It’s hard for putative Republican Senate candidate Rep. Dan Winslow to run for the “sensible center,” as he put it today, when he advocates policies that resulted in the massacre of 20 first graders and six of their teachers 80 miles south of the state line two months ago.
GOAL, the Gun Owners’ Action League, is the “Official State Association of the National Rifle Association” in Massachusetts. It says liability insurance requirements for gun owners are a “backdoor gun grab” — an equivalent argument is that people should be allowed to drive their cars without insurance — and offers classes for would-be criminals, and others, on such subjects as “Coat pocket shooting drills,”and “Speedloader loading tactics” for snub revolvers (loaders supplied).
Massachusetts has nothing to fear from law-abiding gun owners, GOAL asserts, and as to military-grade assault weapons, “there is no real issue in the United States with these rifles in regard to crime.” Tell that to the parents of the Connecticut first graders: gunned down in 14 minutes with a legal weapon, owned by a law-abiding citizen.
As to Rep. Winslow: A+ from the local NRA:
Rep. Winslow was a leader of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign (47 percent of Americans: “My job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” “You didn’t build that,” secret tax returns, and Seamus strapped to the roof). Romney and his GOP team were so opposed to the Commonwealth’s values they lost every county in the state, and 2-1 in the candidate’s home town of Belmont.
Winslow talks like the glib politician that he is. When it comes to gun safety, however, he is anything but sensible or centrist.
I have respected and admired your work on the intellectual disability reform and defended you from unfair attacks, I happen to think Bob is fairly attacking you here but I extend an opportunity to defend yourself by answering some simple questions.
Did you seek this endorsement and what votes did GOAL expect you to make in the Legislature? Have you voted against them at all during your time there?
How do you expect to vote on the specific proposals by the Biden Commission and Obama administration in the US Senate?
Do you support the following:
-universal background checks
-closing the gun show loophole
-banning or reforming online sales
-banning assault weapons
-limiting clips to 10 rounds like the Senate or 7 rounds like New York State for all automtic and semi automatic weapons
Feel free to say yes or no to those and explain your reasoning. I honestly would welcome a sensible centrist Republican, I respect that tradition and feel our country has suffered due to its silence. But like Scott Brown and Mitt Romney before you, you will be forced by the tea party exremists and the RSCC and McConnell to bend to the far right on these issues. If you are truly independent give us your reasoning on this incredibly important public safety issue. Thank you.
waiting for an answer.
I have no idea what that means. I assume that Wayne LaPierre views his “gun in every classroom” plan as “rooted in facts” and “solution oriented.”
Brown was good at these evasions too, our job is to keep asking he questions and its the job of our eventual nominee too.
A lot of grassroots Republicans dislike the Romney-Baker infrastructure and may not want to nominate Winslow so soon. This could be an exciting primary depending on who else gets in. The fact that Tarr and Sullivan are still being floated by top leadership shows that a vacumn loves a power (if it can find one)
good partisan attack, but other legislators receiving an A+ rating include Democrats Peter Kocot, John Scibak, and Mark Pacheco. Stan Rosenberg received an A. There are a bunch of good Democratic progressives earning respectable Ds and Fs, It’s worth looking at the list to see how your rep stacks up.
My town is represented by John Scibak, who is no DINO, and Ellen Story, who received a D. My senator Gale Candaras earned similarly bad grade. Our friend Dan may indeed have a poor record on gun safety, but you won’t know it from GOAL’s website.
If John Scibak was seeking my vote for the Senate, his voting record and resulting enthusiasm from the NRA would hurt his chances with me.
Mr. Winslow demonstrates, again, why I think his election would be bad for my family and me, bad for Somerville, bad for Massachusetts and bad for America.
That’s my point. Stan Rosenberg represents Amherst and Northampton.
Dan Winslow may be a gun-waving nut job for all I know, but I don’t think these ratings are clear evidence of this.
I believe the onus belongs to the candidates to explain their positions, and not the other way around.
I don’t know about how Stan Rosenberg got an A. But in New York Kirsten Gillibrand was seen as a more conservative Dem on a number of issues, including guns, when representing a House district that was mostly rural and gun-friendly.
After moving to the Senate and having to run statewide (with more half the state’s regular Democratic votes in NYC) she’s moved to the left on many issues. Sincere or not, I can’t say, but she knew her position wouldn’t fly statewide.
I don’t know if there are stats available for Massachusetts, but we do have data from Florida, which has issued 1,825,143 concealed carry permits as of 2010. Florida has been issuing permits since 1987, longer than any other state, and they are easier to obtain than they are here in Massachusetts.
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* From the outset of the Florida right-to-carry law through July 31, 2010, Florida has revoked 5,674 or 0.3% of all issued permits. Of these:
– 522 permits were revoked for crimes committed prior to licensure
– 4,955 permits were revoked for crimes committed after licensure, of which 168 involved the usage of a firearm
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp
n/m
and no one seemed to have a problem with that.
http://votesmart.org/candidate/evaluations/35813/barbara-litalien#.URO66x2YuQ0