All about guns, legislation and politics in New York
A bunch of gun control groups including New Yorkers Against Gun Violence have endorsed Hillary.
From a practical standpoint this doesn’t mean much. It’s not like they’re providing her campaign with money and manpower. What they are doing is setting themselves up to claim some credit for her possible (probable) win on election day after which they will go around to Congress and state legislatures trying to use it to move their agendas.
Eric Schneiderman released a report saying most guns used in crimes come from out of state:
“… “The data makes one thing abundantly clear: New York’s strong gun laws are being undermined at every turn by lax laws in other states,” Schneiderman said. “Even as we work to make our streets safer, the illegal guns most often used in violent crimes continue to pour into our state.” …”
Then why don’t states like Virginia with “lax” gun laws have violent crime rates as high, or higher, than New York and specifically New York City does?
RRH Elections has a good rundown of state legislative races.
Some additional commentary:
With three serious candidates running, the open CD-22 seat is one of the more interesting races in the state. Here is a position statement on guns for each of the candidates from their last debate:
Martin Babinec: “If a gun is used in the commission of a crime, it should have really stiff penalties and keep those people off the streets … I’m a believer that we have to enforce our existing gun laws. And also the resource of things like the background checks and things that we have in place … so that it gets done properly.”
Kim Myers: “We can have responsible gun ownership in this country, we can absolutely protect the Second Amendment. I don’t really think that anyone is looking at repealing the Second Amendment. … I think both parties can come to agreement, simply no fly no buy, should someone who is on a terrorist watchlist buy a gun? I don’t think so … Universal background checks across state lines would be helpful as well.”
Claudia Tenney: “I voted against the SAFE Act, I think it was an unfair infringement against our Second Amendment rights … It is very important that we balance the issue of gun violence with our second amendment rights … What we need to do is root out a system that would determine that people … should not be carrying a weapon. We can also make sure that we prosecute an illegal gun crime.”
The Cook Political Report listed CD-22 as a “toss up” while latest polling gives Tenney an edge. Based upon her voting record, she is the best candidate for gun rights.
Here is the new anti-Hillary ad from the NRA:
I’m not impressed with this. While accurate, it is too dark and negative.
Hillary’s campaign released this ad:
I despise Hillary, but I like this one a lot, especially the part at 0:42. That is how The Donald should have been running his campaign from the start.
Buried in the deluge of leaked Clinton campaign e-mails is this, “Bloomberg aide suggested the former NYC mayor wanted to be Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state“:
“A former aide to Michael Bloomberg suggested the former mayor was hoping to be secretary of state in a Hillary Clinton administration, according to hacked emails released Saturday by WikiLeaks. In an email exchange between Bloomberg aide Howard Wolfson and Clinton ally Neera Tanden … who runs the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, said she was relieved and asked if there was a foreign policy position that Bloomberg would consider under a possible Clinton administration. “Is there something Mike Bloomberg would want to do in his life in an Admin?” she wrote. “Is like Ambassador to China way too small?” Wolson responded candidly: “Secty of state Which ain’t gonna happen,” he wrote …”
I suspect this more Wolfson thinking out loud as opposed to something Bloomberg himself brought up. Being Mayor of New York City is a big deal, even though it’s not top of the political food chain. In a way Secretary of State would be a step down because the job is subordinate to the President. As Mayor, he was constrained by the Governor and State Legislature, but was able to say pretty much whatever he pleased, something no President would allow.
Laura Ingraham is looking to place blame for what seems likely will be Donald Trump losing in November:
“The vast majority of Republicans want Donald Trump to be president …”
No. In an overcrowded GOP field, Trump received a plurality of around 35% of those Republicans who bothered to show up and vote in the early primaries.
“… The Republican Party is led by people who have more in common with the Clintons than with the GOP base. Their fundamental problem is that they are closer to Hillary on most issues than they are to Republican voters …”
In that they are elitists who look down upon average people, sure.
“… instead of having an honest discussion as to whether the GOP should be a globalist party or a nationalist party, everything dissolves into personal attacks …”
Is the GOP eating their own? Yep. That happens to some extent all the time and does not address the fundamental flaw of the Trump campaign which is this: While Hillary is a terrible person who would make a terrible president, so is Trump.
Both Hillary and Trump are ideological progressives so there’s not much difference there. Trump also did not put together much of a campaign, seeming to rely mostly on free media attention and Twitter.
Most import of all is that Trump himself did not spend enough time talking about serious issues, going with vague statements about “Making America great again” and how he could run the government “better” instead. Trump spoke more about the (alleged) size of his dick than he did on things people truly care about such as how his economic plan would help people save for retirement. The GOP leadership establishment did not make Trump do this, it was because of an inherent flaw in the candidate himself. If Trump goes now in flames the blame will be on him.
In the latest dump of hacked e-mails from the Clinton campaign, we find no love for the SAFE Act:
“Hillary Clinton’s staff prevented her from turning on the praise for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s SAFE Act when the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence honored her at a dinner last year and Cuomo was one of her invited guests. The Clinton staff’s concerns are laid out in one of the hacked campaign emails available on Wikileaks … Clinton’s point person on gun policy, Corey Corciari, agreed with the need to tread lightly on the SAFE Act … “Don’t see a need to fully embrace the SAFE Act. There are some controversial items in there,” Corciari said, without being specific. “We can highlight the pieces that fit within our agenda.” …”
This revelation isn’t a surprise. Democrats have long known that gun control is a stinker, especially Bill Clinton. It just brings up the question again as to why Cuomo went full retard on the issue. He had to have known, like Hillary’s staff did, that it would be bad for his presidential ambitions. I have never been able to find a concrete answer as to why he did it. The late Bill Nojay told me he heard 6-7 different reasons as to Cuomo’s motivation. My theory has been that Bloomberg sold him on the idea, not caring about Cuomo’s political ambitions, and some members of the legislature went along with it as payback knowing it would blow up in Cuomo’s face which it did.
The Clinton campaign hasn’t commented on the leaks and I don’t expect them to. It will be interesting if any of the gun control groups do as it shows their political impotence.