“I asking you (sic) to help restore my second amendment rights so I can earn a little money so I can eat. Pls (sic) help me your honor. I don’t have much left but this little thing is a big thing for me.” – Disgraced Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s plea to U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns for the restoration of his second amendment rights when he’s released from prison in December
1.) A 71 y.o. man has no means of protection because he commited a non-violent, white collar crime.
2.) Did he suffer a stroke and brain damage in prison or has he always had such an imbarassing grasp on grammar and punctuation?
3.) What exactly is he going to do with his firearms that going to allow him to “…earn a little money…”?
And 4) he was part of the congress group that prevents the ATF from using federal funds to investigate whether felons should get their gun rights
oh the irony
haha
imbarassing.
Define: Irony
i think you meant hypocrisy
As arrogant, corrupt, and stupid as Cunningham was, he deserves nothing. He took millions in bribes. Millions. I know that almost every politician is corrupt, but Cunningham took it to new levels. I have no problem with him losing his firearm rights. And everything else.
Totally agree. If you want all felons to have their 2A rights restored thats another argument. But i do know that if i were convicted of a felony i most certainly would not have my 2A rights restored so neither should this former congressman or any one else who is usually held “above” the law.
It’s that attitude that has allowed the government to grow to the unmanageable size and scope that it is today.
What government does to the least of us, government does to all of us. Indeed, under the auspices of “equality,” it has to treat us all like shit.
Certain demographics claimed unfair police practices in decades past; now we’re all treated like suspected criminals and drug dealers when we’re unfortunate enough to have an encounter with an agent of the state, under the banner of “equality” for all. Members of a particular religion and ethnicity crashed planes into buildings; now we’re all treated like potential terrorists, under the banner of “equality” for all.
You just planted yourself firmly in the “there oughta be a law” camp. It is, unquestionably, people of that mindset that have turned this once free nation into a land of squabbling children, always seeking government to intervene in their day-to-day affairs. Is it any wonder, then, why the government acts like the fed-up parent of bickering little brats?
You make me sick.
I rarely do this, as I consider it generally a cheap cop-out to a real response, but…
+1
Keep it civil, m’kay?
I thought I did.
“…restore my second amendment rights so I can earn a little money…”
Huh? Is he planning on becoming a cop or something? A commercial hunter, if such a thing exists?
Also from the article “U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns told Cunningham he had “no authority” to restore his gun rights. He told him his only route, thanks to a federal statute that strips felons of their gun rights, would be to ask the Secretary of the Treasury to grant relief.” How does Tim Geitnier have authority to do such a thing? Just because the ATF is underneath them?
matt: I think the “earn a little money” statement was in relation to the “competed nationally in trap, s[k]eet, and sporting clays” and/or the mention of being an NRA life member and range officer. If his RKBA was restored, he could possibly get a job somewhere as an RSO to supplement his income.
Pizza delivery?
This, the Supreme Court’s finding, bothers me. We have decried, in the past, tactics for limiting our RKBA such as “Oops, we’re out of the necessary forms… indefinitely,” or “Only between 10:30 and 10:38 on the second Tuesday of the full moon,” and other similar heel-dragging. How is this any different? Why do the gun rights advocates let this slide? Is it because the constituency involved is too small and/or too “dirty?”
Nobody want to be seen standing up for the rights of felons to be armed.
All animals are created equal. Some animals are just more equal than others ( such as Congress critters ).
Normally I wouldn’t side with a corrupt pollition, but personally I believe ALL fellons should have their full rights restored upon release. Either a person has paid their debt to society or they haven’t. If they have, then restore all of there rights. If they haven’t, then why let them out in the first place. Instead, we release people and tell them they’re debt is paid, and then throw them into a purgatory of sorts where technicaly they’re free, but with limitations. Limitations that could very easily be forced on any of us.
Felons aren’t in prison to “pay their debt to society.” They are imprisoned to keep them away from us. When they are released, most of them repeat if they have the means to do so. A lot of them should never be released, but we can’t keep them locked up forever.
Most of them will end up buying a gun on the street. Restoring their guns rights to make it easier for them to strap up? Sure, fine, if they live next to you or your family, no problem. Hell, I’ll give them a gun. If they live next to me or mine, not a chance. I’m not pro-felon and I’m not that stupid.
“A lot of them should never be released….”
You hit that nail right on the head. But they are. I remember someone on here saying one time “if you can’t trust a man to walk the streets with a gun, you can’t trust him to walk the streets at all”. The repeat offender issue is more about the screwed up prison system of this country than the 2A. I just can’t get behind a system that tells someone they’re “free”, but at the same time they’re still the property of the state for the rest of they’re life, and restricted from doing things that every other free man can. As far as restoring their gun rights making it easer for them to re-arm, it’s not that hard to get a gun on the street in the first place. And if someone wants to kill someone, they’ll do it with or without a gun. At least that what I’ve heard from a lot of so called pro 2A people here when defending the 2A. Does that not still apply here or only when your 2A right is in danger and the hell with everyone else.
There’s a big catch to all this “felon” talk, of course. Every state has the power to decide which crimes are felonies and which are misdemeanors, and to grade them. However, Congress, that august institution, decided to ignore the state legislators and cling to an 18th century definition of felony, a crime punishable by “a year and a day” of jail. States, on the other hand, did something very sensible: Many of them award longer sentences for misdemeanors in cases where they believe extended court supervision would help a person turn their life around. Common examples are those busted with a cannibis pipe, or those caught .09 BAL twice within ten years. So if a college kid is busted with “paraphenalia” he loses his gun rights for life under 18 USC 922. That is an absurd result flowing simply from state legislatures believing they were determining the consequences of their laws and the appropriate means of supervising an offender. The result is unjust, in my opinion. As for Randy Cunningham, his offense was infinitely worse than possessing a weed pipe, yet in office he willfully condoned the injustice I detail above. He’s special: Let him by an alarm and a flashlight. He can’t even use pepper spray legally now in CA, and that’s just fine.
Some people’s attitude regarding this reminds me off a quote:
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes aprecedent that will reach to himself.” Thomas Paine
I wish I was as eloquent as that.
Maybe when I get older.
There used to be a time where a convicted felon could appeal to a court. I don’t know if the felon has to go before a state or federal court, but the felon could apply to have his “rights” restored. Those rights included voting and possession of firearms. Maybe this avenue for redress has been closed to all of us. Does anyone have any information on this subject?
In this time of our nation where you can be convicted of a felony for draining and back-filling some marshland on your privately owned property. Do we really want to be so quick to place ourselves in a “us versus them” camp? Employers, both private and public, can refuse employment to felons. Do we really want to condemn certain individuals to a lifetime of being a pariah in society because he wears the label of “felon”?
Thank you. That last paragraph of yours was the exact point I was trying to get accross to some people on here. When you’re behind bars, everyone knows and genarally agrees you have to give up some rights. But when your walking the streets free like everyone else, should you not get those rights back. If you start hand choosing groups of people who have rights and who don’t, what happens if you find yourself in one of those groups one day that doesn’t. And waving the bloody shirt and screaming “think of the children” or implying that the streets will run red with blood if fellons are given their rights back is the same argument the anti-2As hurl at us on a daily basis. I don’t buy it from them and I don’t buy it from Ralph.
I read the whole letter and it made my eyes bleed. Did Duke have a stroke or something? Otherwise, how can somebody with such poor language skills become a freakin’ congressman?
Mr. Cunningham was a decorated veteran of Viet Nam and I would thank him for his service there, but now he is just a scum bag politician that got damn greedy while in office. He ended up in prison for a long time and rightfully so. Now he is crying about the consequences of being punished for his crimes. Too bad, I have no sorrow for him. He says he will have to get by on $1700 a month, I can only hope I see that much when I retire. He should have thought of these things before he pocketed millions of dollars that didn’t belong to him. Had it been up to me, he would serve life in prison at hard labor. I expect politicians to actually hold themselves to a higher moral standard because of their access to power, but instead they lie, cheat and steal just like a street criminal and believe they should not be punished. My once youthfull idealism died a slow horribly painfull death I am afraid, and left me a very bitter ol’fat white guy, with no forgiveness for corrupt people in government.
WOW, $1700 a month? I guess that’s not enough for his “cabin in the woods.” There are plenty of hard-working Americans who’ve never committed a felony, and they have to survive on much less.
The former congressman better learn to hunt with a bow and arrow. Or, just a fishing pole.
How is it that the bigger the moron, the bigger thr title? Duke? How the hell did he become Duke? There is only one Duke I can believe in, That was John Wayne? It never ceases to amaze me how These “Dukes” all relate to him. Gun rag writers, EX-congressman, et al. What they don’t understand is how J.W. came to be called Duke.
That name was hung on him by the fireman he lived next door to as a young lad. He would walk his dog by the station each day. They would hear him call the dog; named Duke, but they didn’t know his name. As a result the firmen began calling him Duke. The name stuck through-out his life.
That is the story I have heard as to how he came to be called Duke, if any one has any other info on this I would be interested in hearing about it.
Now as to the moron, why should he have a firearm? Let him take his chances, just as those who live in England, Australia, etc. have to do each day.
It has long affected my reaction to John Wayne the actor [born Marion Morrison] that he ducked WWII. As for Cunningham, despite his glorious bombing runs, he came home to pursue and win a leadership role in our “democracy” [really a leadership constructed under the theory of democratic elistism] and then he betrayed his constituents as brazenly as a man can. In the original democracy he would have been killed, and rightly so. And now he grovels shamelessly not for the rights of those whose gun rights he cavalierly brushed aside, but …only for his own. Americans have no perspective. They jail weed-possessors for ten years. They find, though, that betrayers of the integrity of their Republic should live out a peaceful old age. Cunningham, like McCain, was building a career through war. It was a choice not forced by economic necessity, nor forged in the hardest type of service. I have no sympathy, and defending his “rights” is simply to ignore his long-term treason. Introduce bribery wholesale to the legislature [beyond campaign funding] and the Republic [and courts] will fail.