“I love New York City; I’ve got a gun.”~Charles Barkley
As I often do in the morning, I settled in with a hot cup of Joe to read today’s edition of the New Hampshire Union Leader. Turning to page A3, Dan Tuohy’s headline read, “Giuliani takes stand on firearms rights“. Now, given Mayor Guiliani’s high public profile and his history on the second Amendment, I just had to read this story before anything else. I mean, why pass up a chance to be amused first thing in the morning? This might even be funnier than one of Raymond Buckley’s quotes.
Manchester Harley-Davidson dealership owner Steve Talarico introduced Mayor Guiliani, wanting to “help clear the air” of any misconceptions about the former New York Mayor’s record on gun issues. “The mayor seems to be probably one of the most misinterpreted politicians on the Second Amendment,” Talarico tells his audience. Really Steve? Damn! sorry about that…Guess the Mayor really is a gun guy when he told the St. Louis Post in December of 1993, “…a uniform licensing system with real teeth in it, and a period where you’d have to demonstrate your capability of using a gun, and then every two years you’d have to go back and once again show that you’re stable, your healthy, you’re able to handle a gun and you know what to do with it…”Now, that doesn’t much resemble a gun control measure, does it? how ignorant of me.
Or how about this little gem as recently as February 2007 while making an appearance on Larry King Live? King asks, “Favor Gun Control? Favor Brady?” Guiliani responds, “For Handguns, And I did…” Silly me, I took that to mean Rudy told Larry King that he supported the Brady Bill. I must have been in doofus-mode that day.
“The Second Amendment of the Constitution is a personal right that has been given to us by our Founding Fathers. It’s not something that can be tampered with. It’s not something that can be significantly abridged,” Guiliani tells the crowd. Really? Yet on March 6, 1997 While addressing the (NYC) Citizens Crime Commission, Guiliani declares, “The vast majority of Americans want more gun control. It makes sense. It is time. And we can no longer let special interests dominate this vitally important issue…” More Gun control? “Special Interests?” like…The NRA? The Mayor continues on, “Yesterday, President Clinton outlined his proposals for more stringent federal gun licensing requirements…I applaud the president’s proposals and I will support them any way I can.”
The Union Leader’s Dan Tuohy tells of a question coming from a guy wearing an NRA cap who asks the Mayor, “Do you support a so-called assault weapons ban?” to which Guiliani answers, “No.” Yet America’s Mayor, in a radio address on 1010 WINS New York, in March of 1997, warns, “We need a federal law that bans all assault weapons, and if in fact you do need a handgun you should be subjected to at least the same restrictions- and really stronger ones- that exist for driving an automobile.”
Mayor Guiliani, in giving his criteria for supporting Presidential candidates in December of 1995, told the New York Daily News, “There should be very, very few litmus tests, but someone who now voted to roll back the assault-weapons ban would really be demonstrating that special interest politics mean more to them than life-or-death issues.” Now call me simple-minded but to me it seems like he not only supports an assault weapons ban, but openly and shamelessly advocated for it.
Is America’s Mayor one of the most, “misinterpreted politicians on the Second Amendment?” Steve Talarico seems to think so.
