Eleanor Roosevelt, gun owner

[SecularMotion]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by cbayer (a host of the General Discussion forum).

Viewed from the perspective of 21st century politics, where Republicans and Democrats largely have lined up on opposing sides of the gun control debate, Eleanor Roosevelt’s pistol offers a fresh take on the ongoing debate over the rights of gun owners, the Democrats who want to curtail them and the Republicans who want to expand them.

“I think that having an icon in the political arena and, truly, someone who was a world leader, having a true understanding of what your Second Amendment rights are, as an American, is just incredibly enlightening,” said Mike McCormack, chairman of the Dutchess County Republican Committee. “She got it.”

Dutchess County Democratic Committee Chairwoman Elisa Sumner had a very different opinion.

“I don’t think you can compare what she did in 1957 with 2015,” Sumner said. “At the time, you weren’t having mass shootings. You didn’t have Sandy Hook (elementary school shootings). You didn’t have people walking around with semi-automatic weapons, Uzis and Kalishnikovs. I don’t think there is a comparison at all. You’re talking about two different time periods. “She needed protection because of her liberal, civil rights circumstances. She needed protection,” Sumner said.

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/news/2015/07/12/eleanor-roosevelt-gun-owner/29953377/

[Duckhunter935]

1. .

[Shamash]

2. Civil rights liberals may carry guns to protect themselves from conservatives. Good to know. Thanks.

[pipoman]

3. The entire premise is wrong

Eleanor Roosevelt’s pistol offers a fresh take on the ongoing debate over the rights of gun owners, the Democrats who want to curtail them and the Republicans who want to expand them.

This issue is more accurately described as urban and rural. The bottom line is that it isn't really an issue most people are concerned about, and those who are concerned are about 90% in the Eleanor Roosevelt/no more gun control camp...

[Vinca]

4. Eleanor Roosevelt's pistol. Hmmm.

We can assume, right off the bat, it wasn't a semi-automatic handgun able to kill dozens of people a minute. There are guns and then there are GUNS. And what is the reason behind owning a gun? A rifle for hunting? An AK for hunting? A little S & W pistol for protection or a room filled with every gun known to mankind? There is common sense gun ownership and "nut" gun ownership. I would guess Eleanor was in the former group.

[CTyankee]

5. fascinating history but it doesn't have any relevance to our situation with guns today.

Of course, the chairman of the Dutchess County Rep. comm. would frame in the way he did. That's what Republicans do. But his Dem counterpart set him straight. That's what Democrats do.

[aikoaiko]

6. Dutchess County Democratic Committee Chairwoman Elisa Sumner doesn't know her history.

“I don’t think you can compare what she did in 1957 with 2015,” Sumner said. “At the time, you weren’t having mass shootings. You didn’t have Sandy Hook (elementary school shootings). You didn’t have people walking around with semi-automatic weapons, Uzis and Kalishnikovs. I don’t think there is a comparison at all. You’re talking about two different time periods. “She needed protection because of her liberal, civil rights circumstances. She needed protection,” Sumner said.

Except there were plenty of gangland murder sprees, like the Valentines Day Massacre (1929). Yes, she needed protection, as Sumner states, and there are those everyday people today would like the same liberty.

[CTyankee]

9. I can just see Eleanor Roosevelt caught in a gangland murder spree...

that makes sense, given the gang she ran with...oh, she tried to hide her criminal past but we're not fooled...that photo of her on a private estate firing on a target in that get up was just a set up to deflect us from looking into her sordid life of crime...

[aikoaiko]

12. What a strange imagination you have.

I didn't claim she was involved with gangs, but these shootings were happening on public streets and settings. The potential for gun violence was very much on the minds of many people just as it is today when mass shootings occur.

[CTyankee]

15. Um, I'm sure you believe what you have stated but you see, Eleanor Roosevelt

was an enormously privileged woman who may very well have feared for her safety once out in public view, but had a pathetically uninformed way of dealing with it. I guess if Jackie Kennedy had been packing heat that day in Dallas, nobody wudda dared shoot her husband...

[aikoaiko]

19. Why would you mock JFK's death like that?

There are scenarios when having a pistol can help and they are scenarios where having pistol wouldn't help. Surely you understand that.

[CTyankee]

21. thank you! you got my point!Or at least I think you did.

And I too am truly sorry I had to go to reductio ad absurdum in order to make a really rather simple point.

Glad we're all straightened out now.

[aikoaiko]

23. Yes, a lawful person carries a pistol for when it is justified to use it.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

10. 'Gangland murder sprees'

like the Saint Valentines Day Massacre, were criminal on criminal violence.

Where were the 'Sandy Hooks' of those days? They weren't.

She 'needed protection' because she was part of the First Family. She wasn't carrying a pistol to protect her simply from getting mugged, but as part of her protection from assassination, something 'everyday people' don't have to worry about.

[aikoaiko]

14. I guess those deaths don't count to you. But public mass murders were in the news in those days.

You may say that everyday people don't have to worry about getting killing, but most of the people getting murdered and assaulted are not first ladies of the United States, are they?

And sometimes schools were targeted for violence, albeit not always with guns.

For example, thirty-eight elementary school children and six adults
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

16. I like your link. So tell me, how would pistol packing teachers (or kids)

have prevented those kids from getting blown up? Oh wait, it wouldn't. So your argument is total non sequitur.

[aikoaiko]

18. Did someone make that claim? Or is this a conversation you've been having with someone not here?

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

20. It will in a moment.

When I add you to my 'timewasters' ignore list for first trying to 'rebut' my argument with your non sequitur, then disingenuously pretending, a single comment later, that that's not what you were trying to do.

[aikoaiko]

22. non sequitur doesn't mean what you think it means.

You brought up mass killings at schools with the claim that they didn't happen.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

28. "Where were the 'Sandy Hooks' of those days? They weren't."

Yet guns were far more openly accessible in those days. It seems as if accessibility is not the controlling factor for spree killers.

[sufrommich]

7. I remember this from the PBS series on the Roosevelts.

It was a trade off agreement that the secret service would keep their distance if she carried a gun. She did it because she wanted some privacy in her life,she was hardly a gun enthusiast.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

8. That little bit of extra information...

that makes the difference between ignorant and misguided claims and reality. Thanks.

[sufrommich]

11. I'd rather not see the gun lobby attempt to paint Eleanor as a

pistol packin' mama. She was a woman with a mission,that mission had nothing to do with brandishing a gun.

[MerryBlooms]

13. .

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[aikoaiko]

17. Except she was.

When ER became first lady, she refused Secret Service protection, insisting that she be able to travel as freely as possible. The agents complied with her wishes only after they discovered she knew how to shoot, and convincing her to carry a pistol when she drove alone. Intrigued by yet another example of ER’s independence, the press treated ER’s “packing” as front page news—especially after she nonchalantly remarked: “I carry a pistol, and I’m a fairly good shot.”

Read more: http://www.ammoland.com/2014/10/first-lady-eleanor-roosevelt-i-carry-a-pistol-and-im-a-fairly-good-shot/#ixzz3fmAbW0LK

Sounds like she enjoyed shooting well just like other gun enthusiasts.

[CTyankee]

25. somehow I missed my latest edition of "Ammoland."

Thanks so much for sharing...

[sufrommich]

26. +1. nt

[aikoaiko]

27. Its not like DKos or Slate or Brady Campaign likes to admit such things about a Democratic hero.

But the article is sourced and verifiable if doubt its veracity.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

24. "At the time, you weren’t having mass shootings."

Yet, at the time gun laws were far less restrictive.

Perhaps something culturally changed, such as the Drug War and a PIC that leaves people caught in it no future except a future of crime.

[cbayer]

29. Locking

Host consensus is that this violates the prohibition on gun threads in the forum.