Gun Nuts Media

I watched the whole thing last night, and I have a couple of thoughts.  On the whole, I actually think Biden out-debated Palin; in the sense that he was smoother and more composed.  The man is a lifetime politician, so it stands to reason that he should be good at bullcrap, which is what debates really are.  That being said, Palin was clearly more likeable both for myself and for the “undecided voters” that CNN had watching the debate.

When you watch the debates in CNN HD, they have a little graphic at the bottom that tracks the opinion of some “undecided” Ohio voters, and as a general rule it was tracking much better for Plain most of the night than it was for Biden.  As I said to my friend this morning, “It seems like Biden may have won the debate per se, but no one likes Biden and everyone likes Palin.”

Now, on the issues that I care about, such as offshore drilling, taxes, and national security, Palin was clear winner, but that’s because I fundamentally disagree with Biden on everything.  If the man said that the sky was blue, I’d say it was green out of spite.  I especially enjoyed two parts of the debate – when Palin sassed the moderator, and when Palin pointed out the Biden didn’t think Barack was ready for the presidency and that Biden would have been “honored” to run with John McCain.

Ultimately, I’d say that both sides accomplished their objective last night.  Biden’s objective was to attack John McCain, and Palin’s objective was to make people believe that she can stand her own; and she accomplished that as well.

I can’t wait until this election is over, one way or another – I just want to know if I’m going to spend the next years fighting tooth-and-nail for the very right to keep and bear arms, of I’m going to be working to expand already recognized rights.

9:12 – Biden is talking about the economy, and now Palin is responding. So far she’s been doing pretty well.

Oh snap, Palin just sassed the “moderator” of the debate. Awesome!

Palin is saying all the right things about taxes. Biden looks a little old.

Oh god she said “budget neutral” and now I’m all excited.

Biden needs to check his numbers, the average health care plan only costs an employer 12k because of this crazy thing called overhead.

9:25 – putting government on the sidelines gets me pretty excited.

9:27 – I like that Palin keeps hitting the corruption card, that’s her strong point.

9:29 – biden just played the “let banks readjust your mortgage rate”.

Palin just fumbled a sentence a little bit, but she’s hitting the energy card hard again. I like that – she seems to be a good job of staying on her strong topics.

Climate change – yay I hate this topic. We’re fighting a 2 front war, our economy is going through a rough spot, and these monkeys want to talk about car farts.

Sidenote – on CNN.com there’s a ticker at the bottom showing the reaction of “undecided” male and female voters. So far, men do not like Biden.

Biden is bsing hard about “clean coal”, we all know you didn’t support it.

Keep talking up the surge, it’s awesome. Palin makes a good point about how losing in Iraq would be bad for the global war we’re fighting.

Oh man, I hate it when Obama and Biden pretend they actually give a shit about Afghanistan.

Dammit, Palin said “nukular” – can’t we get a politician who says “nuclear” like it should be pronounced?

Interesting, the audience bar indicates that people don’t care about Iran.

I have to give it to Biden, he is a pretty smooth operator. Career politician skills are showing.

I will say that the moderator has been doing a good since Sarah sassed her after about 20 minutes.

Side note, blogging fast from my crackberry isn’t easy.

Now they’re playing “nuh-uh and yeah-huh” games.

I can’t believe he’s talking about putting troops into Darfur when he doesn’t support staying in Iraq any more.

Just pulled from www.michellemalkin.com that Biden has been given 6 times as many opportunities by the moderator as Sarah has.

10:10 – I like the line about “2 mavericks”.

Keep hitting taxes Sarah, keep hitting them!

My wife just pointed out that Biden’s body language indicates that he likes Palin, which wouldn’t surpise me. She’s doing much, much better in this format than she did in the interviews with Katie and what’s-his-ass from ABC.

Constitutional questions are kind of cool, I like the way she handled the loaded question about agreeing with Dick Cheney.

Biden talking about strict interpretation of the Constitution is kind of ironic. Because, you know, he doesn’t believe that parts of it (that pesky 2nd Amendment) mean what they say. I wish Sarah had pointed that out.

Alright, you guys are on your own. I’ll post final thoughts tomorrow.

Despite my stated position of being unenthusiastic about tonight’s VP debate, I will in fact be tuning in for as long as I can stand to so do.

I have a hope – Sarah Palin does her best when she’s just being herself.  I think part of the reason her interview with Katie Couric was such a disaster is because she’s trying to hard to recite her lines, and she needs to chill out a bit.  My secret hope is that the moderator is blatantly in the tank for Obama, and that Sarah Palin calls her out on national TV about it.  Because to be perfectly honestly, that would be the most awesome thing in the history of politics right there.

As it is, I’ll be watching, beer in hand, because I don’t know if I could take it without a little liquid enthusiasm.

Yesterday, Sebastian had an excellent post on the importance of “getting active” in this election cycle; and he’s absolutely right.  I know he uses the old saw of “this is the most important election ever”, but this time I actually agree with him.  He’s absolutely correct about the damage it would do to NRA’s power in Washington if we can’t defeat the most anti-gun candidate in history.  Compared to Barack Obama, Bill Clinton looks like a life-long IDPA shooter and a conservative.

That is primarily the “back” to which I do not want to go – you all know I’m a younger guy, and because of that, I grew up during the Clinton Gun Ban.  I’ve never bought a firearm without undergoing a NICS check, and until the AWB sunset I had never bought a factory new semi-auto with anything other than a 10 round magazine.  Since the AWB lapsed, I’ve bought brand new guns with high capacity magazines, I’ve seen the market for “evil black rifles” flourish to the point where the most popular rifle in the United States is the AR-15, and I’ve seen the shooting sports grow at a pace I never would have thought was imaginable during the Clinton administration.  Never mind the expansion of right to carry laws, castle doctrine, and a favorable Heller decision – the last eight years have been pretty successful for gun owners; and I don’t want to go back.

Obama promises to be much, much worse than Clinton on guns.  No matter what he’s saying right now, his record speaks volumes of his anti-gun stance, as does the company he keeps.  With friends like Ray Schoenke, Barack Obama has all the anti-gun street cred he needs.

The problem that we’re having is that some gun owners think that their guns are “safe” from Obama.  The truth of the matter is that your guns, your Constitutional right to bear arms, will not be safe under an Obama presidency.

• Your IPSC race gun: banned for accepting high capacity magazines and having a ported barrel – because you would need a ported barrel if you want to shoot a lot of people.
• Your custom 1911 that you used for IDPA: banned.  You can’t hunt with the .45 ACP cartridge, why would you need a gun that shoots that accurately anyway?
• Your T/C Contender in .270 Winchester: Really banned, why would you need a pistol that fires armor piercing ammunition?

My point here is that you’re not safe, and your guns aren’t safe.  If it’s not hard for me to the mental gymnastics necessary to turn all your guns into something that can be played up by Obama’s pets in the media as scary and dangerous, then it certainly won’t be difficult for them to do those same calculations.

The first Presidential election I remember was 1992, Bush Senior against Clinton.  Since then I’ve seen Clinton/Dole, Bush/Gore, and Bush/Kerry.  While each election has been important, I do agree with Sebastian – this is the most important election I’ve ever seen or been a part of.  It’s imperative as gun owners that we get out and do more than just blog, that we educate our friends and families, talk to our fellow hunters and shooters.  I remember growing up during an onerous gun ban, and I have no desire whatsoever to return to those days.

I have some nervousness about the upcoming VP debate; however now that I found out that the “moderator” of the VP Debate is a staunch Obama supporter, I have pretty much abandoned all hope.

Honestly, I thought debate moderators were supposed to be neutral – now we’ve got someone who has published a book which is filled full of fawning flattery about Barack Obama as the moderator of the debate!  I’m not exactly optimistic that she’ll be able to put her bias aside, as PBS received multiple complaints about her coverage of the Republican National Convention, where she pretty much tossed any pretense of journalistic integrity right out the window.

I guess I’ll find out on Thursday, but since The Commission on Presidential Debates decided to not put any limits on what she can ask, I’m already assuming that she’s going to have her bias clearly on display.