Gun Politics New York

The latest rumormongering has Mitt Romney picking Condoleezza Rice as his VP.  I would not go so far as Juan Williams in saying it would be a game-changer, but I do think she’d be a good choice.  Plus, she’s pro-gun as this transcript from an 2005 appearance on Larry King Live shows:

KING: We have a Second Amendment. People can own guns. By the way, what do you think about gun control?

RICE: The way I come out of my own personal experience, in which in Birmingham, Alabama, my father and his friends defended our community in 1962 and 1963 against White Knight Riders by going to the head of the community, the head of the cul-de-sac, and sitting there, armed. And so I’m very concerned about any abridgement of the Second Amendment.

I’ll tell you that I know that if Bull Connor had had lists of — of registered weapons, I don’t think my father and his friends would have been sitting at the head of the community, defending the community.

KING: So you would not change the Second Amendment? You would not…

RICE: I also don’t think we get to pick and choose from the Constitution. The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment.

KING: But doesn’t having the guns, while it’s protection, also leads to people killing people?

RICE: Well, obviously, the sources of violence are many, and we need to — to get at the source of the violence. Obviously, I’m very much in favor of things like background checks, and you know, controlling it at gun shows. And there are lots of things we can do.

But we have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that our Founding Fathers thought very important. On this one, I think that they understood that there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Alabama, when in fact, the police weren’t going to protect you.

KING: Did you see him take the gun?

RICE: Oh, absolutely. Every — every night he and his — he and his friends kind of organized a little brigade.

KING: How old were you?

RICE: I was 8. Eight years old.

KING: You remember that?

RICE: I remember it very, very well.

Some good news in the new CD-25: challenger Maggie Brooks has outraised incumbent Congresswoman Louise Slughter.  The latest Cook Political Report says the new district leans Democrat, but if Brooks is raking in the cash it’s a good sign the race will be competitive.

Slaughter is extremely antigun, being one of the lucky few to get some modest campaign contributions from the Brady Campaign over the years.  She’s older than dirt and could do a walk-on roll on the Walking Dead as herself.  Brooks would be a big improvement.

From Roll Call:

“… By now, Republican laments that presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney is not the most inspiring figure to ever run for president are well-known … at a June 30 fundraiser in Wheeling, W.Va., Speaker John Boehner offered a surprisingly frank assessment of the dynamic that surprised some in the audience. Aside from Romney’s “friends, relatives and fellow Mormons,” Boehner said, most people will be motivated to vote for him in opposition to Obama …”

It’s good that he admitted this because Romney’s campaign is not exactly setting the country on fire.  Gun owners certainly are not that enthused about him.

NRA should follow suit and acknowledge Romney is probably the better of the two choices and not try and portray him as something he’s not, like they did with John McCain back in ’08.

The Wall Street Journal notes that several Congressional races will be rematches from ’10 including Carolyn McCarthy in District 4:

“…  Democrat Carolyn McCarthy, who was elected in 1996 on a gun-control platform after her husband was killed and son wounded in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre, is again facing Republican Nassau County Legislator Francis Becker. Although he lost in 2010 by nearly 13,000 votes, he is pinning his hopes on a redrawn district map that now includes more Republican neighborhoods … Becker, whose grandfather once served in Congress, notes the new 4th district in Nassau County now includes an area that strongly supported Rep. Peter King, currently the only Republican in the House from Long Island …”

That’s the good news.   McCarthy has been going hard Left in her fundraising e-mails so hopefully her new district will be less supportive of her, although King himself has only floated between a C/D rating over the years.

The bad news is that Becker is as antigun as McCarthy.  While in the county legislature he first voted to jack up the pistol license fees then ban colored handguns at the request of Mayor Mike.

Nobody will shed a tear is McCarthy looses and nobody will cheer if Becker wins.