Ray,
From the article:
<<<Back when Howard Dean was running for governor of Vermont in 1992, he told the National Rifle Association in a signed questionnaire that he opposed any restrictions on private ownership of assault weapons.
These days, running for the Democratic presidential nomination and appealing to a very different electorate from that of his small, largely rural state, Dr. Dean assures audiences that he firmly supports the assault weapons ban enacted under President Bill Clinton in 1994 though vigorously opposing any further federal regulation of guns.>>>
IMO, "I changed my mind" doesn't look good on politicians. Also IMO, Dean appears to be totally ignorant on the topic, while blithely taking stances which exaggerate his obvious ignorance. For starters, the Constitution only delegates to the States those rights not covered by the Constitution itself. The right to bear arms is not a State issue as Dean seems to think. So his theory that granting States the right to violate the Constitution of the United States strikes me as ludicrous.
Dean is quoted as saying: <<<I support the assault weapons ban, I support reauthorization of the assault weapons ban because I never met a hunter who needed an AK-47 to shoot a deer.>>>
It would be hard for someone to come up with a more foolish comment on the topic than that particular Dean quote. Dean appears to believe the Second Amendment applies to deer hunting. He also demonstrates his total ignorance on the capabilities of the rifle being banned.
An AK 47 is not especially powerful and is not especially accurate when compared to what the average sportsman would choose for deer hunting. Really, the only things it has going for it is it's cheap to produce and will most likely still shoot after being dropped in the mud. For an armed militia as described in the Constitution, it's about what you'd expect.
So, Dean doesn't have a clue what the Second Amendment is about, doesn't have a clue about what an "assault" rifle does, doesn't have a clue about what a "deer" rifle does, doesn't understand the Constitution, and can't make up his mind from one year to the next on where he stands on issues he obviously doesn't understand.
In my book, that amounts to playing the fool. I'm not really a big Dean fan, although I'm strongly in favor of any alternative to another 4 years of Adolph Bush. Under the circumstances, if you'll pardon the pun, I hate to see someone like Dean shoot himself in the foot.
IMO, if Dean had his act together he would have stuck to his previous position, thus avoiding the obvious hypocrisy. He then would have followed it up with a patriotic reference to the Constitution and/or historical anecdotes. Then if he were really clever, he would have made pointed barbs at buying low quality foreign products with unemployment at 6%. |
