As the Knish points out, with a new Carter in office, the cycles of 1970′s high crime rates in cities are coming full circle again. In calling attention to the pre-Giuliani days of New York City there are a whole slew of films that gave a good example of what gritty Gotham was like – Death Wish, The Warriors, Serpico, Panic in Needle Park, Dog Day Afternoon, Alphabet City, Fort Apache: The Bronx, The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, Across 110th Street, Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy. The sunny city of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” had long since pretty much vanished. Giuliani made it safe for their heads up their butts hipsters to take over Williamsburg by giving them a sense of security to be able to sip their lattes all night at the myriad of coffee shops.
Daniel Greenfield
In Washington D.C., the office of the Honorable Joseph Biden was busy phoning up everyone from Mothers Against Pointy Things to the Gay Communist Gun Club of America to Wal-Mart to invite them down for a serious no-holds-barred discussion about doing to the Bill of Rights what his boss had done to the economy.
Meanwhile over in Chicago, the 13th corpse was being scraped off the sidewalk. In just nine days, Obama’s hometown, one of them anyway, was already 15% ahead of last year’s whopping murder rate. East of Second City, in the city that would be Chicago if it wasn’t for a lot of money and a Republican mayor, one of the city’s liberal judges gave civil rights activists a late Christmas present with a verdict against the NYPD’s ‘Stop and Frisk” program in the Bronx.
The Bronx is the part of New York City voted most likely to be Detroit. An ironic fate for a borough that built the city’s biggest zoo and botanical garden as a way of keeping the riffraff out of what was once an exclusive area. It’s the place where you are mostly likely to shoot or be shot at. The Bronx is the fourth smallest borough of the five, but it’s number one in murders, rapes and robberies.
New York’s Finest commute to work from Staten Island, where the homicide rate is less than half that of the Bronx. In the 40th Precinct (you may know its neighbor, the 41st Precinct from the movie, Fort Apache, The Bronx) last year there were 12 murders, 21 rapes, 476 robberies, 387 felony assaults, 1,337 misdemeanor assaults, 62 shooting victims and a partridge in a pear tree.
That’s not too bad considering that there were 72 murders there in 1990. In 1998, after 4 years of Giuliani, 72 murders had become 15. The two forces that transformed the 40th from a really bad place to just a bad place were aggressive policework and gentrification. The aggressive policework wasn’t pretty, but it made the gentrification possible and kept New York City from turning into Newark or Chicago.
Stop and Frisk, which is just what it sounds like, allowed police to stop suspects and frisk them just on suspicion that they might be up to something bad. It’s one of those programs that upsets people on both sides of the aisle, but it happens to work because it lets police stop gangbangers before they bang and lowers the murder rate to something you can actually live through.
Civil rights groups have been protesting against Stop and Frisk for years because it’s racist, in the sense that it tends to take place outside dilapidated Bronx apartment buildings rather than Upper East Side high rises. For the 40th Precinct, civil rights group statistics show that 17,690 stops were made, and of those stopped, 9.200 were black, 6,039 were Hispanic, 119 were white, 63 were Asian and 15 were American Indians. Considering the lack of major tribes in the five boroughs, it is a testament to the NYPD’s dedication to diversity that they were able to find and frisk that many Native Americans.
Since the only white people in the 40th are hipsters who think Williamsburg is over and went looking for somewhere edgier to set up their metal working studios, these numbers are not too surprising. [.......]
Water dripping down eventually bores a hole in a rock. Civil rights lawyers suing and screaming long enough eventually dismantles a police force. Crime is rising again in New York City, which makes it more dangerous to move to some formerly dilapidated part of the city and set up shop in an abandoned warehouse while constructing giant jagged metal figurines as a protest against capitalism that will one day decorate the lawn of a corporate office park.
Bronx crime, like most urban crime, is driven by gangs. The Black Assassins, Majestic Warlocks and the Black Muslim Five Percenters are one of the 70 street gangs in New York’s own Detroit. While civil rights activists call for fighting gang violence with peace treaties and afterschool programs, there are really only two things that work. Either a police state of the kind you will find in the Bronx where the cops monitor the Twitter and Facebook postings of gang members, and their text messages, or an armed population that is capable of defending itself against them.
Liberals invariably choose none of the above.
[........]
In the 90s, the Democrats learned that they could be tough on crime or they wouldn’t even be elected dogcatcher. It was a lesson that the humiliation of Michael Dukakis drove home, and no matter how often Democrats denounced the Willie Horton ad, they took its lesson to heart. At least until now.
While Obama pitches gun control, his Attorney General has undermined local law enforcement at every turn. It would seem that the only crime that Obama wants to fight is the crime of owning the type of rifle that those experienced hunters, Barack Obama and Diane Feinstein, have decided that no hunter needs. But the idea that gun control is a substitute for law enforcement is laughably insane, even by Chicago standards.
Urban mayors like to believe that cracking down on rural sporting goods stores will end the killing. It won’t. The real gun culture isn’t at gun shows and Wal-Marts, it’s down in the 40th where kids grow up listening to 50 Cent and where pointing your own gun sideways is a rite of passage. There’s no place in the United States where you can legally sell heroin, but heroin use is still off the charts in the Bronx. Gun control nationwide will be just as effective as heroin control in the Bronx.
[.......]
When you scuttle both law enforcement and gun ownership, then what remains is the hell that the country descended into in the seventies when civil rights lawyers got their way and major cities, including New York City, became unlivable.
In 1965, there were 836 murders in New York at a rate of 4.5 per 100,000 people. In 1976, the number of murders had increased to a grisly 1,969 to a rate of 7.2. By 1993, the last year of David Dinkins, New York City’s first black Democrat mayor, they peaked at 2,420 at a 13.3 rate. Only a little below Chicago’s current 15.65 rate. By Giuliani’s second year in office, the city was down to 1,550 murders, a low that it hadn’t seen since 1970. By the time he left office, there had only been 960 murders at a rate of 5.0 per 100,000 people. Giuliani had taken the city back to 1965 and its murder rate today is, incredibly, at the national average for the northeast.
The New York City success story was the triumph of prosperity and the police state. With enough cops on the street, given a free hand, New York City could have the murder rate of liberal paradises like Austin or Seattle. Giuliani made it safe for liberals to move back to New York City and play artist, uptown banker with social justice commitments, aspiring actress, foodie, tech guru or random trendy urbanite. And once they were there, the golden fountain began to flow, crime rates continued falling and the city could be taken off life support.
Reagan cleaned up the economy and allowed liberals to begin safely getting rich again. Giuliani cleaned up the city and allowed liberals to safely walk its streets. Both men fulfilled the traditional function of the Republican as the paternal figure who steps in when baby makes a mess and cleans it up while allowing baby to believe that it was done by magic.
Liberals cannot come to terms with what happened in New York City, because it would force them to acknowledge that their lifestyle is made possible by either right wing suburban cops violating civil rights or by fleeing to sheltered cities with low minority populations. And with a new Carter in office, the cycle of the seventies is coming full circle again, not just militarily or economically, but also when it comes to crime rates.
Urban liberals like to believe that it was unthinking city planners and the automobile that destroyed the city, when it was actually them. The city planners are still unthinking and the automobiles are still motoring, but the cities are back only to the extent that law enforcement has undone some of their worst mistakes. Now with an urban liberal in the White House, the mistakes are being repeated again, backed once again by the power of the Federal government.
The rural area is protected by the 2nd Amendment and the urban area by the police state. The liberal, who is only interested in enforcing laws against real criminals like people who fill in swamps or make politically incorrect jokes, would like to take away the firearms of the rural gun owner and dismantle the law enforcement defenses of the urban area. [.......]
Down in the 40th, the boys in blue still walk the streets as they do in so many other cities. It’s a thin line here and everywhere else where everyone wants more cops, but can’t afford to pay them. [.......] Gangs, many of them even more dangerous than the ones you’ll find in the Bronx, are spreading across the country. Stopping them will take more than the police state that Bloomberg still oversees.
The old urban lesson of the seventies is that the difference between civilization and the jungle is security. And there is no substitute for security, whether it’s the security of one man with a gun, or a very expensive police department of men with guns carrying out the marching orders of statistical analysts.
The political left has forgotten the lesson of Willie Horton in its arrogance and its base of metal working artists in converted warehouses has forgotten the lessons of that old Times Square that they never visited, but still nostalgically pine for. [.......]
Read the rest – Crime and Disarmament
It’s just odd that Rudy Giuliani who cut taxes, reduced regulations and lowered crime is considered a RINO but Santorum who advocates Redistribution of wealth and some Socialist family-government partnership is considered a Conservative hero.
Funny how that works.
Rudy was a victim of his own success. By making NY safe and prosperous, that enabled the Hipsters to take over. it set the stage for Bloomberg’s Fascist regime.
Rodan wrote:
Too bad he’s not Nixon.
.
Great analogy there. Reagan’s economic polices allowed Progressive to get rich and then use that money against the Right.
By the way I did not realize there is a “party” line here on ex presidents and that if they have not been in office for a while we cannot discuss the effects of their administrations. I guess that means we cannot talk about Lincoln any more.
Rodan wrote:
Yes but he was no Nixon and no Bush, therefore he was not a real Republican.
@ Speranza:
To be considered a Conservative you have to mouth red meat rhetoric. results do not matter. I’m sure if Fidel Castro spewed “conservative” rhetoric, he would be considered a Conservative hero.
@ Speranza:
Reagan and Goldwater are not real Conservatives by the standards of some. They believed in results, not rhetoric.
Rodan wrote:
So many neighborhoods that used to be rather “dodgy” became “trendy” thanks to Giuliani’s economic and crime fighting policies. Now they are filled with hipsters who prefer Obama.
Speranza wrote:
No one can mention LBJ nor Carter as well.
Rodan wrote:
They were (at least Reagan was) results oriented. Talk is cheap.
@ Speranza:
Williamsburg is the perfect example. When I was growing up, that’s where you went to get good weed. Now it’s were you go to have a drink or eat good food.
Rodan wrote:
I will talk about who I want to talk about. I will not be stifled by the party line. I am a free man. This is not Stalin’s USSR and I do not subscribe to group think
@ Speranza:
I think that’s why there’s some resentment towards Rudy. He actually proved Conservative polices can work. Whereas others were failures despite their rhetoric.
Rodan wrote:
It was a crime ridden, run down, seedy area until R.G. made it safe thanks to better policing and zero tolerance of crime. The latest trendy neighborhood is of all places Bushwick, Brooklyn.
@ Speranza:
You must be loyal to the Party. Any bad talk against the Party members is heresy!
Rodan wrote:
He was into quality of life, economics, safer streets, and giving businesses incentives to hire people. He did not waste his time getting all bent out of shape over television characters.
A lot of humorless fools were dumping on Rudy when he ran for president because he’d had the temerity to appear in drag at one of the humorous press club dinners.
I thought it showed that he was so self-confident he could do something outrageous and not give a shit. I thought it showed he had a pretty good sense of humor, particularly about himself—which is something that could certainly never be said about Bloomberg, or about Barack Obama.
But a lot of people were down on Rudy for “being a perv”—even though Milton Berle, who nobody thought a “perv,” made a nice career for himself by occasionally donning a dress.
Rudy ran a disastrously bad Presidential campaign. But I thought it really, really sad that so many people who should have supported him on his record were willing to disown him for something that actually showed pretty good character.
Rodan wrote:
Spoken like a resident of Oceania.
@ Speranza:
Bushwick, which we used to call Bucktown. Unreal, that was another place to get weed. Boy has the world turned!
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
It was an annual NYC press roast skit. The folks over at Hot Air kept bringing it up. Over at Hot Air they are still pining for what they refer to reverentially as “the lady from Alaska”.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
These are the same people who think Santorum is some great Conservative hero. He’s a Socialist but becasue he used rhetoric, they loved him. Rudy was a real Conservative and because he did not use rhetoric, they did not like him.
Rodan wrote:
Another trendy place is Washington Heights (the upper Washington Heights above 163rd Street). Washington Heights used to be another drug place run by Dominican gangs.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
@ Speranza:
Rudy never called Islam the religion of peace and never met with islamic terrorists. Unlike another Conservative hero.
@ Speranza:
There too? True story, I was not considered a real Dominican by people there because my Dominican family was actually Lebanese. I would point out, they were really Africans. let’s just say it didn’t go well!
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Rudy is competent & he finds efficiencies.
Imagine if Bloomberg had been Mayor of NY on 9-11.
Rudy would have been a really good President.
Rodan wrote:
Santorum is unelectable and is an angry snarky fellow. He hurt the GOP by staying in the primaries so long that Romney had to waste a lot of time in debates with him all the while Obama was attacking him (Romney) every day and Mitt was not responding to those attacks. Obama was able to define Romney early and by the time Romney countered in early October at the first debate it turned out to be too late. Fatal error.
@ Rodan:
I wish Rudy had stuck it out in 2008. He would have had no trouble taking it to Obama. When I heard his nominating speech for Sarah Palin in 2008, I said “damn, look what we lost.” But frankly, the media roundly ignored him and the establishment said it was going to be McCain.
RIX wrote:
Bloomberg would have been spouting the bullshit line “Islam is a religion of peace”. R.G. while not trashing Muslims never said anything as vapid as that.
Rudy has the RoP cold & doesn’t do the PC thing about them.
@ Carolina Girl:
Rudy took the fight to Dinkins. He assembled a very powerful coalition in NYC. He attracted working class Whites, Jews, Ethnic Whites and got 45% of the Hispanic vote. He would have been very formidable. But alas, he was not Conservative enough for people.
@ RIX:
While his handling of the tragedy of 9/11 was certainly his finest “moment” as it were, his giving back the check to that arrogant Saudi prince is in the running for no. 2 in my book.
Carolina Girl wrote:
I am not sure anyone would have beaten Obama in 2008 but at least we would have had a candidate who clearly delineated differences with Obama and would have been committed to winning. Romney won the first debate and then held back in debates 2 and 3. he sat on a lead at it was only the beginning of the 4th Quarter.
Also I believe there was a certain anti Italian-American Northeast prejudice against Giuliani in some Republican quarters.
@ Rodan:
Thin is, Guilianni is anti-second amendment, that’s enough to drive him to the RINO reservation.
@ Rodan:
I see Rudy with the six-guns on the hip, cleaning up “Dodge City.”
RIX wrote:
he would have been the most fiscal and economically Conservative President since Calvin Coolidge. He was Hawk on foreign policy, but not a nation builder. But he was not a Conservative according to some, but the Socialist Santorum was. Go figure.
Carolina Girl wrote:
The Saudi check give back actually is number 1 for me.
@ Rodan:
Guiliani is pro-abortion and pro-gun control. How is that conservative? He is a moderate, no different really than Romney. What is his stance on Syria? I haven’t heard.
AZfederalist wrote:
He is not anti second amendment. He was mayor of NYC. No mayor of a big city is going to tell its citizens to arm up.
AZfederalist wrote:
He was Mayor of NYC, so he had to take that position. Once he was out of office, he changed his views.
How is Rudy who has a record of economic/fiscal Conservatism a RINO, but Santorum who is a Socialist isn’t? Please explain.
Speranza wrote:
RAAAACISM? I call bullshit on that. It is bullshit when the Left does it and it is bullshit when you do it. Guiliana is pro-gun control and pro-abortion. He couldn’t overcome those defects in his character to become President. He didn’t really run, anyway. He expected to be coronated, and when that didn’t happen he quit.
Iron Fist wrote:
He is not pro abortion, he does not want to criminalize abortion, neither do I. Does that make me not a conservative???
No big city mayor is going to urge its citizens to carry guns.
Iron Fist wrote:
How is Santorum a Conservative when he was a Socialist?
Rudy cut taxes and made NYC business friendly. He also reduced crime. Unlike a certain Conservative hero, he never called Islam the religion of peace nor he never shook hands with an Islamic terrorist.
On guns, Rudy changed his views once he was out of office.
@ Iron Fist:
He changed his stance on guns once no longer NYC Mayor. If Hugo Chavez was Pro Life and Pro Gun, would the base overlook his Marxism if he ran for office in America?
Iron Fist wrote:
Check out some of the comments on Hot Air and Ace of Spades when he was running and then get back to me. I have work to do and I am out of here.
@ Speranza:
Stalin would probably be loved by some Conservatives if he was pro Life and Pro Gun. This proves to some Conservatives Economic/Fiscal stances do not matter.
@ Speranza:
That’s the same crowd calling Marco Rubio a Cuban worm and Latin invader. I oppose Rubio on his foreign policy, not ethnicity. I would vote for him if he was the nominee despite that.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Rudy made a very, very stupid decision in 2008; to sit out the early primaries and stake his entire pot on Florida.
He may have believed that Florida, filled with New York retirees, would go for him in a big way. It was a terrible miscalculation, on three counts:
1) The national/New York left-liberal press always hated Rudy, and his sitting out the early primaries gave them the chance to ignore him, which meant he had no momentum.
The early primaries are, for the most part, garbage, but the press builds them up into a breathless horse race. Remember when South Carolina was “the primary that guaranteed you’d be nominated?” That’s the line they pushed this year. Gingrich took it—and suddenly SC wasn’t that important any more, and the press went on to help Romney trounce Gingrich. Rudy’s failure to realize the importance of the early primaries as regards voter visibility—he’d be going into Florida cold, fighting whatever momentum the other early participants had acquired—was disastrous.
2) Rudy did not realize that the expatriate New York vote in Florida was largely left-liberal, and that they hated him. Their NY Times that they still got delivered at the Del Ray Beach condo told them to. Florida was not the friendly ground he thought it would be.
3) Having sat out the early contests, and staked his campaign entirely on Florida, Rudy had to win it—or be out of the race. One turn of the roulette wheel, and if the wheel was wired, or if he was just unlucky, boom. Done. And that’s what happened.
@ buzzsawmonkey:
Interesting, Buzz -- thanks.
@ Rodan:
What Rudy lacked for many people was perfection.
Never going to find that.
A little funny someone sent me:
“When former top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, got called into the Oval Office by Barack Obama, he knew things weren’t going to go well when the President accused him of not supporting Obama in his political role as President. > > “It’s not my job to support you as a politician, Mr. President, it’s my job to support you as Commander-in-Chief,” McChrystal replied. > > Not satisfied with only accepting McChrystal’s resignation, the President made a cheap parting shot. > > “I bet when I die you’ll be happy to piss on my grave.” > > The General saluted: “Mr. President, I always told myself that after leaving the Army I’d never stand in line again.”
@ Carolina Girl:
Rudy’s error was glaringly obvious from the beginning, before he actually lost. It was maddening to see him lumbering himself that way.
@ Rodan:
I think I related earlier this week the dingbats at Freep and Twitter calling Rubio not a citizen. By all means, folks, let’s eat our own before the election.
Rodan --
These are supposed to be our ALLIES, right?
http://weaselzippers.us/2013/01/11/video-syrian-rebels-praise-bin-laden-celebrate-destruction-of-twin-towers-on-911/#disqus_thread
@ Rodan:
When did we put an exemption into the Constitution for certain big cities?
lobo91 wrote:
So Rudy was to be all Pro Gun when running for Mayor? He never would have beaten Dinkins if that is the case. I did not like NYC’s gun laws, but I never expected Rudy to change them. He spent his political capital on improving the economy and reducing crime.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Yes, those are the freedom fighters the GOP Establishment led by McCain wants to go war for. Amazing isn’t it?
@ Rodan:
So it is OK to violate the Constitution if it wins you elective office? And you wonder why I didn’t support Guiliani for President?
@ Rodan:
I notice you didn’t answer my question.
The Constitution either means what it says or it doesn’t. And it either applies to the entire country or not.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Look there are thing one can be against Rubio for. I do not care for his Progressive Nation Building Interventionist foreign policy. My guy for the GOP nod is Rand Paul. But if Rubio is the nominee, I would vote for him. He’s good on economic/fiscal issues, so that is reason for me to vote for him in the general. Rubio would be light years better than Deval Patrick or Marin O’Malley.
Iron Fist wrote:
Bingo
Iron Fist wrote:
So a Socialist who is Pro Gun is OK then?
Rodan wrote:
I never took the position that Santorum is conservative, I have nothing to explain. I don’t see how you can call someone who, as defined in the article referenced above, set up a police state, a conservative. Other police states also have had low crime rates and subjected their subjects to warrentless searches as well. Yes, he was successful, but he was successful by setting up an authoritarian state. Hardly a conservative position. Yes, I admired his 9/11 response and response to the Saudi prince. He really needed to distance himself from his anti-gun positions to be successful. As others have pointed out, being pro-abortion is another problem.
While he has some positive points, calling him a conservative is a stretch.
Rodan wrote:
Do you and Speranza get those strawmen by the truckload?
@ lobo91:
I did answer your question. I said I did not like NYC Guns laws. I was explaining why Rudy took the stance he did. he ditched it once he was not confined to NYC politics.
But hey It’s OK for Bush to run up the Debt and meet with Islamic terrorists.
@ lobo91:
Santorum isSocialist and Bush is a Progressive. Those are facts. But because they took 2 stances, they get a pass by some Conservatives.
Hugo Chavez is Pro-Life, I am shocked he’s not a Conservative hero!
@ Rodan:
Sorry, Rodan, I think I didn’t make my point as well as I would have liked. It is absolutely fine to take issue with Rubio’s policies, as you do -- I was referring to the ridiculous jerks attacking him on citizenship and coming off sounding like purist loons with no foot in reality.
@ Rodan:
So is NYC not part of the US, or does it have a special exemption from the Constitution that applies to the rest of us?
@ Rodan:
Better than a fiscal “conservative” that doesn’t appreciate the Bill of Rights. Rudy’s position on the Second Amendment made him a no-go to me, and to a lot of people.
Speranza wrote:
Big difference between urging citizens to carry guns and allowing them to do so. Rudy wouldn’t even do the latter.
Rodan wrote:
Since none of them is me, what’s your point?
The fact that someone calls Giuliani out on his trashing of the Constitution doesn’t make them a Santorum supporter.
@ AZfederalist:
Exactly
@ lobo91:
Didn’t say you were a Santorum supporter. Just pointing how a Socialist like Santorum gets a Pass.
Rodan wrote:
Which is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
@ lobo91:
Those laws have been on the books since Lindsey. It aint getting overturned, although I agree it should. I will no way defend NYC’s gun laws.
AZfederalist wrote:
Bingo.
Iron Fist wrote:
He was preferable to Bloomie as NYC’s mayor -- but as GOP candidate for POTUS? Nope.
Rodan wrote:
That other person in the bar must have been really, really drunk…
Rodan wrote:
But you defend a politician who supported them.
@ lobo91:
It is very relevant. Conservatives love rhetoric and not results. If Hugo Chavez was spewing rhetoric on abortion and guns, many Conservatives would support him. You can be a Socialist an get Conservative support based on 2 issues.
@ lobo91:
Yes because of the circumstance. Just like Conservatives defend Bush no matter what. Everyone defends someone they like. Nothing new under the sun here.
Iron Fist wrote:
Rudy was not going to pursue any gun laws on the national level. He accepted the Heller case and adopted a Pro 2nd Amendment stance.
Rodan wrote:
Some of us actually have principles. I’m still waiting for you to explain NYC’s exemption from the Constitution.
buzzsawmonkey wrote:
@ lobo91:
Yup, nice principles many of you have. Socialism is OK as long as it’s Pro Gun.
@ lobo91:
For the I don’t know how many times, I DO NOT SUPPORT NYC CITY”S GUN LAWS!
Does that make it clear?
I think it’s time for split on the Right. People who believe in Free Markets and Fiscal responsibly start a new Party. The GOP can support Pro Gun Islamic loving Marxists.
BBL.
Rodan wrote:
Good grief.
Rodan wrote:
Not really, no. You supported (and still support) a mayor who thought it was perfectly fine to ignore the Constitution. Giuliani has never changed his position on the NYC gun laws, to my knowledge.
Rodan wrote:
When did it become an either/or proposition?
Speranza wrote:
YES! how DARE you discuss historical aspects of past presidencies! How dare you try to learn from the past! BAH! what is there to learn from the past!
NOTHING, COMRADE!
toe the party line or be exiled!!!!
lobo91 wrote:
I think it’s part of the anti-purest purity test, but I might be mistaken…
It really doesn’t take much reading here to understand why the “Conservative” stance means what each individual wants it to be. We eat and destroy our own better than any Liberal can.
Santorum never had a chance to get the nomination, neither did Bauchman, but because they had a seat at the table we are accused of supporting socialist and yet the one that most thought wasn’t conservative got it, and I would bet most here voted for!
But by all means continue to destroy and disregard any thought that doesn’t match yours. The purity test stands strong with all sides. I will make my choices from those on the ballet that closest meets my stance. If that makes me a purist then so be it!
For the record, Rudy (whom I liked) never had a chance because he never really ran!
@ lobo91:
Could his spaceship just beam his moron ass up already?
Carolina Girl wrote:
I hope it has room to take Jamie Foxx with it…
lobo91 wrote:
Could always duct tape his sorry ass to the outside of the ship when no one was watching…
@ lobo91:
Some people view Rudy Guiliani as untouchable because he cleaned NYC up.
@ lobo91:
Minister Farrakhan is so violent, he must be a Tea Partier./
@ lobo91:
@ Da_Beerfreak:
With enough duct tape for Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Whitlock and Rob Parker.
I am not convinced that this jelly donut I just paid $1.50 was made this WEEK, much less today….
didnt rudy outline his stance after heller come down? i’m pretty sure he said that becasue of the ruling the law has changed, now follow the law…or wrds to that effect?
Carolina Girl wrote:
So, it’s vintage. You should have paid more…
@ coldwarrior:
Well, as we’ve just seen demonstrated, it depends a lot on which ex-politician you want to trash.
The second amendment is a handly little touchstone issue. A politician’s stance on it demonstrates his reading comprehension, historical knowledge, his true philosophy of government and his trustworthyness.
Tanker wrote:
true.
coldwarrior wrote:
All I know is that the laws in NYC haven’t changed by so much as a comma since Heller. Of course, from a practical standpoint, things haven’t really changed much in DC, either. And you still can’t own a handgun in Chicago, despite what the Supreme Court said about that.
I’d really like someone to explain why the Constitution doesn’t apply to certain big cities.
What if someone decided they should eliminate free speech in order to address noise complaints?
@ buzzsawmonkey:
I imagine it’ll be constructing a condo in my GI system before lunch.
What I REALLY wanted was a cinnamon roll. Used to be a Cinnabon in my old building. Now it’s the day-old dregs from the Donut Wheel.
Mike C. wrote:
can a person change his views?
i have no trouble believing that rudy did because now the law is very clear. he was a prosecutor after all. someone who enforced the laws.
i do remember thinking mush higher of him after his heller comments. he then went on to say that states should have local control of gun laws, less so the feds having control. seems ok to me.
the point is that as president, i seriously doubt he would have gone after guns. not an important issue to our side of the aisle, if not down right suicidal.
so the question is, is he allowed to change his mind?
@ coldwarrior:
After he was running for President he said something along those lines, but that hardly overrides the fact that he was an enthusiastic gun control supporter until the time came for him to run for National Office. You couldn’t trust him on that issue. I hd problems with Romney’s stance on the issue as well. We need to nominate better candidates. Guiliani was a Northeastern Moderate, just like Romney. I doubt seriously that he’d have done any better in the national election if he hads ran and won. But he was expecting a coronation, and when that didn’t happen he quit.
Iron Fist wrote:
well, we should be able to canonize him for that miracle.
lobo91 wrote:
ask the residents of the city dont ask me, i refuse to live in places like that.
@ coldwarrior:
Hell, the idiots who vote in San Francisco did it all one better six years ago -- the fools voted to not only BAN handguns but if you had them you had to turn them in by April 1, 2007. Seriously, I am not kidding. They were going to confiscate your handguns. Fortunately, the NRA and GOA took the matter to court and won.
Iron Fist wrote:
he was enforcing the laws on the books in nyc and ny state, that is what a prosecutor does. prosecutes the laws, not make them.
the mayor follows the laws as well. could he have got the gun laws changed, i seriously doubt it. why even bother if the people don’t think they can be trusted? if the schmucks in nyc dont want to trust themselves with guns, fine, no skin off my nose. it does not effect me one iota and i dont lose any sleep over it.
can someone change their position of an issue? i think they can.
@ coldwarrior:
To me, it’s a question of why he (or any other politician) changed his mind.
Rodan keeps saying that he “had to” support the unconstitutional gun laws when he was mayor, but now he doesn’t have to anymore. That smacks of insincerity to me. The law is either right or wrong.
Certainly, people can change their mind on particular issues over time. Reagan started out as a pro-union Democrat, after all.
But he didn’t change his positions because he saw how the political winds were blowing.
@ Carolina Girl:
Like i keep saying, there is no difference between the gun controllers and the segregationists. They are all anti-civil rights.
Carolina Girl wrote:
jeeze…thats freakish right there. and again, has zero bearing on my rights out here in pa.
@ coldwarrior:
@ Iron Fist:
Everybody has the right to change their minds. But pardon me if I have a basic distrust of politicians who do so only when it just happens to be plitically expedient. As a current example, Obama was as quiet as the proverbial churchmouse RE gun control until he didn’t have to be any more.
@ coldwarrior:
It wasn’t just a matter of enforcing the existing laws, though. Giuliani enthusiastically supported those laws when he was mayor. Even when he was running for president, he said that he thought those laws were right for NYC.
As far as I know, he’s never said anything to change that.
@ lobo91:
so why doesnt the NRA go whole hog hardcore in NYC. an endless millions of dollars full blown blitz to get these unconstitutional laws overturned? if anywhere needs the nra its nyc. hell, we dont really need the nra in PA, we are already free.
Carolina Girl wrote:
Must be something in the water or air that makes folks in San Fran downright loony. Austin, TX and Boulder, CO are close, but SF stands head and shoulders above those two in terms of looniness.
coldwarrior wrote:
There are some cases working their way through the system now.
@ Mike C.:
@ lobo91:
seriously, the chance of a guiliani white house that takes away gun rights would be pretty far down on my ‘stupid shit to worry about’ list.
lobo91 wrote:
excellent.
cases such as? (i want to keep an eye on these)
lobo91 wrote:
new yorkers pretty much all say that, its strange i know. if that is what they want, fine. i dont lose sleep over it.
@ AZfederalist:
It’s gotten progressively worse over the years -- I left town in 1993 to go live in Fairfield, which is a military town, because of the gun violence encroaching into the “good” areas of town; that was 20 years ago. I still work here but I’m grateful to leave it to the jerks at 5:00 p.m. It is, quite frankly, an urban sewer, being run by activists who haven’t the foggiest idea of how to lead or how to govern.
AZfederalist wrote:
magnetic forces controlled by the illuminati and alien/mason mind control…
@ coldwarrior:
The San Francisco gun ban was thrown out in state court. California has a preemption statute on firearms laws. Cities and counties can’t make their own laws that are more restrictive than state law.
They just did it anyway and dared the courts to overturn it, which they did.
We had a similar situation here when the shall issue CCW law went into effect. Denver tried to ban concealed carry. That lasted about 5 minutes in court.
Sadly, the idiot who was mayor at the time is now governor.
Mike C. wrote:
no he wasnt.
‘fundamentally change america’
ya start by taking out the bill of rights.
@ coldwarrior:
Kind of like worrying about gun rights under George HW Bush?
@ coldwarrior:
Here’s a list of every case the NRA is currently involved with.
They’re a lot busier than people realize.
@ Carolina Girl:
Sounds like Detroit.
Iron Fist wrote:
No kidding…
@ coldwarrior:
You weren’t supposed to think about what his slogans actually meant, silly.
What are you, some sort of raaaaacist?
//
@ coldwarrior:
I’d love to see some kind of challenge to the concealed carry restrictions in California -- you make an application to your county sheriff, giving your reasons for wanting a concealed weapon. Then you wait a week or 10 days for it to be denied.
I remember at the height of the carjacking “craze.” People in San Francisco (those that had cars at any rate) were carrying guns in their purses, briefcases and glove compartments -- they didn’t give a crap about the law -- they wanted to be able to protect themselves.
Iron Fist wrote:
mr ‘voodoo economics’.
i would trust rudy far more than that snake.
@ Iron Fist:
Detroit, to steal from Dennis Miller -- is an effing open-air Nintendo Game.
lobo91 wrote:
yes. i am. and proud of it.
@ Carolina Girl:
self preservation is a powerful force.
our shall issue background check takes 30 seconds any you walk out of the courthouse with a ccw and a smile.
lobo91 wrote:
but are any of them actually challenging NYC’s gun laws? or am i missing somehting
@ lobo91:
Reading through the list, Pennsylvania doesn’t look like a model of the right to self-defense to me.
@ Carolina Girl:
In NYC, that’s how the process to get a permit to own a gun goes, except it takes a lot longer and costs a lot more.
They have a non-refundable $440 application fee, and a 95% rejection rate. It averages about a year.
Carolina Girl wrote:
i was in detroit 14 months ago to pick up a used car for my bro-in law.
OMG. is that place bad.
@ coldwarrior:
That’s how it should be.
@ coldwarrior:
If it’s like the rest of the country, I’m guessing it’s not 30 seconds at the moment.
It’s taking about 9 days just to get the checks done to buy guns right now.
@ coldwarrior:
Iron Fist wrote:
More like under Nixon, I think.
@ coldwarrior:
I see enough of it on that “Parking Wars” show on A&E to know I never want to pay them a visit. (With the possible exception of meeting up with the parking enforcement officer nicknamed “Ponytail” because he is all about following the rules and doesn’t mind telling the taker class to get bent).
Iron Fist wrote:
castle law, shall issue ccw, open carry…
lesee…first three cases would not even get to hearing now
4th…well, is the guy nuts? i’d have to see his file
5th case idiot takes a gun to an airport. and i know this case. he walked into the terminal with a gun. he had no permit, PA is not reciprocate with AK, AND he resisted arrest. that isnt the filing. his actionb caused the airport to be evacuated and operations suspended in that terminal.
5 cases over 3 years in a state this populous? looks good to me!
@ lobo91:
I should think an organization called “Academics for the Second Amendment” could hold their meetings in the local Starbucks.
lobo91 wrote:
wow.
lobo91 wrote:
bingo! i wanna follow that one!
@ lobo91:
I was wondering where they got their “gun violence victims” from. I’m sure there wasn’t a single member of that group that advocated for firearms. And of course, Biden, Obumbler and the rest of the proggie Dems will tell us that the victims have greater “authority” to speak to this issue than the NRA.
coldwarrior wrote:
Leia and I are going to be working this weekend’s gun show.
Should be interesting.
@ Carolina Girl:
I’ve been the victim of a violent crime. They sure didn’t talk to me…
Carolina Girl wrote:
I’m getting really tired of people referring to the NRA as “the gun lobby,” too. Unlike all the groups on the other side, the NRA is an actual organization with members who pay dues. It’s not some bogus lobbying group funded by left-wing billionaires.
@ lobo91:
If they don’t issue the permit, they should be forced to return $400 of the application fee. Let’s see -- 100 people apply for gun permits -- $44,000 -- none issued. You pull that in the private sector and we call it “fraud.”
@ lobo91:
i still think this gun control stuff is a head fake to take the focus off of the economy. if he gets some gun laws on the book, hey bonus!
@ lobo91:
No surprises there.
A dog and pony show for the naive.
Their mind was made up and the plans ready waiting for an appropriate event, especially seeing as how Fast and Furious was a failure.
@ lobo91:
The NRA is a Civil Rights Organization. They need to start inssting that they be addressed as such.
coldwarrior wrote:
Could be. Some of us are capable of paying attention to more than one thing at a time, though
Carolina Girl wrote:
A permit to own a gun, if you’re even going to have such a thing, should be on a “shall issue” basis. There should be a defined set of criteria (pay a reasonable fee to cover costs, pass a background check, maybe take a class) and when you meet them, you get a permit.
@ coldwarrior:
Nothing will get through the House unless Boehner wants to kill off the Republican Party. But I am concerned about what Obama will do by Executive Order. Obama wants to be a dictator. I can see him letting himself get expansive here.
Iron Fist wrote:
XO’s can be stopped by a congress with backbone.
looks like were screwed
@ lobo91:
Not only that, the NRA is the largest promoter of gun SAFETY in the country. I’m sure the thugs in the inner city have never taken one of their courses. But I took their home handgun defense course. And guess what the first thing they tell you is? That’s right — “If at all possible, remove you and anyone else from harm’s way.” Meaning, if the bad guy is coming through your back door, get everyone out the front door as fast as you can. Take your gun, take your cell phone, run to a neighbor’s house and call the police. Tell them who you are, that you have your gun with you and wait for them.
Of course, if you cannot safely get everyone out, them get your gun, call 911, give them your location, tell them you are threatened, you have a gun and will defend yourself and put the phone where the line stays open. My instructor said believe it or not, in his experience in California, telling the police you have the ability to off the misguided criminal usually gets them to move a little faster.
Iron Fist wrote:
Of course not. They only want people who will agree with their pre-determined goal.
I’ll bet none of the “victims” they heard from were attacked by people who legally owned the guns they used, anyway. Nobody will bring that inconvenient point up, though.
@ coldwarrior:
Yeah, if you can get a 2/3 majority of both houses. When was the last time that happened on anything remotely controversial?
@ lobo91:
Yep. They were probably all people who had been attacked by career criminals. The same people who have killed close to 500 people last year in Chicago. But of course, these creeps will extrapolate that to the law-abiding gun owning public.
lobo91 wrote:
might be up to the states to stop the XO’s in this case
I just saw a debate on whether or not that NY newspaper
was justified in printing the names and addresses of
legal gun owners. Kirsten Powers was opposed & Judith
Miller saw nothing wrong with it.
I was thinking that the Libs might not be so enthusiastic
if the names and addresses of abortion doctors & patients
were printed.
lobo91 wrote:
Sounds arbitrary and capricious. But then that might just be me.
this is getting pretty serious
Influenza has reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with 7.3 percent of deaths last week caused by pneumonia and the flu, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday
Carolina Girl wrote:
They always talk about wanting to “get guns off the streets,” as if they’re laying around on the sidewalk for people to pick up.
None of the laws they want to pass will have the slightest effect on the guns that are “on the street,” since they weren’t lawfully purchased in the first place.
Somehow, I don’t think the threat of 5 years in prison for having an illegal gun is going to deter someone who’s already looking at a potential life sentence, or even the death penalty.
@ RIX:
they just gave a list of soft targets, those without protection.
coldwarrior wrote:
We clearly need to ban the flu.
//
@ coldwarrior:
The States and the Supreme Court. We’ll see if they are willing to back Heller up with something substantive. Like I said earlier today, I don’t see how you duck needing strict scrutiney on a right that “shall not be infringed”.
lobo91 wrote:
thats the ticket!
a nobel in medicine for lobo!
@ RIX:
My favorite was when the publisher of that paper was whining about her staff’s personal information being published. She actually said “Journalists aren’t supposed to be threatened in this country.”
But it’s fine to threaten the lives of people who chose to exercise the right to own a gun, I guess.
@ coldwarrior:
I’m posting a “Flu-Free Zone” sign on my door now.
lobo91 wrote:
I put up a “Flu-Free Zone” sign. Cheaper than a flu shot.
Iron Fist wrote:
i like what wyoming is doing. that looks like a fine start.
@ Carolina Girl:
Yet they don’t include those who have protected themselves and others with a firearm as having authority to speak on the subject. I truly despise these so-called progressives. Bunch of Stalinist authoritarians, the whole bunch.
Carolina Girl wrote:
In California, though, they are trying to get there to protect the criminal. Years ago, the woman I was living with’s grandmother was assaulted in a home invasion and very nearly killed. The police told her to get a gun and to kill the guy if he came back. Point blank.
Wow, what a great article. Thanks for posting it, Speranza.
Rodan wrote:
Both arguing over the same thing. Bush wasn’t perfect and you dislike him. But Rudy wasn’t perfect either but you like him. Rudy did some things that didn’t win him the support. Yes his response to 9/11 was great and the Saudi King. But there was a lot of other problems going on too. Same could be said of Bush..he did some thing right but other thing s really wrong. Two sides of the same coin.
@ lobo91:
I actually had a flash the other day with one of our holier-than-thou gun grabbers in the office. When I was saying that any gun control will be essentially punished law-abiding citizens, like me, she was all about “it’s about access! If you own those guns, criminals could steal them from your house and kill someone.”
“Okay,” said I, in measured tones and suppressing a burning desire to take send “the saint’s” front teeth to Peoria, “I also own a car. Because someone could steal my car and get engaged in a high-speed chase with the police and kill someone on the freeway, perhaps we should limit access to cars. Or you know, to those cars that can go really fast and outrun the police.”
To which the saint replied “it’s not the same thing.”
“You’re right,” I said. “There’s no provision in the Constitution giving me the right to own a car.”
Rodan wrote:
Really? Okay so we go waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to this end of the argument of liking Chavez because he is pro-life. Really? No wonder the GOP is in tatters instead of concentrating on the enemy they are attacking each other. That in and of itself is what needs to be addressed before you will ever get the GOP’s house in order. It starts with the voters and the politicians. Instead of attacking obama….lets attack anyone who mentions Bush. Bush is not president anymore and he wasn’t a perfect president either but dear heavens compared to obama???????????? I’ll take GWBush any day of the week.
@ Lily:
Whew, just when I thought that I’d “Lilly’d” the thread, here comes Lilly!
Thanks!
P.S. agree w/ your comment -- saw a great article, and the comments went immediately to infighting and purity bovine excrement.
@ Lily:
As I said earlier, I think Rodan and Speranza got a really good deal on a truckload of strawmen.
New Thread.
@ lobo91:
2 for the price of 1, can’t beat that!
Daffy Duck wrote:
De nada
Iron Fist wrote:
Good advice because all hell can happen before they get there. Not to mention it settles the case with very little money spent. But too many people don’t think this way. Why is because they haven’t experienced being a victim of crime and/or they don’t know anyone who has been a victim. That is why when it does happen to them they are shell-shocked. The problem here with these shootings that have occurred lately isn’t the guns it’s people with mental issues. We as a country are piss poor dealing with people who are insane. That should be at the forefront of this disscussion on these crimes that have happened recently …it isn’t the guns, those were just the tools it’s insanity of people and we aren’t doing anything about that.
coldwarrior wrote:
Yeah. Please hurry to get your shot if you haven’t already. Some places are starting to run out. My local Rite Aid and CVS were both out -- finally found it at Safeway.
@ lobo91:
LOL!
lobo91 wrote:
I think you have stock in the term “strawmen”. Hey about time you did some political threads instead of ankle biting.
@ lobo91:
Hmm…I only own 2 guns on that list.
Must be slipping…
Speranza wrote:
I wish I did. Sales must be good. You two keep putting them out there, over and over.
I’m sorry if you consider supporting the Constitution “ankle biting.” Unlike you, I took an oath to support and defend it “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
eaglesoars wrote:
i got mine. there is no way in hell i would go to work without one
@ coldwarrior:
I have my sign to protect me.
//
lobo91 wrote:
and your’re doing a heckuva job Brownie.
Clearly she is a card carrying member of the privileged class.
Rules on apply to the unwashed masses.
Speranza wrote:
I’ve done a hell of a lot more than an elitist asshole like you ever has. That much is certain.
jeeze.
lobo91 wrote:
Fuck you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
coldwarrior wrote:
I had my shot. Problem was, I got a strain of Flu B that wasn’t in the shot!
I have been REALLY sick.
If you start to get flu-like symptoms, go to the doctor ASAP, get tested for flu (they swab your nose), and if you have it, get some Tamiflu.