Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) fires his AR-15 with the Army insignia at Sharpshooters Gun Club & Range in Greenville, S.C., on Aug. 16, 2013. (Courtesy of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham)
Washington Post
There are 15 noteworthy contenders for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. Together, they own at least 40 guns.
Some of them have been building their collections since childhood. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) is up to 12 now, including an AR-15 assault weapon that he has talked about using if law and order ever breaks down in his neighborhood. Former Texas governor Rick Perry is so well-armed, he has a gun for jogging.
Others were city kids who didn’t own guns until later in life. Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) bought a .357 magnum revolver in 2010, the year he ran for Senate, saying the gun was for protection.
Two other city-bred presidential hopefuls — former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — don’t own a gun at all.
The stories behind how the GOP presidential contenders got their guns — or, in some cases, why they didn’t — are as diverse as the field itself.
Nevertheless, their political views on guns are almost all the same.
Nearly every GOP contender is broadly opposed to new limits on the purchase or use of guns.
In fact, with the exception of Christie — the field’s one true outlier — those who have been rated by the National Rifle Association range from A-plus all the way down to . . . A-minus. Eleven of them are scheduled to appear next month at the NRA’s annual conference.
The iOS gods seem to have vaporized my original post so I'll try to recreate it. Whenever I see the seemingly requisite posing with firearms, it brings to mind another political stereotype, that being the old kissing babies thing.
ReplyDeleteEven Democrats seemed to do it during the midterm elections, the most notable being my own Congresscritter as he was running a very close race,
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/2014/09/democratic-congressman-rick-nolan-poses.html
This photo was memorable not only for his ignorance of basic safety rules, but also due to the hypocrisy inherent in his posing with a rifle who's ownership he wants to deny to the common citizen.
Then there were some who no only posed with firearms, but also used it to distance herself from the President,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGG_OnGuvwQ
And then I'd be remiss if I didn't include this example,
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/02/white-house-releases-photo-of-obama-shooting-shotgun/
My personal feeling on the subject were actually expressed in the article in this post,
"To some gun-rights activists, what matters is not what the candidates shoot, but what they believe.
“I don’t care. I, personally, don’t care,” said Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for the Gun Owners of America, which styles itself as the only “no-
compromise” gun lobby in Washington. “What I care about is where they stand on the Second Amendment, not how many guns they have.”
"What matters is not what the candidates shoot, but what they believe."
ReplyDeleteExactly this--this, and what they do which shows what they really believe. And it applies to More than just 2nd Amendment. Lindsey Graham likes the second amendment and shoots an AR? Good for him. He also has yet to find a law violating the First or Fourth Amendments that terrorism won't scare him into supporting. When you've said, in an interview, "Free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war," you can forget any support.