Rudi Guliani is not a conservative, and his record on guns and gun control, like many of his other positions, does not match his current rhetoric. The basic conservative principles of the Republican Party do not match Rudi on abortion, gay marriage, or guns. Perhaps these principles are lost in the frantic reaction to the potential election of Billary. Perhaps war policy has superseded all social policy. The party has suffered when it has strayed from other conservative dogma (lower taxes, smaller government, balanced budget). Republican primary voters should be very careful about abandoning traditional ethics as a plan for victory in 2008.
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Guliani has frequently claimed that gun control reduces crime. He supported federal gun licensing, an outrageous Second Ammendment violation, as little as six years ago. As mayor of New York, he started the maneuver of suing firearms manafacturers to recoup the cost of fightin big city crime. Rudi even broke with the Reagan administration he was serving at the time during Congressional testimony on a proposed gun control bill. Since the onset of his Presidential campaign, the language has suddenly changed. Now he promises to support "no new restrictions" on gun ownership. Can we trust a man who called NRA members "extremists" as late as 1995? Guliani should note the recent striking down of Washington, D.C.'s strict gun control ordinances. Judge Laurence Silberman made an overwhelming case in the decision for the Second Ammendment guarantee of the individual right to gun ownership.
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Both Rudi and former Massachussets Governor Mitt Romney have both suddenly became very conservative in the past several years. Voters should not be fooled by those without solid and long records of supporting conservative principles. What we don't need is another candidate speaking the language of the right, only to be left with a President who governs as a moderate or worse.
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SPECIAL SHUT UP HIPPY: It's sad that this award should ever go to a law enforcement officer, but this one is deserved. Philadelphia police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, speaking to the media after an armored car robbery in which two retired officers were killed and another guard wounded, blamed the crime on the availability of handguns in his city and around the country. Oddly bemoaning the fact that gun control has not been a big issue in the Presidential campaign so far, Johnson mouthed the lines of the anti-gun left about inflated numbers of Americans shot or killed annually compared to countries with strict gun control. Certainly the armored car robber in question never could have acquired his gun illegally. Here is a ranking police official in a major U.S. city in 2007 who is ridiculously blaming inanimate objects for heinous criminal acts. While Commissioner Johnson's service is greatly respected, on gun control issues he'll have to SHUT UP HIPPY.
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BIG CONTRACT: Great Britain has selected Boeing and the British firm Thales to oversee a $122B contract to replace thousands of army vehicles beginning in 2012. Four vehicles in twenty-one variants are projected for uses ranging from reconnaissance to road clearing. It's good to see an American company getting fat defense contracts from other nations. Hopefully Boeing will pass much of the task on to American workers, strengthening our own defense industry.
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JINGOCON
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