Rudy fails to impress the NRA

From The Washington Post:

Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday sought to persuade members of the National Rifle Association to look past his lengthy record of pushing for tougher gun control by saying that his views on this issue had been changed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The attacks on New York and the Pentagon put "a whole different emphasis on the things America needs to do to protect itself, and maybe even a renewed emphasis on the Second Amendment," Giuliani told the roughly 500 NRA members gathered at a Washington hotel.

Giuliani shared the forum with several rivals for the Republican presidential nomination who have long been outspoken in their support for gun owners' rights. But attention focused on the former New York City mayor, who has emerged as the GOP front-runner despite being out of step with party orthodoxy on issues such as guns, abortion and gay rights.

His tenuous hold on a lead in national polling has been built largely on a get-tough approach to terrorism, but he was met with a skeptical response by the crowd at the annual NRA conference yesterday.

While never expressly repudiating his stance on gun control, he sought repeatedly to assure the audience that he would not seek to place new limits on gun ownership, saying that "law enforcement should focus on enforcing the laws that exist on the books as opposed to passing new extensions of laws."

[. . .]

The pitch met with a tepid response. Several audience members said later that Giuliani had done little to allay their worries.

"I've still got something in the back of my mind that's hesitant about where he stands," said Michael Neubauer, from Northern California. "He's not solid enough."

As mayor, Giuliani was an outspoken supporter of a national ban on assault weapons, saying in a 1995 interview that the NRA's "defense of assault weapons, and their unwillingness to deal with some of the realities here that we face in our cities is a terrible, terrible mistake." He also decried porous gun laws in other states that led to a flood of illegal firearms in New York.

"A leopard doesn't change his spots," said Frank Pottle, a machinery repairman from Georgia. "If he's for gun control, whether you do it at the local or national level, it's all the same because you're abrogating my rights."

I support Fred Thompson in the Republican primaries and If Thompson has a "live boy or dead girl" event and becomes non-viable I would support Romney as the next best candidate with a chance to win. As things stand right now if Giuliani were to become the nominee I would not be able to vote for him.

If Rudy wants my vote next November (assuming he is at the top of the ticket) here is what I need from him. He must issue a statement similar to this:

"I now realize that the views on gun control I espoused as Mayor of New York City were dead wrong. The Second Amendment to the Constitution recognizes that any law abiding citizen of the United States has the right to keep and bear arms, which means that he may own and carry upon his person any firearm which he may desire and that right to bear arms means that he can carry that gun anywhere he has the legal right to be.

I now recognize that New York City's stubborn insistence on gun control has never made the city safer, but has cost innocent lives as those gun control laws only disarmed the law abiding leaving them defenseless before criminal predators. As a citizen of the state of New York I call upon my state legislature to bring New York into line with the great majority of other states by making New York a 'Shall Issue' state and I demand that they write the law so that it expressly includes New York City so that the ultra-left-wing government of that city may no longer bar their citizens from owning and carrying the most effective means of self defense ever devised.

In conclusion, I swear to the American people that if I am elected president I will make national concealed carry reciprocity a priority of my administration so that cities like New York and Chicago may no longer prevent citizens of other states who have valid concealed carry permits from carrying in those cities so that a criminal would never again be able to look at a tourist and know that the law had rendered him or her a disarmed victim."

Let him do that and I'll vote for him if he wins the nomination.

As for the people who say "yes, but the war on terror overrides all the other issues and Rudy would be so good on that. . ." all I have to say is this. Other than the ass-clown Ron Paul (who stands absolutely no chance) which of the Republican candidates would lay down and surrender to the terrorists? Prove to me that Julie Annie is the only candidate who wants to defeat al Qaeda and I might change my mind. But from where I'm sitting all the Republicans have the right idea when it comes to fighting terrorism (other than the aforementioned ass-clown who is only in the race for comedy relief).