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Chronology of Mitt Romney’s Views
on Guns
The RED font
highlights his anti-Second Amendment actions
/ statements.
The
BLUE font highlights his pro-Second
Amendment
actions / statements.
- Romney’s web site in
2002
“Mitt Romney supports the strict enforcement of gun laws. He
is a supporter of the federal assault weapons ban.
Mitt also believes in the rights of those who hunt to
responsibly own and use firearms.”
-
“Gov. Mitt Romney signed into law yesterday a
permanent state ban on assault weapons.” (Boston Herald 7/2/04)
- “Former governor
Mitt Romney, who once described himself as a supporter of strong gun laws,
is distancing himself from that rhetoric now as he attempts to court the
gun owners who make up a significant force in Republican primary
politics. In his 1994 US Senate run, Romney backed
two gun-control measures strongly opposed by the National Rifle
Association and other gun-rights groups: the Brady Bill, which imposed a
five-day waiting period on gun sales, and a ban on certain assault weapons.”
“That’s not going to make me the hero of the NRA,”
Romney told the Boston Herald in 1994.”
Now in 2007 –
“He proudly describes himself as a member of the NRA—though his campaign
won’t say when joined.”
“Romney says he stills backs the ban on assault weapons,
but he won’t say whether he stands by the Brady Bill. And after the gun
show tour, his campaign declined to say whether he would still describe
himself as a supporter of tough gun laws.”
“Asked by
reporters at the gun show Friday whether he personally owned the gun,”
Romney said he did not.”
Regarding the
Assault Weapon ban –“According to activists at the
time the bill made Massachusetts the first state to enact its own such ban,
and Romney hailed the move.” “These guns are not made for recreation
or self defense,” he was quoted as saying.” “They
are instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and
killing people.”
(Boston Globe
1/14/07)
- “Mitt
Romney, who has touted his support of gun owners since launching his
presidential campaign, yesterday acknowledged he did not become a
member of the National Rifle Association until last August,” (Boston Globe
2/19/07)
- To hear Mitt Romney talk
on the campaign trail, you might think the Republican presidential
candidate had a gun rack in the back of his pickup truck. "I
purchased a gun when I was a young man. I've been a hunter pretty much all
my life," he said this week in Keene, N.H., to a man sporting a
National Rifle Association cap. (The Associated Press 04/05/07)
- "Romney has already been forced to acknowledge, after
touting his membership in the National Rifle Association, that he joined
the group less than a year ago. And after saying
that he had "a gun of my own," he later conceded that
he didn't personally own guns, but that one
of his sons did. Now, Romney's campaign is acknowledging that,
despite his assertion that he was a longtime hunter,
Romney, 60, had in fact hunted one summer as a
teenager and then just once when he was in his late 50s. The most
recent discrepancy surfaced during a campaign stop this week in Keene, N.H.,
where Romney, according to the Associated Press, told a man in an NRA hat
that he had long been a hunter. "I purchased a gun when I was a young
man," the AP quoted Romney as saying. "I've been a hunter pretty much all
my life." According to his campaign, Romney spent a
summer as a 15-year-old hunting rabbits in Idaho and didn't hunt again
until last year, when he attended a quail hunt in Sea Island, Ga.,
sponsored by the Republican Governors Association...When
Romney ran for governor in 2002, he expressed support for the state's
tough laws. "We do have tough gun laws in Massachusetts; I support them,"
he said. "I won't chip away at them." But as he
appeals to the conservative wing of the Republican Party, Romney's tone on
guns today is notably different.
(Boston Globe 04/05/07)
Pat Bagley, Salt
Lake Tribune 04/06/07
- The former Massachusetts governor has
called himself a lifelong hunter,
yet his campaign acknowledged that he has been on
just two hunting trips -- one when he was 15 and the other just
last year. Campaigning in Indianapolis on Thursday,
Romney said he has hunted small game since his youth. "I'm not a big-game
hunter. I've made that very clear," he said. "I've always been a rodent
and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or
so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two
times." In Keene, N.H., on Tuesday, Romney had said:
"I purchased a gun when I was a young man. I've been
a hunter pretty much all my life." The next day, the campaign said
Romney hunted rabbits in Idaho with cousins as a teenager and shot quail
with GOP donors at a game preserve in Georgia in 2006.
(The Associated Press 04/05/07)
- On Face the Nation, Gov. Mike Huckabee told Bob
Schieffer, "It'd be like me saying I was a lifelong golfer because I
played putt-putt when I was 9 years old and I rode in a golf cart a couple
of times." 04/08/09
Additional
information will be posted to this chronology as it occurs. |
