Word: guns
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...some of his once ardent fans, come to look dangerously like the ingratiating Washington politicians he so often rails against. Worried about his patriotism? He now wears a flag pin daily. Uneasy about his church? He left it. Too liberal? Just look at his recent policy statements endorsing gun rights, calling for trade talks and supporting restrictions on late-term abortion...
With his belly hiding his belt, with his red suspenders and white beard, Glen Parshall is a dead ringer for Santa Claus, except for the snub-nosed pistol he keeps tucked in his back pocket. Parshall spends his days behind the gun cage of Bargain Pawn, in a roughneck North Las Vegas neighborhood littered with homeless encampments, Catholic charities and pawnshops. It's no Bellagio. But he is a gentle man who treats his customers with respect, whether hoodlum or homeowner. He knows everything there is to know about weapons and is a stickler for the byzantine rules of gun...
...just because he obeys the rules doesn't mean he likes them. Parshall is dissatisfied with a lot of what government does. He hates our gun laws. Hates the war in Iraq. He doesn't use drugs, but he sees the fight against them as another government power grab. Growing up as a Mormon in Salt Lake City, Parshall was a Barry Goldwater Republican. Now he's the kind of voter who should scare the GOP most--and he's not alone...
...cost the party races in Washington, Nevada, Montana and, most recently, Louisiana. But if anything, the GOP platform has grown more committed to foreign military intervention and domestic moralizing. The selection of John McCain was a final insult--most libertarians view him, fairly or not, as pro-war, anti-gun, pro-environmentalism and anti--free speech (thanks to his advocacy for campaign-finance reform). In Nevada, where the liberty lobby is strong, McCain got trounced in the primary voting, coming in third behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. When the state GOP tried to crown McCain at its Reno convention...
...Libertarianism as nothing more than old-school Republicanism, but it's always been partially left-wing, drawing from a long history of American anarchism. The modern challenge is to unite those two wings--or, as magician (and stalwart Libertarian) Penn Jillette told me, "Convince the dope guys that the gun guys are O.K., and vice versa." And many Libertarians believe the time is now. It helps that the U.S. has been throttled for a century by two parties whose core differences are narrowing. The current general election has seemed at times a contest about who can crib off the other...