Guns and bitter

[JoFerret]

April 16, 2008
Editorial
Guns and Bitter

We thought the Republican presidential primaries were over. So we are at a loss to explain why Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been wandering around Pennsylvania and Indiana and anywhere else they might find a vote or a dollar arguing about which one cares more about guns and religion.

Whose brilliant idea was it to leave six weeks open before the Pennsylvania primary?

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton do raise important issues in their speeches. But the campaign, as seen on TV — the one that counts — has been consumed with the senators trading insults over Mr. Obama’s boneheaded remarks about working-class voters. They are not doing themselves or the country any good. A few more days of these Punch and Judy shows and even we will be tempted to tune out.

As has usually been the case in these spats, Mrs. Clinton is more the aggressor. After days of digging at Mr. Obama for saying that working-class voters turn xenophobic or “cling to guns and religion” because they’re bitter over lost jobs, Mrs. Clinton couldn’t resist a new nasty attack ad. What she has yet to figure out is that she ends up hurting herself — feeding her negative image — by attacking too long and with too much relish.

Mr. Obama is not a hapless victim. His comments made for just the sort of rookie error that the Illinois senator is prone to make, and they have reinforced a feeling that he can be too aloof, or, yes, elitist. His attempts to explain himself have fallen flat, as have his insulting Annie Oakley jokes and demands to see pictures of Mrs. Clinton in a duck blind. Sexist jabs are as offensive as racist jabs.

The fact is, on guns and religion, as on many other issues, there is no distance between the Democratic contenders. They each have their own religious faith, and they’re both, sensibly, in favor of registering guns and controlling weapons designed purely to kill people.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have been hard at it pandering to voters’ antitrade sentiments in rust-belt states like Pennsylvania, but it’s not clear why they’d want to spar over guns and religion — not big issues for Democratic primary voters. For Mr. Obama, talk of religion is particularly perilous, reminding voters of the racist oratory of his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. If the candidates want to debate these issues, they should do so on the substance.

Indeed, there are many big problems to discuss and not enough discussion of them. Both candidates, for example, were too passive during last week’s Senate testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, the military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the American ambassador in Baghdad.

It was shockingly clear that President Bush has no plan to end his disastrous war in Iraq except to hand the problem on to his successor. But neither senator made a mark questioning the general or the ambassador at the hearings. And they were silent afterward, while Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, talked of victory. The Democrats should have been explaining how they plan to bring American troops safely home and contain Iraq’s chaos. That will be the job on Day One for whoever wins in November.

The reason this campaign started out as the Democrats’ big chance to take back Washington is that Americans face huge challenges on which the Republicans have an abysmal record: Iraq and Afghanistan, the trashing of America’s global image, inequitable taxes, a flagging economy, epidemic home foreclosures, lost jobs, soaring health care costs and struggling schools.

These are the issues Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton should be addressing. We hope they get back to them, starting tonight at their debate in Pennsylvania.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/opinion/16wed1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

[JoFerret]

1. Anyone else agree with this conclusion?

The reason this campaign started out as the Democrats’ big chance to take back Washington is that Americans face huge challenges on which the Republicans have an abysmal record: Iraq and Afghanistan, the trashing of America’s global image, inequitable taxes, a flagging economy, epidemic home foreclosures, lost jobs, soaring health care costs and struggling schools.

These are the issues Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton should be addressing. We hope they get back to them, starting tonight at their debate in Pennsylvania.

[jody]

3. The electorate is about 200 million and 122 million voted in 2004. U.S. has 80 million gun owners

including 35 million handgun owners.

HC & BO realize what Al Gore and John Kerry found out the hard way, you can't win a presidential election by being perceived as a gun-grabber.

A presidential candidate has to be stupid to alienate 80 million potential voters by refusing to support the right to keep bear arms.

IMO the only way HC & BO can shed their gun-grabber image is to promise voters, "I will veto every bill that comes to me as president that infringes on the natural, inherent, inalienable right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense."

I don't believe either HC or BO have the courage to make such a promise and that will cost them millions of votes and possibly the GE.

[JoFerret]

8. And this on the anniversary of Virginia Tech

.

[JoFerret]

10. and no candidate has any guts

"twas ever thus.
This is just one of the reasons the rest of the world sees the US as "doomed".

[SteveM]

2. Maybe both candidates know how many Pennsylvanians are armed...

The editorial says:

"The fact is, on guns and religion, as on many other issues, there is no distance between the Democratic contenders. They each have their own religious faith, and they’re both, sensibly, in favor of registering guns and controlling weapons designed purely to kill people."

He is entirely right about the similarities -- and the faults -- of these candidates. Especially in the last so-called "sensible" sentence are the seeds of Obama's goof and Clinton's awkward identification with "gun culture."

Why, after all, should we register guns? You think criminals will do this? Why "control weapons designed purely to kill people?" These "controls" will be felt only by the law-abiding and do little or nothing to effect "control" of the criminal with a gun.

ANY law or policy which purports to advance a social good must stand scrutiny; i.e., data showing effectiveness, passing Constitutional muster, good grasp of terms and meaning. An AR or AK platformed black rifle can -- and IS -- increasingly used for hunting as well as target shooting; are they still "purely" for killing people?

From a pool of ignorance rises prejudice. Most people (including white people, as Obama implied) do not purchase guns because they are bitter about the economy. They do so for self-defense, hunting and shooting sports. But the tag "angry white male" has been used with a number of issues by mean-spirited "Democrats" (usually white ones) to somehow bolster their arguments for some agenda they are pushing. How many times have we seen or heard: "Guns are bought by white men to defend their declining status so that they might lash out violently"? Check the archives of "Forums: Guns" for a refresher. This hateful characterization spawns stuff like "clinging to guns" out of "bitterness."

Millions of Pennsylvanians (including women, blacks, GLBTs, Hispanics, Asians, etc.) own firearms for a variety of reasons. Are they bitter as well?

Obama and Clinton need to get out of the duck blind and pick up some books about guns; better yet, they should head to the nearest range and get an edumacation. They are ignorant concerning guns and it shows.

[slackmaster]

4. "registering guns and controlling weapons designed purely to kill people" is seen as incrementalism

With the ultimate goal of banning all gun ownership by private citizens. A universal gun registry might not be intended in the short term as a step toward mass confiscation of privately owned firearms, but it is an absolutely necessary precondition for confiscation to occur. Many of us don't care, but the issue is important enough to enough people to make it a potential tipping point.

[bossy22]

5. if im looking for a home-defense/CCW

firearm- i want one that is designed to kill people...

[slackmaster]

6. Be sure to get one in a caliber that starts with "4"

:hi:

[ProSense]

7. The NYT is full of shit

Mr. Obama is not a hapless victim. His comments made for just the sort of rookie error that the Illinois senator is prone to make, and they have reinforced a feeling that he can be too aloof, or, yes, elitist. His attempts to explain himself have fallen flat, as have his insulting Annie Oakley jokes and demands to see pictures of Mrs. Clinton in a duck blind. Sexist jabs are as offensive as racist jabs.

<...>

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have been hard at it pandering to voters’ antitrade sentiments in rust-belt states like Pennsylvania, but it’s not clear why they’d want to spar over guns and religion — not big issues for Democratic primary voters. For Mr. Obama, talk of religion is particularly perilous, reminding voters of the racist oratory of his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. If the candidates want to debate these issues, they should do so on the substance.

Reinforcing Hillary's "elitist" claim and bringing up Wright(?) in trying to protect their endorsement, I call BS!

On edit: Hillary is the one pandering.

[JoFerret]

9. I thought it was rather even handed and saying

to those who ask the questions at the debate: cut out the bullshit and focus on the big issues that face the country not this sideshow. You disagree with that?

[ProSense]

11. Hillary created and is managing the sideshow, almost as

poorly as she's managing her campaign.

[JoFerret]

12. She controls the NYTimes?

Damn! She is one powerful person. She should be president.

[krispos42]

13. I continue to think Obama hit the nail on the head with the "bitter" speech

Regarding religion, it's generally accepted that the harder times are, the more people tend to seek refuge in faith, and when times are flush and people feel secure and safe, they tend to distance themselves over time from religion.

I believe part of it is that also in good times, people are better-educated and start to notice factual errors, hypocracy, and manipulation in religion and it's proponents.

Western Europe, for example, has a strong social net, a pretty solid middle class, and a well-educated citizenry. Their church attendence is about half of ours, and greying.

Then you have people that go to church being used to vote against the best interests of their state and community because the Republican candidate will post the 10 Commandments in schools. Of course, to get them posted you also have to fight a foreign war, pay $3.49 for gas, and watch giant financial corporations get billions in federal bailout money while you sit on the porch of your nearly-foreclosed home watcing your kids play with toys that may or may not be coated in lead-based paint.

The Republicans have done quite well making times hard here, and it shows.



Regarding guns, it is important to realize that people that know guns know the bullshit that has been spewed by the anti-gun people. What defines a "deadly assault weapon" (quoted from the 2004 DNC party platform) is cosmetics! Pistol grips and bayonet lugs, for example. Or a barrel shroud, because God forbid people NOT grab guns by their barrels. Or a folding or adjustable stock.

And neither are they weapon of choice for criminals. They are not widely used in crime, and in fact are not particularly powerful, less so than most deer rifles.

In California, this short-barreled AR-15 is an assault weapon:




But this one is not:



Both fire the exact same ammunition from the exact same magazine and have the exact same mechanicals. 100% interchangable. And you can't spray-fire either of them from the hip and hope to hit anything man-sized past 25 yards.


And unlike other regulations and restrictions, the gun issue is an attempt to take away people's actual property. Stuff that they bought and keep in their house. Taxation is a concept. Guns are real.

[JoFerret]

14. I think he meant what he said.

There's an interesting oped in the NYTimes today by Bartels not about the Obama statement but about the sociology of small towns.