Giuliani must face the NRA

Via The Caucus,

The sportsmen (and the politicians who love them) are set to converge on the capital this weekend as the National Rifle Association holds a “Celebration of American Values.”

Speakers include some of the movement’s best-known conservatives, both on and off the presidential ballot, including Newt Gingrich, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Fred D. Thompson and Senator John McCain. But perhaps the most-watched remarks will be those given by Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was a vocal supporter of gun control as mayor of New York.

During a 1995 appearance on PBS’s “The Charlie Rose Show,” Mr. Giuliani was critical of the influential gun group.

“I agree that it’s the person who uses the gun that is the source of the real problem, but the gun is also the source of a very big problem,” he said, referring to the classic N.R.A. slogan, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.”

He continued, “And the N.R.A.’s in essence defense of assault weapons, and their unwillingness to deal with some of the realities we face here in cities, is a terrible, terrible mistake.”

“This really should be an indication. Let’s have national licensing and gun control,” Mr. Giuliani says in another interview currently circulating on YouTube. “Ninety-five percent of the shootings in New York City occur with guns from outside of the city of New York, and they’re really victimizing us at this point with the craziness of this ‘you can buy any gun you want, anyplace you want, you wait five days…’”

That video also has a clip of him calling a Second Amendment objection to the gun control laws he endorses “an overstated argument.”

I'm not sure how Rudy actually wins the Republican nomination. Can we expect a flip-flop on gun control too?

~BT