Mike Huckabee: Town Hall 12/21/07

Mike Huckabee
Town Hall, Loras College
Dubuque, IA 12/21/07

TRANSCRIPT:QUESTION: My question is about your thoughts on assault rifles...

MIKE HUCKABEE: Well, by the definition of the people who have no clue what a assault rifle is, or an assault weapon, I have some. I think the second amendment is not restricted by someone's idea. The second amendment is not about hunting, it's about freedom. And I don't believe there are really constitutional authorities where the government can restrict that. I had a discussion with a group of, an editorial board while I was in Washington, and I won't tell you what news organization, but one of the people in particular was talking to me about the second amendment and I said 'well, I have an unabashed view of it and believe it's just like the first amendment- it's as sacred as any of the others' and I said that the problem is when a lot of politicians are asked about the second amendment, they start talking about hunting, and I said, ya know, I'm a hunter. I hunt deer, duck, turkey, antelope and a few other things, but it's not about hunting, The second amendment's about a freedom. It's about protecting ourselves, our families, ou properties, from anybody that would threaten us, even protecting ourselves from our own government, for that matter. That was our founding fathers' view, that sounds pretty radical today, but that's what it was, because they understood that the last line of freedom we ultimately have in this country is ourselves, and so, this particular discussion we were having, and one of the people in the room said "Well I just don't think anybody needs a semi-automatic weapon or anything ya know, like hunting and I said Well you just killed my duck season, because semi-automatic doesn't mean anything other than you pull, you know squeeze the trigger and you continue to get a round you shoot a Benelli shotgun for duckhunting, that's a semi-automatic weapon and yes, you do need one. Where I duck hunt, you definitely need one and anyway, it's just clear that a lot of people don't even understand those issues. So, you know, I, just again, very clear and adamant the way that we protect our first amendment is making sure that we also have the second.

LABEL: MH IA 12-21 (GR#32) NBMF-clipA

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