Actions and words
Kirsten Gillibrand denies that she has flip-flopped on the issue of gun rights:
gun rights advocates say Gillibrand “flip-flopped” on guns because they believe she’s changing her position for political convenience. Gillibrand’s office says she’s not changing her position at all.
And her statement:
“I have always supported law enforcement having access to all of the information they need to keep us safe, fight against gun violence, and keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
“While there is language in the Tiahrt Amendments that specifically says that it will not limit data sharing for law enforcement purposes, Mayor Bloomberg, Commissioner Kelly, and others have made clear that the law does on occasion obstruct information sharing for law enforcement.
“Therefore, I believe the law needs to be fixed so that it does not limit the ability of law enforcement to gather data needed to identify the gun traffickers that are supplying criminals with guns.
“While I am and always will be a strong proponent of Second Amendment rights, I have also always believed that law enforcement must have all the tools necessary to protect the public from gun violence.”
Either she doesn’t understand the issue or she’s playing both sides.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Or a little of both.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
She is a politician. I am putting my check mark in the box marked “Playing both sides”
March 5th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Shouldn’t she be playing it down the middle on this one? Her only focus right now is to hold off a primary challenge. Keeping Ms. Barrel Shroud out of the US senate ought to be EVERY gun nuts top goal.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Well, if the law prohibits the sharing of information with the mayor for use in civil suits and the mayor feels those suits are a way to enforce his idea of the the law, then on occasion the law does obstruct the sharing of information for NY law enforcement.
You got to get in the Bloomberg mind. But be careful you don’t get lost as all the turns are to the left.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Sounds worse then the usual anti-gunner to me.
Someone with whats percived as the “right intention” by “our side” but still votes like the rest of the anti’s?
Sounds like the AHSA all over again. Too bad.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Another blue dog scumbag? Cannot trust them.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
I agree with Kirk, she’s playing both sides. Typical politician.
March 5th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Those are the top three citizen-disarmament euphamisms right there.
Bloomberg created the NYPD’s Firearm Suppression Unit in 2006, no bias there.
Ah, the old “I support second amendment rights” + a qualifier.
Folks, I think she’s broadcasting loud and clear that she’s only playing on one side here.
March 5th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Arguments against the Tiahrt amendment should be countered with a question as to why they accuse the BATFE of doing a bad job.
Mayors want so-called “crime gun” trace data to begger fight crime. They want that data from BATFE. If the BATFE has it all, nicely amalgamated in their database aren’t they the ones to be rooting out bad FFLs?
Is Bloomberg accusing the BATFE of being slackers, not doing their job? Why doesn’t he say it, and urge Congress to do their job.
Of course, Bloomberg’s stated reasons are NOT he real reasons and this should flush him from his cover.
March 5th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I think she understands the issue. She’s playing both sides. She’s not abandoning her position on Tiahrt completely, just in part, by saying that it needs to be “fixed” while being vague on exactly what “fix” she envisions.
March 5th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
You just keep holding on to that thought, Sebastian. When she votes to drop the Tiahrt amendment, you can always fall back again.
She’s a dimocrapp working for Charle Schumer. What do you think she will do?
March 5th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Another blue dog scumbag? Cannot trust them.
Some of them you can. Dan Boren, Jason Altmire? Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. This has to be a bipartisan issue if we want to win.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:19 am
I’m still waiting for all of you who said ugly tacky things to those of us who saw this early on to apologize for all those ugly tacky things you said.
Funny how quickly we forget. Oh, I forgot, we weren’t right because…. we were right too soon.
Translated; “you can’t be right if your experience and analysis of the facts belies our hopeful hopefulness based on our need to go along to get along.”
SHEESH!
March 6th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Were her lips moving when she made that statement? Well then, she’s lying. She, like every other politician, is an incurable and chronic liar.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I don’t have anything to apologize for Straightarrow, because I wasn’t wrong. She was coming out of Congress with a good record on our issue which indicated she’d be open to wooing by pro-gun constituency. Then Bloomberg and the media piled onto her, and she’s retreated a good deal.
If even 2000 gun owners donated what I did to her, which wasn’t much, she would have been hard pressed to retreat like she did, because the loss of the money would hurt her more than the negative coverage from downstate media.
But most of you stayed on the sidelines, and threw rocks at her because pretty clearly she wasn’t going to be good enough. In short, you all are to blame for not doing enough to try to influence Gillibrand early on. She had the record of support on our issue. There was absolutely no reason for gun owners to be skeptical of her out of the gate.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
She clearly failed when it was her time up to bat. Fact being in New York, you tow the line or you are out. No amount of support by gun owners is going to change that fact. Anybody that knows NY politics or realize what a farce blue doggers are saw this coming.
Since she showed her true colors of being a political opportunist, she now has a chance to win a re-election bid. Winning in some podunk part of the state (non-NYC)is one thing, but the liberals dominate state wide. That is why I was never fooled when she was picked.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Yes Sebastian, the “we just didn’t try hard enough” argument. Same one the socialist nanny-staters make every time their policies fail too.
March 6th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
There are two things politicians care about. Money and votes. If you can bring those two things to the table, they will pay attention to you, provided there’s not someone offering more money and votes on the other side of your argument.
The reason Gillibrand fell back is because the downstate media were threatening both from the other side. Given her cash position, if 2000 New York gun owners had donated $50 dollars each, that’s $100,000 dollars. If 20,000 had done it, it’d be a million dollars, and there’s no way she would have backed down from her gun rights stance. It would have been political suicide for her to have done so.
Anyone who thinks all blue dogs are a farce is not paying attention. Some are on our side. Gillibrand could have been. There was no fundamental reason we needed to lose her.
March 6th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Anybody who votes for a blue dog over a conservative republican is a moron. As the spending bill proved, Blue Dogs are all bark and no bite. To think if only three more conservative sentaors were elected-relected, we would not have that spending bill. But too many idiots actually bought the blue dog lie.
It is waste of money to support a blue dog and a bigger waste of time to vote for one. I will save my money for somebody that cares and will stand up for my 2nd amendment rights on principle, not someone who will only do it for money and votes.
March 6th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
You’re bringing other issues into this. I’m taking about guns. If you don’t want to vote for a blue dog because of other issues, that’s understandable. But in New York, you’re likely going to be throwing your gun rights under the bus if you vote for most of the alternatives to Gillibrand. You’re not likely to get a hard core conservative running against her on the R ticket, and to say her potential primary challengers are awful is an understatement.
March 6th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
The point being, that you cannot trust a blue dog because the Democrat leadership will always have final say on the most important issues, whether they are ‘pro-gun’ or not. I suspect the reason she was initially pro-gun is because people outside the ‘major’ cites like Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, and of course NYC are pretty conservative (such as the best county in NY, Niagara County).
The reality of NY state politics is that all major political figures in that state are either liberal (like chuckles schumer) or not expressly conservative (like Tom Reynolds). So of course when she replaced Clinton as senator, she has to tow the line for her democrat masters from the south. Which makes her position as pro-gun a worthless.
Unless there is a tidal surge of conservatism in the big cities and NY state, anything pro-gun will be dead. So any support of people like Gilly for her pro gun creds is pointless. Argue or not, nobody that likes guns is going to give her money now for supporting the 2nd. Although, knowing how dumb NY state voters are, it is possible.
March 6th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
The point being, that you cannot trust a blue dog because the Democrat leadership will always have final say on the most important issues, whether they are ‘pro-gun’ or not.
Explain Jason Altmire, or Dan Boren. Hell, even Jim Webb and Mark Warner. The DC gun rights amendment passed with 62 votes in the Senate. There aren’t 62 Republicans.
Unless there is a tidal surge of conservatism in the big cities and NY state, anything pro-gun will be dead. So any support of people like Gilly for her pro gun creds is pointless. Argue or not, nobody that likes guns is going to give her money now for supporting the 2nd. Although, knowing how dumb NY state voters are, it is possible.
You have a point, but it exhibits a certain degree of fatalism I don’t share. Who would have thought a concealed carry bill would hit the floor of the IL legislature, or that Bryan Miller would have a really hard time passing a gun control bill in New Jersey? Five years ago I would have said you’re crazy. You can change the climate. You can force politicians to change positions. Nothing is engraved on stone tablets in politics, the situation is always more fluid than you think.
March 7th, 2009 at 12:09 am
“Explain Jason Altmire, or Dan Boren. Hell, even Jim Webb and Mark Warner. The DC gun rights amendment passed with 62 votes in the Senate. There aren’t 62 Republicans.”
– What do all those guys have in common? Oh yeah, it is easy to be pro-gun where they are from. Not like somebody such as Gilly, where the courageous thing would have been to stick up for guns? Some no-name place in no-name upstate NY, the dems could play conservatives. Besides, this bill is not a nation changing thing like the spending bill, and she folded on that.
I lost all respect for the blue dogs after that pitiful spending bill showing. Fact remains that if we only had three more at least moderate republicans in the senate (not liberals), then that spending bill would of been history.
“Five years ago I would have said you’re crazy. You can change the climate. You can force politicians to change positions. Nothing is engraved on stone tablets in politics, the situation is always more fluid than you think.”
– I will agree generally you can change the climate. Then again, generally speaking, Obama does support the 2nd amendment.
But specifically, for gilly and NY state’s case, there is nothing the gun owner can do. Even if all the places non-NYC somehow form into a upstate block, they still would not have the votes to counter anything downstate. The largest pro-gun county in the state, Niagara, is no match for a minion of NYC like the pittance known as Onondaga county.
Pro-gun stuff is easy in places like Oklahoma and places south (which a lot of those dogs your pointed out are). If you look at a situation specifically, then you would know how useless it is to argue that some great pro-gun change is going to sweep NY.
March 7th, 2009 at 12:32 am
It is easy in those places, because you have the raw numbers, but politics doesn’t have to be a raw numbers game. For the gun issue, it tends to be, because a lot of gun owners either don’t want to get involved, don’t have time to get involved, or don’t see that a small group of highly motivated people can make up what they don’t have in raw numbers in energy. The influence hierarchy being a reasonable guide on how to multiply influence.
But I don’t blame you for being pissed with Gillibrand on other issues. Most of the blue dogs are blue dogs because economically, they are either moderates or liberals. Otherwise they’d be Republicans.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:11 am
“I don’t have anything to apologize for Straightarrow, because I wasn’t wrong. ” -snowflakey
Yes! You do. and yes you were. You’re just not man enough to admit it.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:16 am
Ah! Conversation! I’m afraid.
March 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I know.