{"id":2894,"date":"2012-10-17T15:28:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T15:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/2012\/10\/17\/the-debate-gun-question\/"},"modified":"2019-08-16T18:19:47","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T18:19:47","slug":"the-debate-gun-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/?p=2894","title":{"rendered":"The Debate Gun Question"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:14997,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.examiner.com\\\/article\\\/romney-blows-debate-opportunity-on-fast-and-furious&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/examiner.com&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:14998,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/nina.fedirkogonzalez&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/login\\\/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fnina.fedirkogonzalez&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:14999,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/mediamatters.org\\\/embed\\\/static\\\/clips\\\/2012\\\/10\\\/16\\\/27109\\\/presidentialdebate2-20121016-assaultweapons&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/mediamatters.org\\\/embed\\\/static\\\/clips\\\/2012\\\/10\\\/16\\\/27109\\\/presidentialdebate2-20121016-assaultweapons&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:15000,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/abcnews.go.com\\\/Politics\\\/OTUS\\\/2012-presidential-debate-full-transcript-oct-16\\\/story?id=17493848&amp;page=9#.UH7CdWeOwit&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/abcnews.com\\\/Politics\\\/OTUS\\\/2012-presidential-debate-full-transcript-oct-16\\\/story?id=17493848&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:15001,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.goal.org\\\/newspages\\\/romney.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>I was a bit surprised that the issue of firearms even came up in the debate last night as I would have thought the Democrats wouldn&#8217;t want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. I wasn&#8217;t surprised by Obama&#8217;s answer but was pleased that Romney did try to bring up Operation Fast and Furious before being cut-off by CNN&#8217;s Chief <strike>hack <\/strike>Political Correspondent Candy Crowley <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/romney-blows-debate-opportunity-on-fast-and-furious\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">though he didn&#8217;t push it far enough<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The questioner, identified as Nina E. Gonzalez, is probably this woman &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nina.fedirkogonzalez\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nina Fedirko-Gonzalez<\/a>, Licensed Clinical Social Worker. The person on Facebook appears to be the <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/embed\/static\/clips\/2012\/10\/16\/27109\/presidentialdebate2-20121016-assaultweapons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">same person as in the Media Matters&#8217;<\/a> picture from the debate. As far as I can tell, she is not a contributor to any candidate in state, local, or national elections. I checked the NY State campaign contribution database, OpenSecrets.org, and the Federal Elections Commission. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Politics\/OTUS\/2012-presidential-debate-full-transcript-oct-16\/story?id=17493848&amp;page=9#.UH7CdWeOwit\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">If you read the transcript<\/a> below you will see that both candidates are relatively ignorant about firearms. Romney said automatic weapons are illegal which they aren&#8217;t and Obama conflated semi-auto weapons with cosmetic similarities into full-auto\/select-fire military-grade firearms. The best I can say about it is that Obama come out in favor of a new AWB and Romney said we don&#8217;t need new laws as well as merely mentioned Operation Fast and Furious. As to Romney and gun bills in Massachusetts, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goal.org\/newspages\/romney.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here is what the Gun Owners Action League said about it in 2007.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\"><p>\n<i>QUESTION: President Obama, during the Democratic National Convention in<br \/>\n2008, you stated you wanted to keep AK-47s out of the hands of<br \/>\ncriminals. What has your administration done or planned to do to limit<br \/>\nthe availability of assault weapons?<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: We&#8217;re a nation that believes in the Second Amendment, and I<br \/>\nbelieve in the Second Amendment. We&#8217;ve got a long tradition of hunting<br \/>\nand sportsmen and people who want to make sure they can protect<br \/>\nthemselves.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>But there have been too many instances during the course of my<br \/>\npresidency, where I&#8217;ve had to comfort families who have lost somebody.<br \/>\nMost recently out in Aurora. You know, just a couple of weeks ago,<br \/>\nactually, probably about a month, I saw a mother, who I had met at the<br \/>\nbedside of her son, who had been shot in that theater.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>And her son had been shot through the head. And we spent some time, and<br \/>\nwe said a prayer and, remarkably, about two months later, this young man<br \/>\n and his mom showed up, and he looked unbelievable, good as new.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>But there were a lot of families who didn&#8217;t have that good fortune and whose sons or daughters or husbands didn&#8217;t survive.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>So my belief is that, (A), we have to enforce the laws we&#8217;ve already<br \/>\ngot, make sure that we&#8217;re keeping guns out of the hands of criminals,<br \/>\nthose who are mentally ill. We&#8217;ve done a much better job in terms of<br \/>\nbackground checks, but we&#8217;ve got more to do when it comes to<br \/>\nenforcement.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>But I also share your belief that weapons that were designed for<br \/>\nsoldiers in war theaters don&#8217;t belong on our streets. And so what I&#8217;m<br \/>\ntrying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the<br \/>\n violence generally. <b>Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault<br \/>\nweapons ban reintroduced.<\/b> But part of it is also looking at other<br \/>\nsources of the violence. Because frankly, in my home town of Chicago,<br \/>\nthere&#8217;s an awful lot of violence and they&#8217;re not using AK-47s. They&#8217;re<br \/>\nusing <b>cheap hand guns.<\/b><br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>And so what can we do to intervene, to make sure that young people have<br \/>\nopportunity; that our schools are working; that if there&#8217;s violence on<br \/>\nthe streets, that working with faith groups and law enforcement, we can<br \/>\ncatch it before it gets out of control.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>And so what I want is a &#8212; is a comprehensive strategy. <b>Part of it is<br \/>\nseeing if we can get automatic weapons that kill folks in amazing<br \/>\nnumbers out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill.<\/b> But part of<br \/>\nit is also going deeper and seeing if we can get into these communities<br \/>\nand making sure we catch violent impulses before they occur.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: Governor Romney, the question is about assault weapons, AK-47s.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>ROMNEY: Yeah, <b>I&#8217;m not in favor of new pieces of legislation on &#8212; on<br \/>\nguns and taking guns away or making certain guns illegal.<\/b> We, of course,<br \/>\n don&#8217;t want to have automatic weapons, and <b>that&#8217;s already illegal in<br \/>\nthis country to have automatic weapons.<\/b> What I believe is we have to do,<br \/>\n as the president mentioned towards the end of his remarks there, which<br \/>\nis to make enormous efforts to enforce the gun laws that we have, and to<br \/>\n change the culture of violence that we have.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>And you ask how &#8212; how are we going to do that? And there are a number<br \/>\nof things. He mentioned good schools. I totally agree. We were able to<br \/>\ndrive our schools to be number one in the nation in my state. And I<br \/>\nbelieve if we do a better job in education, we&#8217;ll &#8212; we&#8217;ll give people<br \/>\nthe &#8212; the hope and opportunity they deserve and perhaps less violence<br \/>\nfrom that. But let me mention another thing. And that is parents. We<br \/>\nneed moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the &#8212; the<br \/>\nbenefit of having two parents in the home, and that&#8217;s not always<br \/>\npossible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our<br \/>\nkids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting<br \/>\nmarried to someone, that&#8217;s a great idea.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>Because if there&#8217;s a two parent family, the prospect of living in<br \/>\npoverty goes down dramatically. The opportunities that the child will &#8212;<br \/>\n will be able to achieve increase dramatically. So we can make changes<br \/>\nin the way our culture works to help bring people away from violence and<br \/>\n give them opportunity, and bring them in the American system. <b>The &#8212;<br \/>\nthe greatest failure we&#8217;ve had with regards to &#8212; to gun violence in<br \/>\nsome respects is what &#8212; what is known as Fast and Furious. Which was a<br \/>\nprogram under this administration, and how it worked exactly I think we<br \/>\ndon&#8217;t know precisely, where thousands of automatic, and AK-47 type<br \/>\nweapons were &#8212; were given to people that ultimately gave them to &#8212; to<br \/>\ndrug lords.<br \/>\n<\/b><\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>They used those weapons against &#8212; against their own citizens and killed<br \/>\n Americans with them. And this was a &#8212; this was a program of the<br \/>\ngovernment. For what purpose it was put in place, I can&#8217;t imagine. But<br \/>\nit&#8217;s one of the great tragedies related to violence in our society which<br \/>\n has occurred during this administration. Which I think the American<br \/>\npeople would like to understand fully, it&#8217;s been investigated to a<br \/>\ndegree, but &#8212; but the administration has carried out executive<br \/>\nprivilege to prevent all of the information from coming out.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>I&#8217;d like to understand who it was that did this, what the idea was<br \/>\nbehind it, why it led to the violence, thousands of guns going to<br \/>\nMexican drug lords.<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: Candy?<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: <b>Governor, Governor, if I could, the question was about these<br \/>\nassault weapons that once were once banned and are no longer banned.<br \/>\n<\/b><\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>I know that you signed an assault weapons ban when you were in<br \/>\nMassachusetts, obviously, with this question, you no longer do support<br \/>\nthat. Why is that, given the kind of violence that we see sometimes with<br \/>\n these mass killings? Why is it that you have changed your mind?<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>ROMNEY: Well, Candy, actually, in my state, the pro-gun folks and the<br \/>\nanti-gun folks came together and put together a piece of legislation.<br \/>\nAnd it&#8217;s referred to as an assault weapon ban, but it had, at the<br \/>\nsigning of the bill, both the pro-gun and the anti-gun people came<br \/>\ntogether, because it provided opportunities for both that both wanted.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>There were hunting opportunities, for instance, that haven&#8217;t previously<br \/>\nbeen available and so forth, so it was a mutually agreed- upon piece of<br \/>\nlegislation. That&#8217;s what we need more of, Candy. What we have right now<br \/>\nin Washington is a place that&#8217;s gridlocked.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: So I could &#8212; if you could get people to agree to it, you would be for it?<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>ROMNEY: We have &#8212;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: Candy?<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>ROMNEY: &#8212; we haven&#8217;t had the leadership in Washington to work on a<br \/>\nbipartisan basis. I was able to do that in my state and bring these two<br \/>\ntogether.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: Quickly, Mr. President.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: The &#8212; first of all, I think Governor Romney was for an assault<br \/>\nweapons ban before he was against it. And he said that the reason he<br \/>\nchanged his mind was, in part, because he was seeking the endorsement of<br \/>\n the National Rifle Association. So that&#8217;s on the record.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>But I think that one area we agree on is the important of parents and<br \/>\nthe importance of schools, because I do believe that if our young people<br \/>\n have opportunity, then they are less likely to engage in these kinds of<br \/>\n violent acts. We&#8217;re not going to eliminate everybody who is mentally<br \/>\ndisturbed and we have got to make sure they don&#8217;t get weapons.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: because I do believe that if our young people have opportunity,<br \/>\nthen they&#8217;re less likely to engage in these kind of violent acts.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>We&#8217;re not going to eliminate everybody who is mentally disturbed, and<br \/>\nwe&#8217;ve got to make sure they don&#8217;t get weapons. But we can make a<br \/>\ndifference in terms ensuring that every young person in America,<br \/>\nregardless of where they come from, what they look like, have a chance<br \/>\nto succeed.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>And, Candy, we haven&#8217;t had a chance to talk about education much, but I<br \/>\nthink it is very important to understand that the reforms we&#8217;ve put in<br \/>\nplace, working with 46 governors around the country, are seeing schools<br \/>\nthat are some of the ones that are the toughest for kids starting to<br \/>\nsucceed. We&#8217;re starting to see gains in math and science.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>When it comes to community colleges, we are setting up programs,<br \/>\nincluding with Nassau Community College, to retrain workers, including<br \/>\nyoung people who may have dropped out of school but now are getting<br \/>\nanother chance, training them for the jobs that exist right now.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>And in fact, employers are looking for skilled workers. And so we&#8217;re<br \/>\nmatching them up. Giving them access to higher education. As I said, we<br \/>\nhave made sure that millions of young people are able to get an<br \/>\neducation that they weren&#8217;t able to get before.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>Now&#8230;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: Mr. President, I have to &#8212; I have to move you along here. You said you wanted to&#8230;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>(CROSSTALK)<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: We need to do it here.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: But &#8212; but it&#8217;ll &#8212; it&#8217;ll &#8212; it&#8217;ll be&#8230;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>(CROSSTALK)<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: &#8230; just one second.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: One&#8230;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: Because &#8212; because this is important. This is part of the choice in this election.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>When Governor Romney was asked whether teachers, hiring more teachers<br \/>\nwas important to growing our economy, Governor Romney said that doesn&#8217;t<br \/>\ngrow our economy.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>When &#8212; when he was asked would class size&#8230;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>(CROSSTALK)<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: The question, Mr. President, was guns here, so I need to move us along.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: I understand.<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: You know, the question was guns. So let me &#8212; let me bring in another&#8230;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: But this will make a difference in terms of whether or not we can move this economy forward for these young people&#8230;<br \/>\n<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: I understand. <\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>OBAMA: &#8230; and reduce our violence.<\/i><br \/>\n<i><br \/><\/i><br \/>\n<i>CROWLEY: OK. Thank you so much.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was a bit surprised that the issue of firearms even came up in the debate last night as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3535,44,3577,3568,3551],"class_list":["post-2894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2012-elections","tag-barack-obama","tag-candy-crowley","tag-debates","tag-mitt-romney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8449,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2894\/revisions\/8449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlygunsandmoney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}