“Alaska Republican Senatorial candidate Joe Miller said granting legal status to a large number of illegal immigrants would lead to more Democratic voters, who would in turn enact more gun restrictions and promote more anti-gun judges,” theblaze.com reports. “’If 20 million illegals vote, you can kiss the Second Amendment goodbye,’ a recent Miller campaign mailer [above] says. During a Republican debate, Miller also made the correlation between the two issues, the Alaska Dispatch News reported . . .
there’s a clear correlation, and the clear correlation is this: If you end up granting amnesty to those who don’t value gun rights, who have not been raised in an environment where the Second Amendment is cherished—is considered to be a God-given right—the reality is over a generation or two, the likelihood is very strong that the Second Amendment will not be here.”
True?
Immigration reform? Perhaps. Granting amnesty to illegals on the other hand? Absolutely.
Also, why do people refer to granting amnesty to illegal alien criminals as “immigration reform”?
Because it assists the narrative.
And yes, granting amnesty and citizenship to the current crop of illegals will mean millions of new Democrat voters because the Democrats will make sure they all know who got them their green cards.
My hope is that they’ll quickly realize they’re being used. Over the past 30 – 40 years, the CA commies have been caring about these illegals only so far as they vote for them, but apparently not enough to ensure that the sympathetically voting throng has an adequate water delivery infrastructure….
A vain hope I fear; cf “the black community”.
The black community was overwhelmingly Republican from the Civil War onward until the 1960s. Then came Uncle Sugar and the big money welfare “war on poverty”, aka “federal government vote buying scheme.”
Once the masses started feeding at the federal sloth trough, their party affiliation flipped and they’ve been 9-to-1 or more pro-Democrat ever since. In fact, the Democrats are only a viable party at the national level precisely because the blacks vote in lockstep. If the Republicans ever made inroads into that bloc and pulled even half of its votes, the Democrats would be finished.
The Dems know that, so they’re buying an insurance policy via imported Hispanic voters to secure a new source of guaranteed, low information, high dependency voters to keep them in power for another century, and to Hell with the country in the process.
Funny how the CA commies actually voted to get rid of the adequate water delivery infrastructure….by knocking down the dams and destroying retention ponds to save the fish.
Um. The reason why the black community “flipped parties” is because Southern Democrats were historically the racist party of the USA, but after other Dems pushed through the civil rights reforms, most of them becoming Southern Republicans – and Republicans in general have been playing on the fear of blacks by the “silent majority” ever since.
The Democrats love to tell themselves that they’re enlightened and free of prejudice and that the GOP is the haven of segregationists, but it’s never been true. (In fact, by the Democrats’ own standard of racism – “disproportionate impact” – a great number of Democratic policies from abortion to the minimum wage deserve to be called racist.) For a full debunking of that self-serving Democratic error, see this 2006 essay by Martin Knight:
http://archive.redstate.com/blogs/martinaknight/2006/dec/11/the_southern_strategy_reality_or_democrat_press_myth
int19h – if you are historically and politically illiterate don’t announce it for all time by posting it on the internet.
As well as making every minority know which party has voted against them for the last 60 years.
You obviously don’t know your history. A higher percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats. Democrats have always been and still are the party of racism. The only difference is now they’re duping minorities into believing that racial animosity is good for them. It’s the Republicans who believe in treating all men (and women) as equals and judging men by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Exactly. If you validate their actions by granting them citizenship for knowingly breaking the law why do you think they will have any respect for other laws or the Constitution that is the foundation of those laws?
+ a million! To me, immigration reform means getting illegals out of this country until they go through proper channels.
“+ a million! To me, immigration reform means getting illegals out of this country.”
There, fixed it.
Fix accepted!
This. No amnesty, no hearings, none of the current crap they pull with these criminals. Round them up & immediately deport them. Do not pass go, do not collect a green card. Repeat customers should be permanently barred from immigrating. Go through the proper channels if you want to be in this country.
“Reform” = Congress will pass a law, and leave it up to the executive branch and its indentured bureaucrats to interpret it and enforce it as they see fit.
Seems to me that our Latin guests don’t necessarily take exception to gun rights. But, like other downtrodden, eternally-oppressed, perpetual-victim voting blocks, will always vote for the party that promises the most gibsmedats, as opposed to the party who wants to make them work to earn their fair share.
This. If they want guns, they will buy them, regardless of the law. They already have demonstrated themselves to be criminals but coming in illegally. All that will matter is how much handouts they get, and the public education we will be forced to supply all of them will just re-enforce socialist values. It’s Cloward-Piven. And what pisses me off the most is, even if all the productive people go Galt, that just helps further the Cloward-Piven strategy even more and the system crashes even faster.
“If they want guns, they will buy them, regardless of the law.” Regrettably, you have nailed it. Central American countries are somewhat tolerant of guns. A citizen or permanent resident can get a permit to K&BA. Mexico, is different; one can get a permit to keep, but not bare arms. In any case, Latinos have a culturally different attitude toward law from Anglos. Law is something to be evaded, not respected. Latinos from the countryside (most illegal immigrants) have a neutral-to-positive relationship with guns. They will keep and bear arms in the US; illegally if necessary; but they will do so in any case. So, we will have the worst of combinations. Legalized gun-keepers/-carriers who will vote for Democrats to make keeping and carrying burdensome or illegal. Not qualitatively different from what we have today with Democrat constituencies who produce the majority of criminals. I harbor no ill-will toward immigrants in general or Latinos in particular. I’m simply calling-the-situation as I see it.
I love that term “Latin Guests” Kinda makes you want to open a bottle of Tequila, a bag of chips, and some salsa.
Amnesty is a double edged sword since once legalized they will be able to own guns.
Literally every time I have stopped by a gun store in the past couple of months (frequently) I have seen a Mexican family that barely speaks English buying some type of gun. It kind of congress me the warm and fuzzies, actually.
I heard a theory on the radio that stated that the reason that people from Central and South America are being brought here is because the previously amnestied people are not voting the way the leftist democrats want them to vote and importing them will only delay them from losing seats in the short term but in the longer term they will be replaced with more reasonable conservatives.
You’d think that if they came from a country where the govt was abusive they’d be of the opinion that the common citizen should keep and bear arms as a defense against tyranny. However, many of them have been indoctrinated over the years that guns in the hands of citizens are evil…not realizing it was the abusive govt teaching them that.
They just don’t see it that way. Liberals flee failed states like Illinois, Michigan, and California, for well run prosperous states like Texas, and bring their invidious, cancerous ideologies with them. They expect “it will be all different this time” because they’re getting a fresh start in a nice state. They never realize that it’s their statist ideology that destroyed their former states and will do the same, if permitted, to their adopted states. See Colorado.
Same goes with these illegal aliens. All of these people have the opportunity to fix their own hellhole homelands, but they don’t. Instead, they flee to the U.S., where all the work and heavy lifting has already been done, so they can enjoy the good life. Yet, once they’re here, they get on the dole and start supporting Democrats to keep the gravy train on track.
They make no connection between individual freedom, self reliance and gun rights, and the totality of the prosperity we enjoy in this country. There’s no cause-and-effect, just effect, for them. That the Democrats give away goodies, while making it their life’s work to destroy every element that makes America great and able to provide these goodies, is lost on these people. Everyone’s just looking out for themselves at the expense of other people and the future of our country.
+1,000,000
That was an outstanding post. Bravo!
So I’ve got this way to solve the whole police militarization debate. We move all this equipment to government wants to sell under program 1033, and we take all the cops that are wannabe operators, and send them all to border patrol and militarize the ever living shit out of the border. Because that’s one place in the US you actually need it.
Second the motion.
Agreed. Also, That name, son!
Motion passes. Mexico does the same thing at their southern border to keep out illegals from Guatemala, but we’re supposed to welcome them with open arms & nary a picket fence along our border? Armed guards, watchtowers, & shoot on sight orders. Anything we need to keep them out.
The Berlin Wall in reverse! Gotta love it.
That’s true and not a lot of people know that. Mexico has very strict immigration law. I work with several Central Americans of questionable immigration status and they say if you can get a tourist or visitor visa to get into Mexico you’re good. The American border is easy enough if you can pay. If you get caught sneeking over the southern border into Mexico you don’t get a hot meal and a bus ride home. You get beaten and robbed by the police and dumped in the jungle.
It’d be an interesting exercise, but ultimately we’re overthinking this. We don’t really need guards and towers and patrols on the border, nor do we need to go “round people up in the middle of the night”, as some hysterical speakers contend.
All we really need to do is demand proof of citizenship……for everything. Want to rent an apartment, buy a house, register a car, get a loan, open a bank account, apply for a job, attend school, vote, get a drivers license, carry license, dog license, library card, credit card, debit card, gift card, ride a plane/bus/train, etc.? No problem. Just provide proof of citizenship.
We do this with just about everything and everyone else in this society already. For just about everything, you have to provide identification. If the identification required citizenship, or lawful presence in the country, then that’s all you’d have to adjust. Illegals would be frozen out of the economy and the society en masse. Just like when the authorities are tracking down a fugitive, anything on the grid is instantly visible. Make so that being on the grid is only available to those with the magic ticket of being in the country legally, and ta da! Problem solved.
All we have to do is reverse the incentives and the illegal will self-deport. After all, it was the current incentives that prompted them to self-import in the first place. We didn’t go down to Mexico and beyond forcible import these people, so we don’t need to forcibly export them, either. Just switch around the incentives and they’ll go home all on their own.
Unfortunately, nobody really wants that, though. The Democrats want the votes today. The Republicans want to fantasize that they’ll get the votes tomorrow. Big business wants the easy consumers. Small and midsize businesses want the cheap labor. Everyone gets in on the illegal alien action, including the sex traders who are getting their own kind of action. It’s only the lowly, law abiding U.S. taxpayer who gets stuck footing the bill and enduring the externalities.
Insightful comment, Jonathan. Are you aware of any national or state politician proposing such a thing?
That’s a great idea and a very educational post.
After going through a lot of crap, and waiting 10 months, plus going to a US gongressman’s office twice, to get my wife to this country, I am totally against giving amnesty to anyone who has not gone through the proper channels. And I might add, my wife studied hard and went through the proper channels, and paid the fees to become a United States citizen
Other reasons are too many to list.
Congratulations to you and your wife. Amnesty will be the proverbial nail in the coffin for freedom in America, but I think that is the plan from the start.
Yes, and our “guests” will be the hammer that drives it in
And it’s not just freedom but economic liberty as hundreds of thousands of indentured H1 workers decimate the professional and technical labor markets.
It took me and my family 13 years to become citizens. All while going through the legal channels. It is a slap on my face to allow the law breakers to get in front of the line. Stopping the welfare state will do wonders on reducing immigration by itself.
Yes, I think that they will dilute our rights, all of them. It is very hard to undo the “statism” state of mind. In my old country, after 25 years since the fall of the communism, people still think that the state is supposed to help them.
Congratulations to you sir, and your family.
And yes, it is a real slap in the face to have those who have entered this country illegally to suddenly appear at the “head of the line”.
I think you value you citizenship considerably more, since you had to “work” for it, as my wife.
As a legal immigrant (still at GC stage) I fully agree with you. Rewarding people who have broken the law makes a mockery of the rule of law.
For all those people who want a way for illegal immigrants to become citizens there is already a way; it’s called return to your country of origin and apply like everyone else
+ a million!
Most people who immigrate illegally do not have credentials to apply legally – they don’t have relatives in US, they don’t have a job offer which they could potentially translate into an employer-sponsored green card application later, and they don’t have several hundred thousand dollars in cash to qualify as investors.
Basically, when you’re saying “apply through proper channels”, this is just a roundabout way to say “I don’t want to see you here”. Which is fine, but at least have the guts to say what you really think, not hide behind words like that.
Making you feel like a sucker was the best introduction you could have had to the Left’s version of America, where the law-abiding and hard-working are punished and the criminal and shiftless are rewarded.
Well, the dems are dumping the immigrants in red states and cities.
Exactly, that’s their strategy in trying to “turn Texas blue”
No better way to shift the demographics – almost instantaneous results
It’s not reform, i’s Fundamental Transformation aimed at the physical destruction of America
Well not directly, but it can be tangentially. This entire amnesty push is 100% left wing shenanigans run amuck. And it’s also based on a really short sighted mindset that getting a vote once will mean a life long vote.
However anything that gives the left a boost usually ends up being bad for America.
Making the process aster and easier process to become a citizen than the cumbersome and slow system we have now?
Abso-fuckin’-lutely.
Giving amnesty to millions of law-breakers, most of whom bring less than nothing to the table and would actually be cheaper to deport them?
No. And not just no, but HELL NO. Talk about wage dilution, longer lines at the hospital, the undue burden on our schools, etc. Let’s not mention the fact that our economy still has NOT recovered from the last recession and there won’t be jobs for these people.
As an immigrant myself, I’m going to say that amnesty is probably the worst thing the US can do for itself. It will open the flood gates to every clown from south of the border to just waltz across and destroy our Democracy. If the Democrats want amnesty… There is a happy compromise. Give every single “amnestied” person a green card and a felony conviction that bars them from citizenship (and thus, voting). Bet you the Democrats would not jump for THAT one…
If the Democratic Party continues on it’s present coarse, no. First, only 2/3 of those new voters will vote Democrat. Second, the biggest losers under ‘immigration reform’ are black Americans who are already fed up with the party and while the won’t vote Republican the will stay home. And third, the only white voters the Democrats will have left are the 20 year old women who are freaked out that Republicans are going to take their vaginas or something. Adding 13 million voters won’t do the party any good if doing so chases 40 million away.
Of course, your “logic” makes zero sense at all and sounds like something that Karl Rove is trying to sell to Republican contributors if they will only give him some more money. If you rightwingers really felt this way then you jokers wouldn’t be talking so openly about overthrowing a popularly elected US government. The days of the GOP being insignificant as anything other than a niche regional party may be here already.
What are you smoking?
If you consider 2/3 of the country a ‘region’.
Good luck keeping the Senate.
I don’t think there is a direct relation between immigration and the second amendment.
Maybe we can reform the immigration process to make it more efficient and allow more legal immigration. Obviously the current system isn’t working. I would rather have legal, tax paying people than the other choice.
Not to mention the fact that if you grant Amnesty to people that broke numerous laws to come to the country, stay in the country, work in the country and vote in the country what is the chance that they will care about obeying any laws they don’t agree with in regards to firearms?
America is already on the way out, but amnesty will be the coup de grace. The only way to prevent it is to send all the “legalized” illegals to Los Angeles, New York City and anywhere in New Jersey. Those places are dead anyway, so making them deader won’t matter.
It’s not just Joe Miller; the GOA has been hammering this point for months. And yes, it’s correct – millions more illegal immigrants means more Democratic victories, which means bad news for the right to self-defense (and just about every other right, too).
I do some work for an Indian immigrant who is an active member of the NRA, and participates in shooting sports. He owns a few businesses in south Texas, and has told me that the culture here influenced his view on firearms posititvely. I know this is not the profile of the common undocumented immigrant, but it IS possible for us to rub off on them if our interactions are non-adversarial. If the unthinkable happens and all illegals are granted amnesty, my view is that it will be time to learn spanglish and take some new friends to the range.
Most immigrants from India are fluent in English (even if it is sometimes heavily accented) and have an astonishing work ethic. They rarely insist that Hindi be made an official language and they are happy to assimilate. Many are well trained in the hard skills that they need to prosper in America. All immigrants from India came here legally and the crime rate among Indian immigrants is exceptionally low.
In short, they have nothing in common with the wave of border jumpers coming up from the south.
+1
+2
I know plenty of 2nd generation Hispanic friends that regularly go shooting, have EBRs and others that have asked me to take them shooting. Outreach is key. Gun rights shouldn’t be foreign to any American.
A 2nd generation Mexican got me into shooting. My parents brought me from Russia when I was 8 and are both very anti gun. I’ve always been curious but never really had an opportunity before he had his. Now I’ve got 2 friends and my brother into it too.
The key is outreach and repositioning the republicans. Encourage your gun range to do a free newbie night or give an open invitation to everyone you know to take them and pay for their session and ammo.
As for republicans, they really need to get off the social issues if they want to be relevant for the next generation. Nobody cares if gays get married, or smoke weed or get abortion. Make it a party for freedom and financial responsibility instead of waging wars and backing corporations.
Realistically no one is happy. Occupy and tea party have the same message, the government sucks.
If those immigrants are fleeing their country because they didn’t have our guaranteed freedoms, why would they vote against them?.
Of course if the antis are the ones that let them immigrate, the changes that they will get votes is obviously higher.
Why…duh…for the free money that the GimmeeDat party is promising them.
Looks like our state will be voting on drivers license’s for illegals this November. This makes a mockery of our whole system. It’s illegal to sneak into this country, but if if you make it, we’ll give you a drivers license, free medical, free groceries and a refrigerator to keep them in. And don’t forget subsidized housing!
“Immigration reform” is a euphemism for amnesty. Nobody’s in favor of amnesty (well, few citizens are, anyway), but it’s difficult to argue against “reform.” Miller is exactly right: “immigration reform”, as the Democrats see it, will only hasten the demise of Second Amendment and the rule of law in this country.
If the Democrats were serious about reform and serious about improving our country, then they would support genuine immigration reform, such as the Republicans have offered. Smart reform of the system would grant visas on the basis of STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and those with capital to invest in our economy; people who have something serious to contribute. Instead, we turn such people away, often after they’ve taken their education at our colleges and universities, and instead they go back home to their countries to set up businesses and compete against us.
Meanwhile, we’re opening the doors and the welfare rolls up to any and all diseased, uneducated, needy, clingy, criminal element from every corruption-riddled hellhole on the planet. These people show up here with their hands out looking for freebies, which the Democrats are all to eager to provide, at YOUR expense, in exchange for votes to allow them to continue to trash the Constitution. Don’t be fooled by the oh so industrious day laborers. That’s a minority of immigrants, and primarily those whose families are still back in the old country. Once the families come here, or the patriarch just starts a new family here, the cycle of welfare dependency starts fresh with new players.
Hispanics vote about 2-to-1 in favor of Democrats. No amount of increase in immigration of Hispanics as a whole, as opposed to highly educated and capital-backed Hispanics, will yield benefits for conservatives and liberty. All it will do is forfeit a stranglehold on our future to the Democrats and allow lazy Republicans to preside over an America in decline while enjoying slightly less frequent accusations of being racist.
Bigoted scumbags who talk like an English-speaking Slobodan Milosevic are far more of a threat to my freedom than hard-working people who come hear because they actually _want_ freedom.
“[t]hey actually want free stuff.”
FIFY. MS-13 isn’t seeking freedom, just a handout until they get their drug routes all set up.
On the upside, MS-13 is pretty keen on guns. Just not in the hands of their intended victims.
Lay off the crack pipe Ken, the vast majority of the southern wave is looking for handouts and easy money, not the “American Experience”.
The Left is just about done strangling liberty and the American dream….you know…the “fundamental transformation” that you maybe voted for.
Disregarding the amnesty issue for a minute, I want to focus on one of the questions raised – whether or not people who are not raised in a culture that respects the Second Amendment can be taught to respect gun rights.
I submit that the answer is absolutely, unequivocally, YES. They can. Because it happens in the United States.
Places such as New York City, much of New Jersey, central Maryland, parts of New England & California, etc. are generally anti-gun. Many of the people there “have not been raised in an environment where the Second Amendment is cherished.” Growing up 20 miles from Baltimore didn’t really do me any favors as far as steering me towards gun rights, but eventually I learned and became one of the POTG. And there are others that do the same thing.
We do the gun rights movement a HUGE disservice by simply lumping all immigrants together as somehow incapable of learning to respect gun rights. Some won’t, but others will.
Some people who came to the USA from other countries came explicitly BECAUSE the USA is supposed to guarantee the right to keep & bear arms. They’ve seen what happens when citizens are barred from owning guns, and they want no part of it. Many immigrants are hard-working folks (some illegal, some not). Not all are – some are certainly looking for a handout. But others are just trying to escape whatever crappy situation exists back home for them.
Amnesty, IMO, is a separate question from the gun rights issue. (FWIW, I would not have a problem with giving them an opportunity to obtain a legal status as long as anyone who entered illegally is permanently barred from becoming a citizen). But we should not and cannot afford to ignore any immigrants as “hopelessly anti-gun.”
Bobby’s point above is absolutely correct – OUTREACH IS KEY. We need to teach EVERYONE we can as to why gun rights are important. Not all will learn, but some will. And the more folks in all communities we can teach that guns aren’t the evil scary monsters that Hollywood and much of the media suggests they are, the better off we’ll all be.
I remember reading a survey that suggested that immigrants from Mexico and other mesoamerican nations very seldom support gun rights. Something like 12 % felt that people should have the right to firearms so they can defend their homes.
If someone remembers a survey like that, please post your source. I can’t recall where I read those disturbing numbers.
I’m skeptical of the assumption that Hispanic immigrants will become Democrats. A lot of them are conservative Catholics and if Republicans play their politics right and use the right rhetoric they could easily win a large proportion of Hispanic voters for the GOP.
BS
Abortion rates in the US Hispanic community are way higher than in the white community – almost as high as in the African American community. And many of the Hispanic churches are led by clergy who are pretty much commies.
http://www.borderlandbeat.com
The single biggest reason why I’m against increased immigration (legal and illegal) is that our economy is broken. Household incomes haven’t risen in over a decade. The economic “experts” have created an economy of crony capitalists, inside dealers and rent-seeking companies employing regulatory capture as an anti-competition mechanism.
In this environment, we cannot find jobs for the people who were born here in the US. Because many of these illegals are willing to work off-book, for sub-standard (or illegal) wages, they undercut the US employment situation for low-skilled workers.
In particular, the hardest hit demographic by the flood of cheap immigrant labor are black males who have only a high school education. Their plight in this economy is bad, and if “immigration reform” goes through, it will get a lot worse.
We should tell the elites to mow their own damn lawns.
Lock up the border and deport illegals. Make those on welfare work for it by picking up garbage, landscaping on the freeway, etc. No free rides.
Those given free shit vote for more free shit, and that would be the Democrat party. Also institute voter ID people immediately, so that illegals don’t vote (as much) and don’t wind up fraudulently obtained tax relief checks (as often).
My wife worked in a Hispanic dominated head start and a lot of the kids in it were illegal or had illegal parents. A lot of forged documents and gaming the system so they got free stuff sponsored by the DonkeyRats. Wife got disgusted and quit.
How many times have you been in line at the grocery store and some Hispanic woman is trying to use WIC stamps for non-WIC items because she cannot speak a word of English, and is holding up the line?
How many Irishmen or Poles came to the states with a deeply ingrained respect for firearms or shooting culture? The problem isn’t letting folks in, it’s about making Americans of them. We need to keep our schools from teaching children anti-gun hogwash, a recent common core textbook grossly simplified and watered down the second amendment, and bring new immigrants into american shooting culture. Send out the green cards, but put a CMP or Appleseed flyer in the envelope.
Very good point. Immigrants who arrived by a certain time in our history would have been likely to buy a gun as a necessity of life. As the frontier closed and the American people became more urban, there was no longer the same need. New arrivals could more easily retain their prejudices against guns.
I like the proposal.
Hell yes it will harm gun rights, hence why the Democrats want to legalize them all, because it will increase their power base. Look at the breakdown of Texas voting-wise. The areas of Texas near the Mexican border are solidly blue. The rest of the state is red. The Democrats are bent on turning Colorado, Texas, Arizona, etc…blue, or at least purple.
I would be interested in seeing how Hispanics stand on gun rights however. Not all people who vote Democrat are for gun control. I have no idea how Hispanics stand though on the issue.