

Read more: http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/05/31/news/state/21-handgun.txt

[Night_Nurse]

1. When in Montana...

pander to the NRA crowd. When in NY, not so much...

That's Hillary.

[Kool Kitty]

3. Couldn't have said it any better.

Spot-on.

[notesdev]

14. I'd be really mad...

... if my business was parody. She took mah jerb!

[Blaq Dem]

35. Hmm, let's see...duck hunting as a child, assassination comments, no handgun restrictions

I see a pattern here.

[SlipperySlope]

2. "I also believe that every new handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry"

That's a big turn-around, huh?

[still_one]

4. gee hillary, we have to register our cars, we have to register to vote, but not guns?

[krispos42]

20. We register our cars for tax and emissions reasons

And even then, only when they are used on public roads.

Registration of firearms has not and will not reduce crime. Sticking to our progressive and liberal ideas, however, will.

[angstlessk]

44. not all states have taxes on the ownership of cars..and register to vote??? hu??

splain that to me vs gun registration which I think is a wonderful idea, and registration of cars does not reduce the auto accidents either but they keep registering...

[krispos42]

48. Dude, what?

The registering to vote comment was neither made nor reference by me.

...registration of cars does not reduce the auto accidents either but they keep registering...

Like I said... for tax purposes. There is also a crime-control element, such as getting the licence plate number of stolen or missing vehicles, tracking odometers to prevent resale fraud, etc. Let's face it; our multi-thousand-dollar vehicles are routinely parked in areas readily accessable to the general public in a manner virtually unknown with anything else that we own.

None of these reasons apply to gun ownership, however. Guns do not use the public infrastructure nor do they pollute in any manner that remotely requires annual testing. They are not parked on the street, are (generally) worth only one or two percent of the cost of your average car, and are not routinely visible to the public and they don't have any sort of certified meter that needs checking or certification.

And as a crime-control measure, it is also ineffective. The vast majority of guns used in murders are stolen. So registration brings you only to the person that it was stolen from. Which is the exact same place you get to when you trace the gun by old-fashioned detective work from the point-of-sale when it was new (that's recorded and archived by the ATF) to the original purchaser, where you can follow it from person to person (and even if it gets bought and then resold by another licenced gun dealer) until you find the person it was stolen from.

In the caes where it was not a stolen firearm, your trace still winds up in the hands of a person that is intimately connected to the case.

This of course assumes you find the gun. :shrug:

Tell you what: once you get all the computers and modems in this country registered and made drastic reductions in online predation, fraud, identity theft, and copyright infringement via illegal filesharing, get back to me.

Maybe we can have a CD-R and DVD-R registry as well. Hey, how about a car tire registry? Or how about the Treasury Department keeps track of all the serial numbers of the money you withdraw from a bank teller or ATM? How's that for a crime-stopper, eh? Tracing down the cash used in drug transaction, for example?

Take it even further: an RFID chip in all paper money so the cops can just wave a wand over you and know how much you're carrying as well as the serial numbers of all the bills in your wallet. I bet that will nab a lot of criminals!

[eridani]

62. I've been thinking of getting a gun on account of all the RW whackjobs

I'd be just fine with registering it. I figure that if it would ever get stolen, I'd have a better chance of getting it back, or at least not get blamed for who got shot after I reported it stolen.

[sandnsea]

5. And that's why the west hates her

It's not her position on guns. It's that she thinks people are so stupid they won't know she's lying to their face.

[Drunken Irishman]

6. Yup and why Obama will carry Montana and South Dakota.

He'll clean up there in the general too.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[trusty elf]

8. self-delete

a tad too tasteless...

:D:

[Indenturedebtor]

9. What a vile creature.

Well at least she's consistently a pandering say anything opportunist :eyes: Can always count on her for that.

[midnight]

10. I remember driving in Texas a few years ago. You could

have an open beer and a gun in your car. Each state is different and we have to be aware of that. I have never owned a gun, But that is a personal preference. I don't see that changing, but I too have changed my views on guns. I don't see why people need those guns that spray out bullets like water.

[slackmaster]

55. "guns that spray bullets out like water" have been strictly regulated since 1934

Very few people in this country own fully automatic firearms, and their misuse in crime is almost unheard of.

[DeSwiss]

11. I suppose that.....

...if I were "involved" a Bosnian sniper attack, I'd change my mind about gun control too....



- K&R

[saigon68]

50. That's a cool photo

Can I steal it?

[seriousstan]

12. What is Obama;'s position?

[krispos42]

21. He seems to be leaning towards a 'let the states decide' stance

He'a s Constitutional scholar and the Heller v. DC case hasn't been decided yet, so those are factors to consider.

He's stated that we need to close the non-existant-in-real-life "gun show loophole", though, which is just a framing phrase. It is similar to "partial-birth abortion" or "death tax" in that regard.

[Jack_DeLeon]

51. He better...

That was Deans choice when he was running and I can alteast support that as opposed to Obama's earlier statements of wanting to outlaw all semiauto centerfire weapons, and opposing concealed handgun licenses of which I have.

[krispos42]

52. it would help enormously

I don't really buy the "urban areas are different from rural areas and need stricter gun laws" line of thinking. Nonetheless, speaking from a federal perspective, the feds should set basic minimums like NICS and serial number laws and federal licensing, not setting up arbitrary definitions based on misinforming the 50 or 60% of the country that has never bought a gun, doesn't own or never has owned a gun but think they have all this knowledge of the issue and all these valid ideas.

[eridani]

63. That was the only issue where I thought Dean was right and Kucinich wrong

Rural areas have small town social controls, so they don't really need gun control. People who live in anonymous big cities feel differently, for obvious reasons.

[hedgehog]

41. I think he is insisting that we take the issue away from the extremists on both sides and

sit down and work it through. How do we get the guns off city streets and out of the hands of gang memebers while preserving the right to bear arms? If we can't do both, we're going have to face up to it and make a choice.

[old mark]

54. Could try

enforcing the existing laws that your theoretical gang memebers are already violating.
I think you are on to something here.

mark

[papapi]

13. Dum-de-dum-dum. Dum-de-dum-dum- DUUUUUUUMMMMMMM!

levels of mental incompetency, you decide:

imbecile
idiot
moron

Sorry, those are the only choices.

[Bosso 63]

15. To little to late.

[ikojo]

16. She was for it before she was against

it...and we call McCain the pander bear!!!

[druidity33]

17. now she keeps it in the small of her back...

GANGSTA style.

:)

[needledriver]

18. If she changed position from

one hand to a modified Weaver stance I would buy into this but....

[Bette Noir]

19. Can you spell "pander"?

[krispos42]

22. But if the Congress passes such a bill, I doubt it will get vetoed

She may not sign it, but without a veto it becomes law anyway.

[zanne]

23. And "Truck Nutz" for every pickup she stands in! nt

[ileus]

24. add this to the thousands of reasons to vote hillary...thanks.

[Mojorabbit]

25. So Montana's

second amendment rights are more sacrosanct than New Yorks? Bah.

[Irishonly]

26. Did the wind change again? N/T

[DavidDvorkin]

27. Give her a break. She's just reverting to her Montana roots.

[izquierdista]

28. Nothing left of the right foot

Time to change aim and shoot at the left!

[slackmaster]

29. Remember the icon tthe Doonesbury comic used for her husband when he was President?

[Paladin]

30. Yet Another Reminder About The Poll Down In The Gun Dungeon

Said poll showing that 46% of our resident gun militants are ready to bolt the party and vote Republican on the basis of gun policy. I suspect the percentage is significantly higher than that.....

Looking forward to the Gun Dungeon thread on this new Hillary development; ought to be entertaining, in a twisted sort of way...

[beevul]

32. Whats the matter, Paladin...

Whats the matter, Paladin...is people slamming Democrats just fine by you unless its over the gun issue?

I mean, you did say :

"Looking forward to the Gun Dungeon thread on this new Hillary development; ought to be entertaining, in a twisted sort of way..."

Yet nary a word about the people that slam Hil in this thread.


Your bias is showing.

[Paladin]

33. I Won't Be Able To Respond......

....until you give me some hint of what the fuck you're talking about. Particularly that "bias" claim....

[beevul]

37. Oh come on now, don't be coy....

You have claimed that nobody in the guns forum has anything good to say about Democrats as if that means something (not to mention it just isn't true), and all the while I have yet to see you so much as remark about people that slam Democrats for other reasons, in this thread, and in GD: P in particular.


Now that its been put into terms that you could not possible "not understand"...

Your bias is showing.

[Paladin]

39. I'll Tell You Who I'm Biased Against

(And thanks for the slightly more coherent explanation, by the way.)

I'm biased against the gun radicals here at DU, who claim to be Democrats and yet do nothing but trash the party continuously because its firearms policy isn't right wing enough to suit them---and this same group then gives overt and unabashed evidence that half of them intend on voting Republican in the upcoming election. Yes, my bias is showing against these shitheads, and if you have a problem with that, I'm overjoyed.

Sure, there are plenty of other forms of warfare going on here in DU during this turbulent campaign season---but I think the vast majority of these combatants will end up voting Democratic when the dust settles, instead of galloping over to the Republicans on the basis of one narrow ideological matter. I'd say that you gun people ought to be ashamed, but I know damned well you don't have the capacity for it.....

[beevul]

49. We've been through this before, Paladin.

"I'm biased against the gun radicals here at DU, who claim to be Democrats and yet do nothing but trash the party continuously because its firearms policy isn't right wing enough to suit them---and this same group then gives overt and unabashed evidence that half of them intend on voting Republican in the upcoming election. Yes, my bias is showing against these shitheads, and if you have a problem with that, I'm overjoyed."

Your criticism rings hollow, since you say things that make this web site, and and presumably do things that will make the party - generally inhospitable to the very people that you claim will leave. You don't want any gun owners in the Democratic party, except those that will be compliant to whatever comes down the pipe, and take it with a smile, not utterering so much as a single peep. If every gun owning Democrat decided tomorrow to leave the party, you'd be right here slamming them for leaving out of one side of your mouth, and telling the entire world how glad you are that they're gone and that they never belonged, out of the other.

Your contempt for people that find rights pertaining to gun ownership to be an important issue didn't just spring to life after some random informal poll in an area ripe with disruptors. You have been spewing the venom you spew for years, and everyone thats been around for any length of time hereabouts knows it.

"Sure, there are plenty of other forms of warfare going on here in DU during this turbulent campaign season---but I think the vast majority of these combatants will end up voting Democratic when the dust settles, instead of galloping over to the Republicans on the basis of one narrow ideological matter. I'd say that you gun people ought to be ashamed, but I know damned well you don't have the capacity for it..."


Yeah yeah yeah...Nobody would ever leave the Democratic party if another party was percieved as having a much better record on Abortion, or the economy, or the war, or the environment, or civil rights, or <insert the pet issue that anyone has here>.

You need to take the clothespin off your nose so you can smell the shit you're shoveling.


You got balls, I give you that. Anyone that would take a Demographic that they clearly and obviously don't want having a seat at the table of the party they belong to - pretty much the way you view and treat most gun owners by and large hereabouts - and slam them for being a threat to vote other than Democrat, when you don't want them anywhere near voting Democrat anyway, and then goes on to preach that that other group should be ashamed...would have to have balls of solid rock. And no fear of what someone else might say when you're caught being dishonest or misrepresenting things, for that matter. And obviously no appreciation for the meaning of the word ashamed, or recognition of how that word should fit you.



I underestimated the depth and width of your contempt and what lengths you might go to in order to keep people from seeing it for what it is, and more importantly, to disguise WHY it is.


I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or not.

[Paladin]

58. First And Foremost, I Stand By Everything In My Post #39

Beyond that, I certainly don't intend to waste any time dealing with all the preposterous claims you've made. I will say this, however: I recognize that there's a huge and very real difference between gun owners such as myself and gun militants such as you. It's a distinction that's conveniently ignored or obscured in most DU gun threads. It would be hard for me to bear the sort of contempt you accuse me of towards Democratic gun owners, given that I've been one for upwards of five decades. Gun militants? That's a different matter entirely.

That's about it, I guess. Although it strikes me---certainly not for the first time in my clashes with gun militants---that you and I probably have a lot more common ground between us than we realize. What a pity it's got to be this way---but I learned a long time ago that there's not much point in attempting civility in arguments such as this....

[beevul]

61. I expect you would.

"Beyond that, I certainly don't intend to waste any time dealing with all the preposterous claims you've made. I will say this, however: I recognize that there's a huge and very real difference between gun owners such as myself and gun militants such as you. It's a distinction that's conveniently ignored or obscured in most DU gun threads. It would be hard for me to bear the sort of contempt you accuse me of towards Democratic gun owners, given that I've been one for upwards of five decades. Gun militants? That's a different matter entirely."

If you had a leg to stand on, you wouldn't just be dismissing my claims as preposterous, you'd be refuting them. You know it, I know it, and everyone else hereabouts knows it. I am not pushing to have any major gun regulations rolled back. I am putting my foot down, like many gun owners are, and saying enough is enough. You have this much, no more. If that makes me a "gun militant" then I guess I'm fine with that. Though I reckon I'd be the only "gun militant" that owns 2 antique rifles, a scoped bolt action rimfire rifle, and a single handgun which I rarely ever take outside the house, and NEVER carry from the property - and have no ambition or desire to own anything more. Do I have to buy more before I can really be a "gun militant"?


"That's about it, I guess. Although it strikes me---certainly not for the first time in my clashes with gun militants---that you and I probably have a lot more common ground between us than we realize. What a pity it's got to be this way---but I learned a long time ago that there's not much point in attempting civility in arguments such as this...."

Your probably right. I could tell you my grandfathers fly tying secrets, or show you some pictures of his collection of pristine functional antique bamboo flyrods. I love to fish, and I imagine we could shoot the shit (no pun intended) about fly fishing all day. Heres the thing though. Your going to get as much as you give, and your going to get WHAT you give. You don't exactly start off with sugar water, you know?

Its easy to write someone like me off, because I have had enough with gun laws, rather than discuss the issue. And people like me respond in kind. Maybe your right, and things have to be this way, and maybe you're wrong. But you'll never know when you start out talking the way you do about people like me.

Whether that makes a difference to you, I don't know. I'd like to think and hope it might, but in all honesty, when people say the things you say about people like me, it fosters a deep distrust in me and people like me, of the person saying them. You don't seem to understand that. I prefer to think that, rather than to think you just don't care.

[LanternWaste]

57. A poll about guns in the guns-only forum and it's only 46% that would bolt?

A poll about guns in the guns-only forum and it's only 46% that would bolt?

That's actually heartening to me-- I read it as meaning we fewer and fewer extremists these days...

[Paladin]

59. I'm Sure The Percentage Is A Lot Higher Than 46% (n/t)

[beevul]

31. But...but...but...

I could swear...I mean, I'm just certain...that there are people that claim up and down that a candidates position on gun rights has no effect in elections.

[fascisthunter]

34. for Hillary it Won't

it's too late no matter how desperate she reaches to the "right"

[jody]

36. The only sure way for HC & BO to erase the perception among voters that they are gun-grabbers is to

promise voters, "I will veto every bill that comes to me as president that infringes upon the natural, inherent, inalienable right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense".

No excuses for past statements, or votes, or association with people/groups that want to ban handguns, semiautomatic firearms, or all guns.

Just a simple, unconditional promise to veto such bills!

That would immediately gain them several million votes among the 80 million gun owners among the over 200 million electorate.

[Peace Patriot]

38. Some things are so wrong that it is difficult to argue about them rationally.

But I will try.

War is wrong. It is wrong to slaughter millions of innocent people because they can't control their government, or because our rich people want their resources. And what does war do to the society that wages it? It establishes an attitude of "might makes right," and an attitude by which citizens become cannon fodder for powerful leaders. Further, the society is inflicted with the permanent curse of war profiteers and eventual poverty. No economy can be permanently run on a war footing. If it is, war profiteers will MANUFACTURE wars to keep the boodle coming. Militarism, rather than creative manufacture and trade, will become the chief means of putting food on the table, and, when that happens, the society is near death.

Capital punishment is wrong. We are not God. We can NEVER know for sure about guilt. Period. And what does the threat of hanging, lethal injection or electrocution do to the attitude of the police, prison and justice system personnel toward accused persons and the citizenry in general? I have personally witnessed a police officer threatening a young offender with prison rape. Would prison rape, and the threat of prison rape, be acceptable if the police did not wield the death power of the state over its citizens? Capital punishment, like war, gravely affects our attitude toward all human life. It cheapens human life, and brutalizes society--from prisons to universities, from private homes to public courtrooms and legislatures. It creates abusive attitudes.

Torture is wrong. Whether the torture of prison rape and other brutality, crowded prisons, disgusting, non-nourishing food, and the constant threat of beatings, isolation, and death, or deliberate infliction of pain, threat of death, and death, for the purpose of extracting information, for punishment, or for sadistic pleasure of the torturers. Societies that tolerate torture for any reason are close to being irredeemably nazified, and are characterized by extreme callousness toward the pain, suffering, deprivation and deaths of others, violence toward women or anyone perceived to be "weak," that is, incapable of torturing and killing others, contempt for the intellect and for creative endeavors, and extremely irrational justifications for violence (for instance, that Jews pollute the superior Nordic race). A society that tolerates torture is only a few steps away from mass concentrations camps for "undesirables."

Guns and all the machinery of easy, instant death, is wrong. Nuclear weapons--which threaten the extinction of all life on earth, and the end of the human race forevermore--are merely an extension of guns. They are the ultimate gun. 'We don't like you'?--'We nuke you.' 'You present any threat to us, real or imagined, by your hostility or by denying us the resources our rich people need to make them richer, we will bomb you back to the Stone Age.' Guns, bombs, nukes MAGNIFY human aggression and greed to the point that leaders and societies that foster their use SERIOUSLY CONTEMPLATE KILLING EVERYTHING ON EARTH, to satisfy their lust for power or money. Put guns in the hands of African tribesmen, and they change, from a society in which murder and tribal warfare occasionally occurs, into genocidal maniacs. Put nukes in the hands of Dick Cheney and George Bush and they plan to nuke a Middle Eastern country, no matter the consequences to its innocent people, neighboring countries, or the earth itself! Greed and power unbounded! The weapons themselves unhinge human beings with the power of easy, instant death. That sane men and women can possess and use guns only for defense speaks to the immense restraints against murder and ethical and empathetic self-control that characterize the modern human psyche. But that such men and women would promote gun possession, and government possession of guns, bombs and nukes, at the risk of social chaos, as to guns, and mass murder and the end of all life on earth, as to bombs and nukes--that they would risk these things, at the hands of 10% of the human race that lacks those restraints--strikes me as mind-bogglingly suicidal, selfish, egocentric and myopic. Can't you gun lovers SEE what is going on, with the prevalence of weapons of instant, easy death in the world, and in our society in particular?

In 1966, I lost someone very dear to me to a crazy young man in Texas, who had easy access to any weapon he desired, and who--for reasons unknown, but which likely included the dehumanization of military training--took them up into a tower over a university campus and just started shooting people, at random. My loved one was shot through the heart, and died instantly, while he was having lunch with other Peace Corps trainees.

That was the first. There have been many since then. Senseless killers. People gone crazy. People who somehow lose their ethical and empathetic restraints against murder. People like George Bush. People whose craziness is fostered by, and exacerbated by, and made far, far, far more lethal by access to weapons of instant, easy death.

I do understand the fear of living in society in which people are murdered every day for nothing--for their purses or their sound equipment, or for no reason. I understand fear of the government--and the government having all the weapons, and the citizens having no defense against fascist government. But the answer to this dilemma is NOT to promote **MORE** weapons in our society, but to begin the process of disarming the GOVERNMENT and nazified police forces, AND society in general, of weapons of instant, easy death. What the hell is all this weaponry for, except to slaughter 1.2 million innocent people to get their oil, and to prevent the citizens of this democracy from stopping that atrocity? What good did your guns do you when George Bush was slaughtering 1.2 million innocent people to get their oil? If ever we had occasion to rebel, that was it. The truth is your guns are USELESS against a rogue government armed with the monstrous arsenal that you and I have paid for. What the hell is your gun for, except to shoot somebody who may OR MAY NOT be guilty of planning to harm you? Rid the government of weapons of instant, easy death. Simultaneously rid society of such weapons. And let us all be human again, with our inherent ethical and empathetic restraint BACK IN CHARGE OF SOCIETY.

War, capital punishment, torture, high rates of imprisonment, dreadful prison conditions, vast economic injustice, and masses of weapons of instant, easy death are all related. We cannot afford a self-righteous, egocentric viewpoint on gun ownership. We must look at the whole society. We must look at where we have gone wrong to produce something like George Bush. And, goddammit, he was most at home in Texas--this genocidal maniac--where gun ownership is a religion, and where my loved one was shot to death because of it. Fuck this worship of guns! Fuck it! END IT! Is your ownership of a gun worth my fiance's life? No, all you care about is stroking your weapons and feeling powerful, and feeling like nobody can get you. It is an illusion. We've been "gotten," big time. Our society and our democracy and our planet are DYING because all our money and energy is going into killing other people for their resources. It starts and ends with weapons of instant, easy death. Guns, bombs, nukes--all intimately related--in a culture of death.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

40. Democrats could learn a lot from Brian Schweitzer

Gun control is an issue that costs us a ton of lost votes, and it's largely unnecessary.

When the Bush Administration issued an edict that it was going to collect information on based on book sales and library borrowing, people went completely ballistic (pardon the term) about the government snooping into our private lives. But when the government starts talking about collecting information about everybody who owns a firearm or makes a purchase of ammo, not a word from the Civil Liberties crowd.

Now before you all start making charges that I'm comparing applies to oranges, I know the difference between a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" and a 9mm Smith & Wesson. The point here is that many gun owners, especially those in rural, low-crime states, see this as an entirely unwarranted "Big Brother" intrusion on their private lives.

[Blaq Dem]

42. If only they screamed a little louder about those wire taps

[JerseygirlCT]

43. Pander all you like, Clinton; it's over anyway. nt

[hardtoport]

45. I am a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment and a gun owner.

I am also a strong advocate for licensing of handguns. I believe anyone who wants to own a gun should be tested just like anyone who wants to drive a car is tested to

a) see if you can see more than 2 ft. in front of your face

b) see if you have judgment and common sense.

Under our current laws, a blind man could buy a gun and use it. Numbnuts like Dick Cheney who don't have the common sense to confirm their target before shooting are allowed to buy a gun. There is nothing in the law that says you have to be trained on how to safely store your gun, or which weapons might be more dangerous in an urban setting. I sure as hell don't want my neighbor using a hunting rifle for home defense instead of a handgun if I live in an apartment building.

People should have to undergo the same firearms training as the police and the military.

This is an issue I wish would be dealt with instead of only being trotted out as a litmus test for a candidate's place on the political spectrum.

[slackmaster]

56. Basic firearms safety training is a good idea

For everyone - It should be taught in public schools.

Your position on licensing is a political non-starter in most of the country.

[HuffleClaw]

46. wouldn't it be MORE newsworthy if she DIDN'T change her position on issue X or Y?

and they called kerry a 'flip-flopper' !

[michreject]

47. She shoulda said this 3 months ago

The race might have had a different ending.

[ruby slippers]

53. so she says this after her Bobby Kennedy statement?

[superconnected]

60. And the worst part is this neo con won't concede.

I'm always surprised how she hit bottom and yet keeps digging.

At least I'm reminded once again why I don't vote for her.