From Dan McLaughlin, who recently endorsed Rick Perry, writing at RedState:
As we all know by now, there’s Good Newt and there’s Bad Newt. If you want the full Good Newt experience, check out this speech he gave to the NRA convention back in April. If you don’t have time for the full 26-minute speech, watch from around the 5:18 mark to about the 14:30 mark. It’s spellbinding.
Money quote:
“The right to bear arms is not about hunting, it is not about target practice. The right to bear arms is a political right designed to safeguard freedom so that no government can take away from you the rights which God has given you and it was written by people who had spent their lifetime fighting the greatest empire in the world and they knew that if they had not had the right to bear arms they would have been enslaved and they did not want us to be enslaved, and that is why they guaranteed us the right to protect ourselves. It is a political right of the deepest importance to survival of freedom in America.” (starting at 13:00)
Contrast:
Um (2007):
The former Massachusetts governor has called himself a lifelong hunter, yet his campaign acknowledged that he has been on just two hunting trips _ one when he was 15 and the other just last year.
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Comments
Didn’t you listen to the conservative establishment? Romney is the real conservative and Newt is a RINO! They said so!
Wow, what a speech and a beacon of hope for our nation. Vote Newt!
Professor: Thank you very much.
Damn, that was good. I need to remember to buy shotgun shells when I’m buying light bulbs. That video makes me feel much better about Newt, and my 12-gauge. I figure a box or two of shells and a box or two of light bulbs each trip would be a good idea.
I paid for my shotgun with a credit card. I want the authorities to know I own one.
Nice contrast. Gingrich thoroughly understands the issue and its importance.
Romney completely misses the point of the 2nd amendment, lies to make it appear he’s a supporter, and then stages an event to simply pose as a supporter.
Latest Mitt position, on the individual mandate, also shows he completely fails to understand. He’s trying to convince people that the individual mandate, if imposed on us by a state rather than the federal government, is a “conservative” position. Clueless. By that logic, we should be willing to accept any unconstitutional totalitarian power grab by our grovernment so long as its imposed by a State government, solely based on the fact that “conservatives” support the 10th amendment.
Re: Romney’s cluelessness, that’s an excellent articulation.
[…] Via William Jacobson: “It is a political right of the deepest importance to the survival of freedom in America.” -Newt Gingrich, April 2011 […]
The contrast between those two is so stark it is downright scary.
Newt appears to speak from knowledge based on personal study and analysis. He knows what he’s talking about and seems confident and assured.
Mitt speaks from talking points compiled by staff. He seems a trifle vague and glosses over specifics. In my view he is almost pathetically eager to be “persuasive”.
They both have “warts”. To me it’s looking more and more as if Newt’s are less important for the job on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Exactly!
Linked. Thanks for the post!
BTW, my wife let me have a “special” Chanukah gift: A Charter Arms Pug in .44Special. (What a gal!)
That’s a sweet piece. Last week I bought a Para Ordnance P13 .45ACP I’d been wanting. Mrs. H chipped in the last bit of $$$ I pretended to need.
I realise this will just be spitting in the wind, but if you were truly interested in being fair and not super gluing you lips to Newts butt a better contrast would have been Mitt’s speech from the 2009 NRA convention:
“There was a time when the right to bear arms was a lot better appreciated in the state that is home to Bunker Hill. No one questioned the importance of a responsible, armed citizenry back when Paul Revere was in the saddle and patriots were throwing the king’s tea into Boston Harbor—except maybe a few Tories and King George himself.
In our day, some Americans take for granted the struggles and victories of the founding generation.
Ronald Reagan said that “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” That is why we and the NRA meet here today: we are committed to fight for freedom, defend the Constitution, and pass on to our children a legacy of liberty.
No Constitutional protection is more often ignored, distorted, or disdained than the individual right to keep and bear arms.”
http://mittromneycentral.com/speeches/2009-speeches/nra-convention-2009/
But hey, Newt voted for the Lautenberg gun ban so he must be a really big support of the 2nd amendment right?
The NRA gives Newt an “A” rating when it comes to the 2nd Amednment.
It gives Mitt a “B.”
So who is the better supporter of our 2nd amendment rights?
Battle of Saratoga – Daniel Morgan’s 500 Virginians had Rifles more accurate than the British ‘Infantry standard issue Guns. Since their Rifles were their personal weapons, and since the Battle of Saratoga was what caught the French attention leading eventuaally to Yorktown, all of 30+ years of “Only Hunting Arms” should be allowed. The dark underside of the issue is not ‘what would a citizen do if he had better than GI arms?”, but “What would a totalitarian do before declaring rule?” where history illustrates every case with “Take Away their Firearms”.
Not an owner of a gun myself I have always tried to explain to various here the historical importance of Americans & guns.
Still there is more. In the Revolutionary WAr it was not just American patriots vs the evil British.
Especially in the Nth Carolinas it was Americans vs Americans. Some Indian tribes sided with the British for The Crown observed treaties whilst the Americans just took their land. There are many many Nth Carolinian peoples with unique & separate identities. Many rebuffed both sides but some definitely fought for the British & some for the Americans.
The weapons of today are WMD. Is a 1777 law still 100% protection ?
But so far Americans just kill family & other gang members. Hope it stays that way.
In college I shared a rental house in a bad part of town with 3 other students. One of whom was a smoking hot 98 lb blonde.
I came home from a lab one night to find a cop car lit up outside our house. A gang banger had kicked in the door seconds after the blonde had gotten out of the shower and she had returned to her room in the finished basement.
The gang banger scouted out the upstairs and took the phone off the hook so she couldn’t dial out and then went down stairs with God knows what intent.
He opened her bedroom door to find a cocked pistol pointed at his face. Lucky for him, she said get out instead of pulling the trigger.
So the story of Americans with their guns isn’t quite like you tell it. Troll else where.
Huh… inspired me to go and get Paul Revere’s Ride from the libarary today.
[…] Hat tips, quote and video: William A. Jacobson. Legal Insurrection. […]