On Wednesday afternoon’s Hugh Hewitt radio show GOP hopeful Jon Huntsman said that he’d support an assault weapons ban and would not support the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the latter because he supports civil unions. Hours later the Huntsman campaign reversed its candidate’s statement saying he misunderstood the question. He would veto an assault weapons ban, they claimed.
First of all, here is exactly what Huntsman said when host Hewitt asked if he’d veto an assault weapons ban if he were president: “I would not veto an assault weapons ban.” That seems pretty clear, no?
Huntsman’s campaign quickly emailed Hewitt a correction, though.
Hugh, I clearly misunderstood your question regarding the assault weapons ban. I would absolutely veto the ban. I have always stood firmly for 2nd Amendment rights, and my record in Utah reflects it. With a name like ‘Huntsman’ it really goes without saying. My apologies for confusing your listeners. I look forward to being on your show again.
To be sure, it seems that Huntsman’s record as Utah’s governor does make of him an avid supporter of the Second Amendment. He says so on his website, too.
In fact, Huntsman went against Republican moderates and left-wingers to sign two pieces of legislation in Utah that loosened gun regulations. One bill allowed drivers to keep loaded guns in their automobiles even if they did not have a concealed carry permit and the other requires businesses to allow people with guns in their cars — including employees — to park on company property.
So, with Huntsman’s record in hand, it does tend to confirm that he simply botched the answer to the radio host’s question. Though it is a bit hard to understand how he could have misunderstood the question because during the segment host Hewitt shotgunned him a series of questions all based on vetoes. So, how Huntsman could understand that all the other questions were predicated on presidential veto powers but didn’t understand that he was being asked about vetoing a Second Amendment rights bill is a bit hard to fathom. Is his attention span that short?
The other question is more problematic. Huntsman clearly (and without a “correction”) said he supports civil unions and does not support the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). So, on this one he is clearly on the liberal side of the issue. It does shore up the feeling that Huntsman is the most moderate Republican in the game thus far.
June 9th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Huntsman is getting his feet wet. Minor misspeaks now aren’t too bad, so long as your issue a correction ASAP.
June 9th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Why does not thinking that anyone should be able to own an assault weapon mean that one is not a supporter of the Second Amendment?
This is what I do not understand. When I was a kid, you know, we had rifles and shotguns, we went hunting, etc. We even had a couple of hand guns. We went to gun shows, where you could look at and buy all kinds of these sorts of guns. But no one would have ever thought about even wanting to have something like, say, a machine gun, etc. The only people who had machine guns were the crooks on “The Untouchables.”
But today, if I say, I don’t think anyone has any need for a military-type weapon, an assault weapon, you know, then automatically I am against the Second Amendment, anti-American, not a patriot, a Communist, a gun-hating liberal moonbat, whatever other names you want to call me, and must cower in fear that the NRA is going to come to my door.
You know, law enforcement, the police, I bet they don’t care to have these sorts of weapons floating around in our society, either.
I suppose that I am forgetting about the militias. So, why don’t we have some special exemption for militias? I don’t like militias, but apparently they aren’t doing anything illegal, marching around and drilling for I don’t know what, so maybe if they want to use military-style weapons we could have some sort of exception for them, they’d have to get a certain permit, or whatever.
The Second Amendment is the law of the land. But I don’t like the idea that some psycho or criminal can go out and get powerful weapons that only the military has any business for or any need for, either. Why does it always have to be all or none with you people? Why? So the companies that make the weapons can get a lot of money? Why? I got a gun in the house, but I don’t need no gun that can mow down a whole line of people, and neither do you or anyone else.
June 10th, 2011 at 5:12 am
The problem is, Klo, that there is no such thing as an “assault weapon.” It is a subjective term that means whatever you want it to mean. And when the AW ban was in place anti-Constitutional, anti-Second Amendment supporters kept upping the ante on what an “assault weapon” was and began to include all manner of firearms that no one would have thought would be an “assault weapon.”
There is no such “official” gun as an “assault weapon.” It can mean anything you want it to mean.
So, banning “assault weapons” is a meaningless phrase. But using the term “assault weapon” gives the anti-Constitutionalists the grounds to use the term to cover ALL firearms and eventually have a defacto repeal of the Constitution.
THAT is why an “assault weapons ban” should be discarded as an idea.
June 10th, 2011 at 5:30 am
What if I want to obtain my very own, personal, nuke? You know, the small kind they say fits in a suitcase. Does my right to bear arms cover this?
June 10th, 2011 at 5:36 am
No. A nuke is a missile, or a bomb. The founders talked of firearms, not cannons, tanks, missiles and bazookas. Their term was VERY specific to military rifles, pistols, hunting rifles and sidearms. Nuclear bombs are not in any way construed as a firearm… unless you are a moron.
June 10th, 2011 at 5:43 am
What rifle, shotgun or handgun is not an assault weapon? Problem as I see it is that after they pass the law they can then change the ‘definition’ of anything that shoots a projectile. – A slingshot is an assault weapon if it is pointed at someone. Come to think about it a sock filled with sand is an assault weapon and a pencil can be used as one too…
June 10th, 2011 at 5:48 am
Exactly., Prying1. The term is so fungible as to be meaningless. THAT is why gun-haters love it. They can use the term to cover every firearm and then use the “law” to gut the Constitution without actually going to the bother of changing the Constitution legally.
June 10th, 2011 at 6:16 am
The founders didn’t mention tanks, bazookas and missiles, this is very true. I wonder how they could have overlooked this in 1776?
June 10th, 2011 at 6:30 am
You really are an idiot, TA. They had cannons, warships, and landmines/torpedoes then. They didn’t mention THEM in the Constitution either. Are you saying the founders were too stupid to know that cannons and warships existed? Get a clue. Read some books and find out what they really meant. Idiot.
June 10th, 2011 at 7:02 am
“What if I want to obtain my very own, personal, nuke? You know, the small kind they say fits in a suitcase. Does my right to bear arms cover this?”
No way ! You actually said that ?
June 10th, 2011 at 7:04 am
Keep it civil WT. My point, which of course you got I’m sure, is that there were a lot of things that could not have possibly been forseen when the constitution was written. Uzis and AK 47s among a long list. I don’t think anyone can draw a clear line simply based on what the founders said. To some degree this is a local issue, i.e. what works in Wyoming doesn’t necessarily work in NYC. Most agree that handguns need to be regulated in a city like NY. But even you can admit that crying “hunting rights” over a ban on a weapon that would shred Bambi to smithereens is an ingenuous argument.
June 10th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Sorry, TA but your point is ill-informed. It does not fit the case at all. The founders had a long, long paper trail of talking about firearms that reaches even to the state constitutions. In ALL cases they guns in question were infantry small arms, sidearms, rifles, and hunting pieces. THAT is what the 2 Amend. covers. NOT cannons and warships which they most certainly had then. They did NOT say that every American had a right to a cannon or a fully armed frigate. So, by logical extension, they did not need to know about missiles, nuclear bombs, and tanks. Their philosophical point was made on individual, hand held firearms, not weapons of mass destruction. (which a cannon and a warship most certainly are compared to a pistol!)
Their point was personal protection and gathering for a militia as members of ground forces. An individual did not need a cannon for personal protection and could not cart one around by himself as a member of an army.
So, the ridiculous liberal mantra that because the founders didn’t mention nukes, why, then, that means we can ban anything that wasn’t around in their day is a stupid, stupid point to try and make.
The founders were clear about personal arms and they rested their ideas on decades of common law cases that laid out their points.
Sorry, but bringing up nukes and tanks and jet fighters is a meaningless attempt to spin clear historical precedent away from facts.