Apparently, Paul Hodes feels confident enough that he can afford to throw away some number of votes from New Hampshire gun enthusiasts. The most recent copy of American Hunter indicates that Hodes did not answer the NRA's candidate questionnaire, so they mark him with a question mark and suggest that he is either indifferent or hostile to gun rights. On his website, Hodes states:
"My priorities for protecting our personal freedoms are . . . . Supporting the Second Amendment rights of sportsmen and law-abiding gun owners from federal intrusion."
That sounds good, but gun owners are very familiar with politicians (sadly, mostly Democrats) who claim to support the Second Amendment, but then make exceptions for "assault weapons", "Saturday night specials", .50 caliber "sniper rifles" and whatever other gun Sarah Brady and Chuck Schumer think looks easy to demonize in the sympathetic media, and/or are happy to place limitations on exercising Second Amendment rights that they wouldn't tolerate if the First Amendment were similarly limited. Accordingly, I sent two e-mails to the Hodes website's "contact us" e-address asking for clarification of his position. I received no response to either.
Whether Hodes is really a strong supporter of gun rights shouldn't be too much of a concern, particularly compared to the likelihood of continued erosion of our rights under the current regime. However, for many gun enthusiasts, the Second Amendment is an easy issue on which to make a decision as to whether a candidate truly believes in their constituents or whether they view them as untrustworthy rabble to be controlled. The Republican-infected NRA is only too happy to help its members use gun rights as the sole issue in determining whom to vote for. There may also be some who ignore the negative campaign ads and angry rhetoric that passes these days for informing voters, but who will refer to the NRA's "cheat sheet" in evaluating the candidates. It is sad to see yet another Democratic candidate possibly losing votes by failing to adequately address this issue.