Sometimes, you need to look in the mirror before blaming the nra.

I sit here on my computer chair aching after a hard days work pouring cement and erecting steel(I'm a machinist by trade, but have moved on to another career)...And I read the days posts just as I have for a number of years now.

I read the posts blaming the nra for this and that. Claiming that the nra wants no gun laws. Claiming that the nra opposes laws against so called "cop killer" bullets. The posts calling those of us pro-rkba "absolutists" and "gun militants". The inevitable "shiny metal penmis" references. The comparisons of guns to nukes. The claims that we "rkba'ers" don't care about gun deaths. Claiming that we worship guns. I read those things, and I am reminded of when I became involved in the gun debate politically, and more importantly why I became involved.

So I think back to the mid 90s. Clinton was President. The now expired legislation known as the "assault weapons ban" had been passed, and the guns it covered described to anyone that would listen as "the choice of criminals and gangbangers" (or something like that). At that point in my life, I was a voter, but not very well informed. And, at that time, and for nearly a year after that, the "assault weapons ban" was a topic of daily discussion in the non-union machine shop I worked at. My co-workers there, were mostly all blue collar folks, and we were struggling to get a union into that shop. Every day, the discussion was about the "new gun ban", and both bulletin boards were so full of press clippings that management actually requested that everyone slow down, because they were full, every day for months. Most of these people - my coworkers - voted for clinton, including myself. Over the course of those months, it became clear that there was a resentment that crossed the lines of gender, race, religion, position, and class. One far deeper than any I had ever experienced. I heard the words "stabbed in the back" more times than I could count. I heard numerous people saying out loud that they would never vote Democrat again. I saw an entire shift in my shop consumed with the issue regular employees and management alike. For literally months. The more I listened though, the more I wanted to know and understand the issue. Time passed and the issue disappeared from the surface, and I moved on to several other shops, but my interest in the issue continued - fed in large part by the internet, and by the fact that I like precision made devices both firearm and non-firearm. We machinists like those kinds of things for the engineering aspects as well as a few others.

At this time, I think it is important to point out that I grew up around guns. Not so called "assault weapons" or handguns, but traditional looking semi-automatic rifles. I was a member of the nra for exactly one year from just after I turned 18 to just after turning 19. It was included free when I took an nra certified gun safety class.


At this point, I bet some of you are asking yourselves (and me) where I'm going with this.

All of the above led me to become involved in the "assault weapon" issue, and the larger gun issue. Both the treatment of guns, and the treatment of the people that value ownership of them on the internet, in the press, by governmental officials such as DiFi, Schumer, Brady, Helmke etc - those that can be identified with the words "the usual suspects". In a sense, those of you engaging in the treatment I mentioned - and lets not pretend here, everyone reading this knows exactly what kind of treatment I'm talking about - you made me what I am today in the context of this post. Thats right. You made me. Your actions and words led me to defend what I feel is under attack by you. And it its not just "me". Its us. Quite a large number of "us". Those coworkers I describe. A large number of people I worked with later down the road in other shops. A majority of people I even now work with. People all over the internet, and all over America.

You made us.


To our opponents(and you know if this is you): Have you given any thought to just how much your words and actions and support of attacks on a right and/or personal possession that we cherish - have caused our numbers to grow and empowered us?

I went thru pretty much the same thing down here, when I was growing up.

You post made me think back to my first post on this forum, I Will repost part of it here...

Posted, December of 04'



Whole Post here... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=95394#95510

ignorance and stupidity about assault weapons and its parent, the pre-existing or inalienable/unalienable right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

I just posted an OP about the latest White House confirmation that Obama supports the 2nd Amendment and supports an Assault Weapons Ban.

Only someone ignorant of the issue could claim to hold such contradictory positions.

You two guys live in a society where guns are like butcher knives - potentially dangerous but useful household tools.

I live in a society where gangbangers are running around with the kinds of guns you do NOT keep around your house for self-defense or deer hunting, guns they buy from someone who got them at a gun show without a background check, or buy from a few shady dealers (many in Virgina). Then they drive around my city, righting real and imaginary arguments and shows of disrespect by spraying the sidewalks with bullets, hitting and killing little kids, pregnant moms and targeted thugs alike. Everyone in law enforcement - the guys running for DA who want to clean up the streets, have examined the problem and say that the flow of illegal weapons into the hands of felons has to be stopped before the senseless death of so many innocent bystanders can be stopped.

These two societies co-exist in this country, hell, they co-exist in many states as well -- almost every state with a large urban area that experiences gang wars also has a rural area where folks have owned and used weapons responsibly for years.

And you're right - many of us don't know you, and so we don't understand your passion for your guns.

And you don't know us, and you don't understand our fear - you don't know how reluctant we are to go to something as simple as a little kid's football game in the city, for fear of being caught in the crossfire of testosterone-poisoned wild teens with automatic weapons.

So what's the answer? I don't want to take guns from some guy living out in Clearfield County, PA, maybe working in a machine shop, hunting deer that he'll share with the cousin he went hunting with, and the cousin will bring it into my office as Venison Salami. Hell no - I like being the recipient, down the line, of that Venison Salami!

But I would like to take those guns from the girl in Philadelphia who thinks someone is trying to steal her boyfriend and so is going to shoot her rival outside their high school, and maybe miss and hit me. Or from the asshole who is annoyed that someone parked in the parking space he dug out, so he's going to shoot the guy (and maybe miss and hit me). Or the gangbangers driving around center city looking for someone who disrespected them, who spray bullets in hope of hitting the guy, but might also hit me.

Yes sir, I would sure like to take away their guns. Yes I would. And they can all vote Republican for the rest of their lives if that's what it takes to allow me to walk the streets of my native city without being shot.

So how do you have these two societies co-existing in the same country or state at the same time? I don't know. My thought is sane gun laws that keep guns, as much as possible, out of the hands of felons and kids, without impinging on responsible owners, but that's not going to fly in our state, not with rural legislators.

So what's the answer?

Decriminalization of drugs.

The root cause of the crime problem you described is not guns, it's drug-fueled gang warfare.

But moreover, you are reinforcing memes that simply isn't true.

...for fear of being caught in the crossfire of testosterone-poisoned wild teens with automatic weapons.

Please provide citations for crimes committed with automatic weapons. You will be surprised how infrequently machine guns are used in crime.

I live in a society where gangbangers are running around with the kinds of guns you do NOT keep around your house for self-defense or deer hunting, guns they buy from someone who got them at a gun show without a background check, or buy from a few shady dealers (many in Virgina).

Are you aware that the only way you can buy a firearm at a gun show without a background check is if you buy it from an individual? Are you aware that this is no different than answering an ad in the local classified ad, or in the parking lot after work from one of your buddies?

Are you aware that dealers have to keep meticulous records of their sales that are subject to random spot-checks by the BATFE, and that discrepancies are grounds to revoke the dealer's FFL license which puts them out of business, and consequently you will be hard pressed to find a dealer willing to risk his business just to sell a firearm to someone NICS says can't have one?

This is the first link I found: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/19096134/detail.html

I can't find the link, but within the past few years, a bunch of guys in an SUV drove down Samson Street in Philadelphia (right in the middle of the business district where I worked), looking for someone who they were in a dispute with, and shot up the street. They used an automatic weapon, and I pretty sure some bystanders were killed. You're right that the other two examples - the kids shooting each other over boys, and the parking space shooting - were not automatic weapons. But they weren't drug violence, either.

But the key point isn't minutae about gun purchasing laws. The key point is that you seem to believe that what's good for rural areas should be good for us all. All I'm trying to say is that we are living in COMPLETELY different worlds and I'm asking for some understanding that there are many of us outside rural areas who live in fear. And feel hopeless, and are about as likely to see drug laws changed as we are to see gun laws enforced.

The media isn't gun-savvy, and repeats misinformation blithely. You can't go to a gun show and purchase a true ak-47. That requires paperwork, an FBI background check, a tax stamp, and a whole lot of red tape. It's been that way since 1934, and the 'assault weapons ban' had nothing to do with automatic weapons whatsoever.

"high-powered assault rifle" - (from the article you linked).. most 'assault weapons', including the clone that killed the two cops, are low powered compared to your average hunting rifle. Tim01 put together a nice chart that shows how 'assault weapons' compare to other caliber of hunting rifles- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=214519&mesg_id=214519 .

As has been posted below, Richard Poplawski did not use an automatic weapon (machine gun). He used a civilian clone of an AK-47, which is a semi-automatic rifle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Poplawski

This article is now 4 years old, but I am unaware of any other machine gun crimes since then:

Since 1934, there have only been 2 crimes committed with automatic weapons, and both of them were committed by police officers:

"Since 1934, there appear to have been at least two homicides committed with legally owned automatic weapons. One was a murder committed by a law enforcement officer (as opposed to a civilian). On September 15th, 1988, a 13-year veteran of the Dayton, Ohio police department, Patrolman Roger Waller, then 32, used his fully automatic MAC-11 .380 caliber submachine gun to kill a police informant, 52-year-old Lawrence Hileman. Patrolman Waller pleaded guilty in 1990, and he and an accomplice were sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 1986 'ban' on sales of new machine guns does not apply to purchases by law enforcement or government agencies."

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcfullau.html

You'll also note that according to FBI data, all rifles, let alone assault rifles account for less than 3% of all homicides - about half as many as hands and feet.

The key point is that you seem to believe that what's good for rural areas should be good for us all.

Yes, I believe that the Constitution should apply equally no matter where you live. I understand that because of population densities gang violence is more prevalent in urban environments than rural. The way to tackle gang violence has nothing to do with firearms or firearm laws.

A couple of states to restrict privately owned machine-guns to law enforcement officers only, but the gun still has to be on an ATF Form 4, and he has to do all the things the NFA requires to own the gun personally. In Waller's case, the gun was his. The other case a cop used his issue MP-5 to kill an unfaithful spouse and her paramour.

The gun used were legal in the sense the DEPARTMENT legally owned it and lawfully issued the MP-5 to the officer for use on-duty. What the cop did was misappropriate government property. It is no different than if he'd had run her over with the cruiser. It was not HIS car it was the city's.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/table_20.html

The breakdown was as follows:

Pennsylvania, 2007

Total murders...............................719
Handguns....................................439
Blunt Objects/Misc. Weapons..................88
Edged weapons................................81
Firearms (type unknown)......................60
Hands, fists, feet, etc......................23
Rifles.......................................18
Shotguns.....................................10


All rifles put together, including so-called "assault weapons," accounted for only 18 murders out of 719, or 2.5%. Rifles are not the "weapons of choice of criminals" in Pennsylvania or anywhere else in the United States, despite the fact that more Americans lawfully own "assault weapons" than hunt.


Nor are rifles commonly used to kill police officers:




The "assault weapon" hysteria exists because the MSM and the gun-ban lobby both like to sell fear, and both profit greatly from it.

Virginia Crime Data, from the Virginia State Police....

http://www.vsp.state.va.us/Crime_in_Virginia.shtm

In year 2008

Murders in Virginia, by type of Weapon

Firearm (type unknown) 85
Automatic Firearm 1
Handgun 95
Automatic Handgun 18
Rifle 13
Automatic Rifle 0
Shotgun 12
Automatic Shotgun 0
Other Firearm 6
Other Auto. Firearm 0
Knife/Cutting Instr. 48
Blunt Object 15
Motor Vehicle 4
Personal Weapon 14
Poison 0
Explosives 0
Fire/Incend. Device 1
Drugs/Narc./Sleep Pills 3
Asphyxiation 1
Other 12

Now tell me again, what is so bad bout Semi Automatic rifles again???

Facts will ALWAYS CRUSH the Anti Civil Rights advocate....

Guns are not a motive to commit crimes, they are the means to commit crimes. The criminals you describe in your posts would still be apathetic, violent, criminal, and psycopathic regardless of armaments they carry. Absent guns, they will replace them with "other" and continue to mug, rob, burgle, rape, and carjack other people.

A question that I ask myself is "Why do people in crime-ridden areas tolerate the crime?" The people of Pittsburg and Philadelphia can legally arm themselves with concealed handguns. Other cities, such as New York, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles, do not allow this, but those two cities can. So why doesn't a sizable portion of the populations routinely carry concealed?

Is it because your workplace doesn't allow it? Is it because the responsibility is overwhelming? Is it because you're afraid of prosecution by overzealous city attorneys? Is it because you don't think you can use it in a critical situation? Is it because you associate guns so much with negative things taht the idea of owning and carrying one repulses you?

I am just tired of the high and mighty attitude from city-dwellers on how enlightened they are and how much they need extra laws us hicks can't possibly understand.

What this hick can't understand why city folks tolerate catch and release prosecutors. It's not not like they have a shortage of shitheads and they need to let them out so the cops have someone to catch. They get some predator who has been robbing and carrying illegal weapons for years; arrest him, bail him countless times and are surprised he is still robbing and shooting people.

Their civic leaders are screaming for new gun laws when they let the scumbags walk on the carloads of gun violations. Think about it, what could be easier? All you have to prove is the thug is a crook and was carrying a gun. The asshole has a 23 page rap sheet, the cops took a Glock from his pants pocket. Send the bastard away for 20 years, "NEXT!"

You smugly announce,"If you want these illegal guns off the streets, you have to let the cities crack down, they're awash in them." Philadelphia certainly qualifies as big city, look at how the big city handled the three assholes that killed Sgt. Liczbinski.

Howard Cain was the trigger man. You can see his fifteen page criminal record here. Howard Cain
Look at all the violations of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act that Cain has been arrested for. Keep in mind, these are only gun charges. Over Cain’s criminal career he had thirteen arrests for unlawfully carrying a firearm, that were listed "Nolle Prossed," meaning the prosecutor chose not to bring charges. In a further eleven arrests for violations of Pennsylvania’s firearms laws, the charges were either withdrawn or dismissed. In only three cases was he prosecuted and either plead guilty or was found guilty. On weapons charges alone, he could have done 12 years in prison, in which case he would not have been on the streets to kill a police officer.

You can find Levon Warner’s criminal record here. Levon Warner
His is only six pages. Warner is facing three charges for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and for unlawfully carrying firearms, in his latest arrest for conspiring to murder a police officer. Do you think Ms. Abraham’s office will make them stick this time? Previously, the Philadelphia DA’s office thrice declined to prosecute Warner for gun law violations. The Philadelphia judicial system chose not to try him for six other violations of Pennsylvania’s gun laws.

And last, but certainly not least, Eric Floyd. Eric Floyd
Again, hopefully this time, he’ll actually face weapons charges, in addition to the murder charges. But again, in 1994, he was arrested for robbery, and the prosecutors declined to prosecute him for carrying firearms illegally in two counts. Also in 1994, the courts declined to try him for two counts of carrying firearms illegally.

Now keep in mind, this is only weapons charges. The rap sheets of these scumbags total twenty six pages, and contains all manner of things that should have kept them off the streets for good. Maybe you should look at about how absolutely and utterly broken the City of Philadelphia’s criminal justice system is.

So now Governor Rendell is grandstanding to deflect attention from a system that is currently not using the laws already in the books in prosecutions. Don't you think you deserve better from your political leaders? You going to chime in with the chorus of witless supporters fighting hard to pass more gun "restrictions" the crooks won't obey and your prosecutors WON'T ENFORCE?

While in this particular case it was Philly, the same song and dance happens in Detroit, DC, Chicago, and New York. Look at Oakland and another career thug, rapist and killer, Lovelle Mixon being lionized by a bunch of fruitloops as a "freedom fighter" for shooting four cops there.Lovelle Mixon Rally

You city-slickers repeatedly turn coyotes loose in the henhouse and wonder why you have dead chickens. Pathetic!

"You city-slickers repeatedly turn coyotes loose in the henhouse and wonder why you have dead chickens."

Ouch.

"I live in a society where gangbangers are running around with the kinds of guns you do NOT keep around your house for self-defense or deer hunting"...

And what kinds of guns are these? How do you know what is a good fighting gun and what is not? How do you know what is a good hunting firearm?

Drugs and gangs are the problem. Many factions would prefer to keep the gangs and illegal drugs and just try in vain to disarm them. Let's see... They are selling a product that is illegally smuggled thousands of miles across international borders but they aren't bright enough to buy and smuggle guns if they need them? You are naive, at best.

Lawful citizens all over the country keep arms in their homes and never use them in any manner that is considered illegal. Why don't you just focus on the criminals and leave the law-abiding alone?

...with a severe drug problem and a notoriously corrupt city government and police department. I know about the PD thanks to a (now deceased)
relative who was a Philly police officer and as crooked as Dick Cheney's EKG readout.

Tell you what. Why don't you start a movement to ensure that being a felon in possession of a firearm,
or using one in commission of a crime is a guarantee of a five-year prison term, instead of a throwaway
card used in plea bargaining.

That'll do more to help reduce gun crime than a feel-good law that bad guys won't give a shit about

You've been played about guns, the same way King Daley plays the voters of Chicago

And the "suitable for deer hunting" thing is a genteel code for "guns suitable for exurban and rural whites".

The attempt to divide gun owners between the "good deer hunters" and "bad 'assault weapon' owners"
has failed because:

1. People recognize it for what it is, a ploy to divide gun owners.
2. Most gun owners don't hunt (circa 80%)
3. By now, people own more 'scary guns' than the old-school variety you approve of.

Consciously or not, you are putting off the very people you are trying to 'connect' with.

If a gun is suitable for legal for use by any American anywhere, it's suitable for all Americans everywhere.

It may take a decade or two to get Heller accepted everywhere, but it will be. If it is necessary
to bankrupt corrupt municipal governments to achieve that end, or have them placed in Federal receivership, so be it.

It took the better part of two decades to get Brown vs. Board of Education to be enforced in Boston.

There are plenty of people in for the long haul to see Heller get the same compliance.

Exactly the weapons one would use for home defense. They don't "spray" bullets, and to be blunt you are NEVER going to be able to suppress violence by banning weapons. Contrary to popular opinion, access to guns doesn't make normal people go murderous over nothing. The vast majority of gun crimes are gang related, and gangs won't go away just because it's illegal for them to exist.

The point has already been made by others that no, you can't get automatic weapons easily in the US.

Patiod stated the facts as he sees them, without rancor or inflated illogic. While I don't agree with his final solution, I do understand his fears.

I live in Las Vgas in a relatively quiet neighborhood with little or no crime-been there almost 8 years. About 5 years ago, my next-door neighbor had a teenage son who got sideways with the wrong people. In the space of two months, there were two drive-by shootings. The second one led my to purchase a Mossberg 500 that still sits by the side of my bed... (BTW, the idiots used a 9 mm pistol and cheap ammo that didn't even penetrate the neighbor's hollow core door, thank God!)

The point of this is that ill-informed people who face this kind of violence on a regular basis have become afraid of what guns do in the wrong hands. They have no experience with weapons themselves, so disarming everybody sounds like a good idea. Our job is to give them the other side of the story so that they can decide for themselves.

I am willing to discuss this with anyone who will carry on a rational debate. Just don't quote the Brady Bunch to me...

offender rates 7 times greater between diverse groups even when each group is subject to the same laws.

I hope Obama and Holder can break the barrier and lead debate so we can attack root causes of violent crime and stop hiding behind platitudes such as "I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne".

to combat the drug and gang problem and not just the police and the courts. EVERYONE has to get involved. The police CANNOT do it by themselves. Taking away a certain "tool" of a crime, i.e. a firearm, only changes what someone will use next and not the crime itself.

Does anyone remember that story where a community/neighborhood(?????) ran out a gang because they were sick and tired of their crap and took back their streets?

I think that statement rather illustrates beevul's point. It's easy to blame "rural legislators" or the NRA for obstructing "sane" or "common-sense" gun controls, but that opposition is not necessarily some knee-jerk reaction. The fact is that many gun control regulations have, in the past, fallen prey to abuse, especially when their enforcement has been left to the discretion of sheriffs and police chiefs.

When people applying for a handgun or other firearms license have had to demonstrate a "legitimate need" for a firearm to the licensing authority (generally the local police chief or sheriff), said authority has all too often decided that the need claimed by certain classes of people (e.g. blacks, Jews, Irish, Italians) is never "legitimate." Similarly, the requirement in Michigan (only repealed last January) that newly bought handguns must be presented at a police station for a "safety inspection" was never intended to promote safety: it was intended to make it possible to deny handgun ownership to non-whites without running afoul of the 14th amendment. In places where prospective firearm owners have been required to pass a gun safety class or written test, police chiefs opposed to private ownership of firearms have been able to limit citizens' access to firearms by holding the tests/classes at times inconvenient to most people, not publishing the times and locations (or doing so at very short notice), or simply not holding them at all.

Similar practices are seen in the application of discretionary (aka "may issue") concealed carry permits. Most notoriously, New York City practically only issues licenses to celebrities (e.g. Robert de Niro, Bill Cosby, Howard Stern, Steve Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith) and those with large amounts of wealth and/or political influence (e.g. Sen. Charles Schumer and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., both noted gun control advocates). In Contra Costa county, California, a surprising number of CCW permit holders are contributors to the sheriff's campaign fund. In Marin county, the sheriff's office happily issues CCW permits to prosecuting attorneys, judges and Sean Penn, but almost nobody else.

Empirical evidence shows that such shenanigans do not keep firearms out of the hands of those inclined to violate the law. Your average gang-banger doesn't seek the permission of the local law enforcement agency before acquiring a firearm. Empirical evidence also indicates that very few crime guns (less than 2%) are acquired from guns shows or flea markets (see DoJ study "Firearms Use by Offenders" http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf). Empirical evidence also indicates that where there is a criminal demand for guns, that demand will be met somehow, and those who intend to use their firearms for criminal purposes are precisely the people who are willing to pay black market prices for them. Even petty criminals in western Europe have no more difficulty acquiring firearms than those in the US, in spite of tighter European gun laws. The main difference so far seems to be that the United States has more people willing to use guns for criminal purposes than European countries, but that is an issue determined more by culture than by the availability of firearms. Even in my country of origin, the Netherlands (I'm a naturalized US citizen), gun control laws didn't prevent Theo van Gogh, Pim Fortuyn or Arkan Yildiz from being shot and killed. If you've never heard of Arkan Yildiz, he was a Turkish immigrant who ran a late-night convenience store in Amsterdam. After having been robbed at gunpoint several times, he applied for a firearms permit, only to be told that self-defense is not a legitimate purpose for firearms ownership under Dutch law (which is true). In the course of the next robbery on his store, one of the two robbers shot him, and he died of his wounds before an ambulance arrived. By the looks of things, the criminal culture in Europe is shifting towards that of US, with a concomitant increase of gun violence, despite the continued extremely limited legal availability of firearms.

"Lax" gun laws aren't the cause of the problem, and tightened gun laws aren't the solution; the prevalence of violence--with guns or otherwise--is a cultural issue, and it will occur whether or not the tools of violence can be legally acquired. As the old saw goes "guns don't kill people; people kill people" and even though I will readily acknowledge that people without guns have a harder time killing others than do people without guns, the key factor is homicidal intent. Who would you rather encounter: Julie Goloski http://www.juliegoloski.com/ or a knife-wielding mugger?

I live in very rural Arkansas (Ouachita Mtns.).
Everyone has guns, including us.
Guns are necessary here, and are a part of the culture.

Every home or cabin here has at least:

*a .22 for small varmints that invade chicken coops or gardens (armadillo, skunk, possum, raccoon, etc.)

*a shotgun, usually 12 ga., with a wide selection of shot (7-1/2 - Bear Ball slugs)

* a "deer rifle" (ours is a 30 - 30 Lever Action Winchester)

* a handgun (usually 9mm or .357)

Many of the people in this area have been here for generations, and have developed their own customs. One of the deepest gestures of friendship or trust is the offer to let a visitor shoot the "deer rifle". (We all have backyard ranges). This is NOT taken lightly, and it is impolite to refuse. A final evaluation is made based on how the visitor handles the rifle. If you are comfortable with the rifle, and SAFE, you earn a vote of approval. It is very much like being voted into "the club". There is a noticeable drop in guardedness. The fact that both myself and my wife are comfortable with firearms have help us gain acceptance in spite of our Obama yard sign.

The BIGGEST impediment to votes for Obama in this area was NOT that he was black, but that "the Democrats would take the guns." We have been able to reassure some of the locals that this was NOT the case, but this belief is deeply entrenched. Our presence here helped dispelled the belief that ALL Democrats were wimpy milk toasts like Alan Colmes who wanted to take away the guns. We gave several neighbors "permission" to vote for the Democrat.

NOTE: The "debate" over banning "assault weapons" is counter productive. Anyone who is familiar with firearms immediately recognizes that there is NO black & white distinction between semi-automatic "deer rifles" and assault weapons.

This is a LOSER for the Democratic Party.

Because what I'm saying in the OP has EVERYTHING to do with the blogosphere in this related thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x223057