You name one thing that the NRA has championed to protect the Second Amendment? I’m talking championed, not ridden on the coat tails of. They tried to kill Parker (later Heller) before it even got started. They fully supported the veterans disarmament bill. If I remember correctly, they supported or at least didn’t oppose the Sullivan appointment.

People are free (mostly) to do what they want with their money. I don’t care if you want to give money to Wayne and an organization that he has all but destroyed. When that organization does things that infringes on my rights, I will, until we allow the first amendment to be destroyed, speak out about it.

Anybody that thinks John McCain is a friend to gun owners and Conservatives has no grasp of McKennedy’s record.

Of course the NRA won’t grade this vote, they never do on anything important. The fact that people keep giving money to this nutless group is a prime example of why our elected Tyrants can do whatever they want without fear.

With all that said, we should put the blame where it really belongs. On the eighty-million gun owners and other Americans who fail to do their duties as citizens. Imagine the Congress receiving eighty-million plus actual letters. Better yet imagine the sight of eighty-million plus people, united in purpose, outside of the halls of Congress. It’s so easy to blame the other guy when in fact, we’ve done nothing ourselves.

Pres. Bush 41 nominated Souter. Souter was such an ungrateful arse that he waited until Obama was elected to step down. i’m sure Pres. Bush 41 and 43 appreciated that.

Pres. Bush 41 also nominated Sotomayor to the District Court in 1991 and started her Judicial career.

Thanks Pres. Bush 41.

Now that the Republicans have caved, there is no sense in the NRA getting involved. Why fight a fight where you will lose? So I agree about not using the ax, other than to wave it around.

I think the arguement that “next time, we’ll fight” is a weak one though. What will be different next time? Next time might be a Conservative? The Dems play for keeps; the Republicans play court jester. Next time, everyone will regret giving the Dems a pass on this nominee.

Explain to me how his pick would be worse? The names on his legal advisory team that I can just remember off the top of my head include Eugene Volokh, Sandy Froman, and Jim Warner. No staffer or advisor would have even allowed a non-pro-2A judge to make it past initial interviews.

I look forward to an expanded review of McCain’s advisors, staff, and other likely legal influentials to explain why his pick would have been worse. Otherwise, I presume you personally do not like John McCain and really have nothing else to add other than your disdain for him on a personal level.

There are consequences for grading. Think of it like an axe. Every time you chop a piece of wood with it, it gets a little more dull, and each piece of wood gets progressively more difficult to chop, until you can resharpen the axe.

That resharpening can only happen every two years for Congressmen, every six years for Senators, and every four years for President. And that’s only if you’re sharpening stone is in good shape and sufficiently wetted. The sharpening stone is us, the grassroots. The people who go out and vote for pro-gun politicians and against anti-gun politicians. That part only we can do.

We’ve had several issues that you could describe as “soft wood.” come up, where swinging was a no brainier. The National Park carry amendment attached to credit reform. The wood was there, looked soft, swing, clean split. Good result for us. National Concealed Carry might be another.

But Holder and Sotomayor are a hard wood. Actually, more like stone. There’s a chance if we take a hard enough swing, we’ll break the stone, but a considerably higher chance we’ll ruin the axe, and we don’t know whether we’re going to have some hard wood coming up.

Holder and Sotomayor are stone because the votes aren’t there to defeat them, and it’s not likely there’s enough votes that can be turned to make up the difference. You can know beforehand whether you’re looking at a hard wood or stone.

There are times when you need to take a swing at stone. If this were Kennedy being replaced, we’d have to take a swing and just hope it breaks. But she’s replacing Souter. Being not even halfway through your pile of wood and having no axe is not a situation I want to be in.

Yeah, ok. After the NRA’s actions vis-a-vis Eric Holder, only thing I can say to that is:
“I’ll believe it when I see it. Not a fraction of a second sooner.”