Paul Ryan Gets a New Gun

He went shopping for camo hunting gear the other day, and now Paul Ryan has a new gun to go with all of that new gear.

David Dlubak, owner of the Ithaca Gun Company, presents Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., with a special edition Romney/Ryan Ithaca shotgun before Ryan speaks to the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance annual banquet Saturday in Columbus. A Romney/Ryan logo was engraved on the stock of the gun.

24 thoughts on “Paul Ryan Gets a New Gun”

  1. What a pussy. He should have bought an AR if he really wanted “street cred” with us gun nuts. They always go for the safer option and go all “Fudd” for the cameras.

    1. Ah, yes, how dare he accept a gift without bitching that it’s not quite the right style. I mean that old adage about not looking a gift horse in the mouth is so damn overrated. We should all act like spoiled children and throw fits when what we get isn’t exactly right.

    2. Really Dude? I hate when people like you crap all over the ice cream.
      They gave him the shotgun, which he will pay for.
      He doesn’t want street cred from the likes of you. You would bitch about the grain of bullet he used.

    3. I wouldn’t care what kind of gun he got, but I’d be more impressed if he’d gone out and bought it for himself, and did it a few months before he was a candidate. This kind of pandering is getting offensive — even though it’s not new.

      “He’s eatin’ pizza — he’s eatin’ bagels. . .”

      Come to think of it, I’d have been more impressed with Ithaca had they made up a presentation gun for Obama, just to try to put him on the spot and see how he handled the situation.

      1. There is NO WAY that would happen. Do you think Ithaca wouldn’t have to tell the Presidents people of their planned gift, or would you expect the CEO to just whip it out on stage. Yup, that ain’t going to happen.
        Just imagine the Secret Service coverage if Obama would show up at a Sportsman Club. “Sorry guys, no guns allowed”!

    4. As I understand it from a report of a friend or acquaintance of his, he already has one or more AR-15 pattern rifles which he is very proficient with, and one might assume from the report it gets a workout keeping down the feral hog population at his and his wife’s Oklahoma ranch near Lake Texoma near the Texas border.

      And so it’s not merely churlish but downright bizarre you’d criticize him for accepting what’s likely to be a nice and practical gun, apparently a Model 37. While I prefer the Remington 870 because it was my first shotgun and it has the best ecosystem, the Model 37 is a close 2nd and in my experience a very fine weapon.

      1. Speaking only for myself, I don’t mind him getting the gun, and I sure wouldn’t turn it away myself. But anymore, all of these choreographed campaign stunts, awards, etc., etc., etc., just offend me more and more, because they assume we (gun owners, in this case) are all morons who will be swayed by some staged photo-op. And I guess what makes me maddest is, their assumption is probably right. I’ve seen too much of this crap over the years, promoting people who were later going to stab us in the back.

        To me, the only thing relevant is, what pro-gun initiatives has a candidate who has actually achieved public office in the past ever undertaken. And by “pro-gun,” I mean something that would be a step at restoring some of our rights; not “get tough on crime” legislation, or other things that may give a lot of gun owners the warm fuzzies, but don’t affect our gun rights in any way. I don’t care whether a candidate has twin .50s mounted on the corners of his yard, because that tells me nothing at all about what he or she thinks about my right to do that. Every politician who has ever breathed has believed their personal majesty entitled them to special privileges. (I don’t know the truth of it, but wasn’t it said Ted Kennedy’s people carried submachineguns they weren’t licensed to have? Did appreciation for those guns make Ted a Real Gunnie?)

        Sorry for the rant. I just really dislike politicians.

        1. If he hasn’t already been proven a friend of and fellow hunter I would agree. His 11 year old daughter has her own rifle for goodness sakes and they got it long before this election. The candidate does NOT call the company and say “hey, I am going to be in town, give me a Model-37 and be sure to engrave the campaign logo on it.”

          The firearm is offered by the company and the candidate has the option of accepting or refusing. So get off your high horse. IF this was Kerry with his “duck rifle” I could understand, but this candidate actually likes guns and thinks the ordinary citizen should be able to own one.

        2. But anymore, all of these choreographed campaign stunts, awards, etc., etc., etc., just offend me more and more, because they assume we (gun owners, in this case) are all morons who will be swayed by some staged photo-op. And I guess what makes me maddest is, their assumption is probably right.

          Well, in Ryan’s defense you can’t imagine any of the other 3 P/VP candidates accepting this with any degree of verisimilitude: Romney didn’t go down this path as a sport, I don’t remember Biden doing that either, and the telling and important thing is that it’s unthinkable for Obama. And this matters in the long run, we’ll probably be seeing Ryan as a presidential candidate one day, perhaps even if the Republican party goes kaput.

          Sorry for the rant. I just really dislike politicians.

          We’ve noticed ^_^.

          But we’re stuck with them … and some very few don’t disappoint (Tom Coburn for us). I’m not going to count on Ryan doing anything for us, but I won’t begrudge anything he does or view it as automatically bogus.

          Also, as much as we’d like attention for our issue, we have some unrelated very serious fires burning, at least one of the existential for the Republic, and I expect those to consume almost all of the Republican’s attention. Not smart politics, they should throw us some serious bones (but, hey, we got concealed carry in National Parks, which isn’t nothing, especially in locations where they own commuter roads), but the establishment of the party, at least, doesn’t have any profiles in courage, which will likely be their downfall (the establishment for sure, the party very possibly).

  2. And why is he wasting time campaigning to “outdoorsmen” anyway? 100% of “outdoorsmen” will vote for Romney no matter what.

    1. So, just like you endorse looking a gift horse in the mouth and bitching about what kind of gun is given to him, you also think that Ryan should tell sportsmen that he takes their votes for granted without a second thought to addressing their concerns or hearing about their issues. Remind me to never put you on my Christmas gift list.

    2. Says who? I know alot of sportsmen who supported Ron Paul and are royally pissed at the way Ron Paul was ditched by the Republican party and are seriously considering voting for someone else. They won’t vote for Obama, but might not vote Romney either.

  3. “Ryan should tell sportsmen that he takes their votes for granted. . .”

    He doesn’t need to. Who doesn’t know that it’s true?

    1. I can tell you that every black sportsman I have spoken to has told me adamantly that I, and the NRA, are wrong on Obama and his hatred of guns. So that would be a serious number of Sportsman that do not see eye to eye with Ryan. Or do you think there are no black sportsman?

      1. There are an insignificant number of black sportsmen. And by sportsmen, I mean those people you see in Cabelas buying realtree pillow cases. Those types are always white, 110% of the time. :)

        1. Insignificant? What is your number? Right next to women, minority gun ownership and membership to gun clubs is up significantly.

          1. Certainly, but how many of them are Gun Culture 1.0 types, ranging from rural good old boys to country club types?

            There are certainly a number of these, Mike Espy was an “I’m the NRA” poster boy for this type, as I recall the story was he got his start growing up in the usual way, then when he was attending Howard University appreciated the facilities at the then close by NRA Headquarters. He perhaps moved in the country club direction, or at least I remember him posing with a shotgun.

            But how many of those who are increasing the minority pools of ownership and gun club membership are like him vs. Gun Culture 2.0 types, more interested in self-defense, the sort of shooting they did in the military, etc., and perhaps not at all interested in hunting?

  4. At least he can speak to many California Fud-Culture 0.0 “Sportsmen” who are Democrats and vote for Obama – but all the black guys at my gun-club are Culture 2.0 and anti-Obama, and work on computers at Lockheed or are otherwise in Defense.

  5. Just shooting at the blogosphere at random, here is one list I came up with of purportedly demonstrating Ryan’s support for gun rights. Can anyone add to the record?

    http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-and-the-2nd-amendment/

    “Voted YES on prohibiting product misuse lawsuits on gun manufacturers.
    “Voted YES on prohibiting suing gunmakers & sellers for gun misuse.
    “Voted YES on decreasing gun waiting period from 3 days to 1.
    “National cross-state standard for concealed carry.

    Since the last item isn’t a sentence, it doesn’t seem to indicate what he actually did.

    1. Add “Voted YES in 1999 on an NRA ‘compromise’ bill to impose restrictions on gun shows”.

      The Knox family in their latest newsletter confirmed my guess about his one known anti-gun action. This was when gun shows were a or the big cause.

      Yeah, I too am not entirely fond of politicians, be they in the Congress or the NRA.

  6. “Add “Voted YES in 1999 on an NRA ‘compromise’ bill to impose restrictions on gun shows”.”

    That shouldn’t count because today we know he would never vote against gun rights — just because the NRA promised to deliver cover for him.

    Why does the name “Tom Ridge” and “Pennsylvania” keep running through my mind?

    1. That shouldn’t count because today we know he would never vote against gun rights — just because the NRA promised to deliver cover for him.

      That I’m not so sure of. Smart politicians have learned that there can be a distinct difference between the NRA’s and their constituents’ opinion of what are acceptable actions and of course the latter are what really count come election day. Underlining this is that the NRA’s membership is at best less than an order and a half’s magnitude of number of the country’s gun owners who can vote.

      And, hey, it’s been 5 years since the NRA has tried to screw us over at the national level (their VT panic)….

  7. “Smart politicians have learned that there can be a distinct difference between the NRA’s and their constituents’ opinion of what are acceptable actions and of course the latter are what really count come election day.”

    That is probably more true today, in the time of the internet, but I remember 1994 and 1995 when the NRA pulled out all stops to cover for Tom Ridge and the PA Republicans. That was when we learned how dirty they will play to cover for their people. In June, a major gun control bill was passed, after the NRA dubbed it “The Sportsmen’s Omnibus Anti-Crime Bill” and the leadership of the major Fudd organizations were bought off. In October the NRA itemized the passage of that bill as one of the major NRA triumphs of the year, in their monthly member magazines. It contained just enough “pro-gun” features (including at least one that never materialized in the real world) to point at, but contained so much anti-gun stuff that the GC 2.0 type activists literally drove the NRA State Liaison out of the state for awhile. But, we did not have the resources or the know-how at the time to reach the unconnected masses, while the NRA was very well connected. So, the Big Lie tactic worked perfectly for them.

    The people who control the flow of information define the truth. I’ve always wondered how many Germans in 1945, still “knew” that Poland invaded Germany in 1939.

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