It is eye opening, yet not at all surprising to see several guys finding excuses to either support the most dedicated and extreme anti-gun candidate, Hillary Clinton, or to just stay home on election day... which has the same effect.

It all proves what I've been saying all along, and that is that support for our gun rights is not as widespread and strong as some here would like to believe. THAT is the reason we have been in a never ending battle to maintain our gun rights. If the 40 million gun owners in this country ever voted in unison, that would be a voting bloc that would stifle the threat permanently and immediately. Only one in eight gun owners cares enough to join what Bill Clinton called the most effective lobby in Washington... the NRA. Imagine the clout if we could just double that number to one in four. But anti-gun politicians can always count on support from people who consider themselves pro-gun, but actually undermine the 2nd Amendment.

Yes, there is always more to an election than guns. Failure to understand and respect the clear meaning and original intent of the 2nd Amendment has always suggested to me a likely inability to understand or respect the rest of the Bill of Rights. But some guys repeat the anti-gun idea that the individual right to keep and bear arms is a recent thing, not recognized by the framers, and only first recognized by Atty. Gen John Ashcroft in 2002. Even when corrected and shown proof, they persist... yet claim there is not an anti-gunner on this board!

Originally Posted By: King Brown
Ed, historically the individual "right" to bear arms is relatively new. I believe John Ashcroft in 2002 became the first federal attorney-general to proclaim that individuals should be able to own guns. The Supreme Court in 2008 overturned all mainstream legal and historical scholarship by ruling that there is an individual right to own firearms although with some limits. Obama said it again last week.

I believe that during the previous 218 years the Second meant what it said: firearms shall be held by "the People"---a collective and not individual right---insofar they are in the service of "a well-regulated militia." Was an individual right even mentioned at the Constitutional Convention or in the House when it ratified the Amendment or when debated in state legislatures? I don't think so.


"To disarm the people...is the most effectual way to enslave them."
- George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788




Voting for anti-gun Democrats is dumber than giving treats to a dog that shits on a Persian Rug