A Silver Bullet for Angelides

Itis good seeing Speaker Nunez out with Phil. Mayor Villaraigosa will be with Phil and Barrack Obama on Friday at USC at 2:45. Let's turn the tide and get out the vote for Phil and our Democratic Team.

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The Lowenthal bill is about as common sense as it gets. They need to pound this one.

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[where are the paragraphs on this thing?? sorry about the dotted lines...]

hmmm http://www.lockyersguns.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oooh, we can play that game. Even your buddy Gray Davis said that CA gun regulation was a patchwork of confusing laws and needed restructuring. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And technical gun matters consistently rank way down the list (7th - 10th) of concerns for Californians. Roads, economy, schools, choice are the top-level issues that alwasy appear at the top, just w/varying order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Angelides is grasping at straws in a dying campaign. Who did he hire for a consultant, the Cruzamonte? I think Captain Queeganopoulous' concerns over shredder grating size says it all. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

[BTW all Torrico's law woulda done was let the UPS driver accept signature for mail order shells. Half the time UPS leaves valuables on your front doorstep anyway, so it's moot (hey, union labor). And preemption allows California to be a unified state instead of a patchwork of principalities - otherwise, why have a state? SB59 was useless, too, as it'd be unenforceable in many cases. More feel-good stuff that'd never stop a single mugging or bank robbery, but just P.O.s regular folks - including union Democrats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . But then we can also bring up your boy Billy Lockyer's failures in the gun field. Bill's not all that bright; he & his minions in DOJ forgot to update the list of banned assault weapons for over 5 years. So - since December '05 - over 50,000 folks legally acquired such frames/guns and built in legal configuration, which basically means skipping the 99-cent plastic pistol grip and folding stock. (These got their own terminology: 'off-list rifles'.) When line DOJ staff tried to get control of this by updating the list in late Dec/early January, they were overrruled by an overzealous deputy AG with her own agenda - one who accidentally created a lovely paper trail for other upcoming gun rights court cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lockyer was so embarrassed by this (the paper trail and letting the situation get way, way outta control when it could've been nipped in the bud back in early January) he himself disowned his Deputy AG Merrilees when in conversation with the redoubtable Irwin Nowick: he called her "a low-level employee" and just wished this would all go away. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In fact things got so bad the DOJ gave up authority to list new assault weapons via AB2728, carried by Klehs and apparently desparately requested by the AG. From what I've heard, AG/DOJ was so desparate to stave of embarassment it allowed 2728 to be amended with tons of NRA input. NRA hasn't said much but you can read between the lines. Have you ever seen a gov't agency give up power? ;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Lockyer's gun division left hand & right hand don't even know what they're doing. Some of this is bureaucratic coordination issue, while the rest is a lack of technical knowledge. (Many Californias know gun laws better than typical DOJ Firearms Division staff members, judging from diametrically opposite information given on same subject to different inqurirers.) About 1.5yrs ago Lockyer's DOJ approved a handgun for sale that was a banned assault weapon and ended up having to coordinate a recall campaign with the manufacturer.

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Bill Wiese

San Jose CA

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Steve, the biggest problem that Phil Angelides has is that differentiating where he and Governor Schwarzenegger stand on some individual issues isn't going to sway voters. You see, the perception of so many is that Angelides simply does not possess the gravitas to lead a state as large as California. He comes across as a bean-counter accountant type, and that story about him micromaging what type of scraps are produced by the campaign shredding machine only reinforces the perception of someone too focused on the individual trees, and unable to see the forest. It was generous of you to place the Angelides/Schwarzenegger race as the last of your "Top Ten Races to Watch" -- the race for California Governor is over. It's all about potential coattails now... Jon

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So far nothing has worked for Phil, so he may as well try gun control.

What does he have to lose?

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I'll also add that gun control stuff in general loses way more folks than it gains. On a Federal basis, the cataclysmic 1994 shifts in congress were far less due to "Contract with America" matters, or general dislike of Clinton, than it was exclusively related to the 1993 'Crime Bill' banning supposed 'assault weapons'.

Even in CA, gun control issues don't jump to the tip of the tongue demo/lefty activists as a primary matter. But for other folks (gunnies, rights activists, minimal gov't folks) it's a/the key reason to be politically active and spend money. That produces a weighted imbalance whose intensity helps compensate for metro area antigun sentiments.

It's also important to notice that NO NEW GUN LAWS WERE PASSED THIS YEAR IN CA. Very, very little of that had to do with Schwarzenegger; most gun bills didn't make it out of a house. The ones that did were meaningless due to lack of enforcement ability or readily-perceived general overall uselessness when the fine print was read.

If gun issues were so hot & great, all of your party would be supporting new gun laws. But rather a lot of Democrats in both CA houses have substantive pro gun records, and NRA rewards them with votes & support.

Bill Wiese San Jose

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This campaign has failed to be about a bigger idea or a broader theme. Even if gun control made sense -- and it probably would have -- what story do you weave it back into? Perhaps if Phil had made the central campaign theme about Crime, for example. California's prisons are so overcrowded that we are shipping inmates out of state. Three strikes has made the system overloaded. Gangs run entire neighborhoods. Tagging is out of control. Do you feel safer than you did four years ago?

Part of the reason that Phil nearly lost to Steve was that his campaign was nothing more than a hodgepodge of endorsements and different ideas never woven into a broader theme or story.

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Oh man, I really hope the Dems kick some tail this election cycle, but there are only three politicians that I can think of offhand who I would love to never see in politics again: Phil Angelides, Fabio Nunez, and Cruz Bustamante. Hacks all three. Can't we find better candidates?

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How can Phil Angelides say he is in favor of gun control, when the Democrat Attorney General Bill Lockyer is allowing tens of thousands assault weapons to be sold in California again?

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