MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript
Interview
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I`m joined tonight by Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer. Governor, good to have you with us tonight. You`ve heard the story before. How damaging is it? And how many holes does it actually shoot, ironically, into the conversation about the president of the United States being a gun grabber, when you have Paul Ryan saying, well, wait a minute, he hasn`t brought forth any new legislation or proposed it? What do you make of this?
GOV. BRIAN SCHWEITZER (D), MONTANA: Well, it was a slip up on his part, because for the last three and a half years, the gun advocates have been saying, oh, it`s just around the corner. He`s going to take your guns, going to take your ammo. That`s why, talk to any gun dealer in America, they have had the best three and a half years that they have had since Clinton was in the White House, when they used to say that about him as well.
You can`t get ammo anymore because gun dealers all over America get their boxes of ammo in, people rush in and get it because they have signs in there and their salesman are telling them and the NRA is saying this president is going to take away your guns tomorrow. No, next week. But he`s going to take away your guns and he`s going to take away your ammo.
So all the gun dealers in America are having banner sales every day of the week because tomorrow, next week, no next month, next term, he`s going to take away your guns.
SCHULTZ: But the NRA is very powerful. They are a powerful lobby. They have a lot of money to spend. And they are targeting these swing states. Will they be effective?
SCHWEITZER: We don`t hear much from the NRA until it`s election year. Then they are out there always advocating for Republicans. Sometimes you wonder if maybe they shouldn`t be called the National Republican Advocates.SCHULTZ: Is President Obama going to get rid of the Second Amendment if he wins a second term on November 6th?
SCHWEITZER: No. That ain`t going to happen. You can count on it. If he was going to do it, he would have done it during the first three and a half years. Of course, for eight years, they said Clinton was going to do it and of course he didn`t. We have responsible gun owners all over America. We will enforce the laws that we have. And President Obama is not going to take your ammo away and he`s not going to take your gun away.
SCHULTZ: In the recall election in Wisconsin, the NRA really went after Tom Barrett, saying that he was going to take away their guns and that he had a bad record. Why is it in rural America that firearms becomes an issue down the stretch? It looks like it`s going to rear its ugly head again this time.
SCHWEITZER: Folks in rural America like having guns, not because they are holding up liquor stores. I own a number of guns, Ed. You own guns, I`m sure. We like to hunt and we like to have guns. We like to target practice. And we`re not looking at attacking anybody.
But the bottom line is the attack is by the Republicans and their advocates at the NRA, who are trying to say every time there`s a Democrat running for office that we`re going to take away their guns. If we were going to do that, maybe during the last 100 years, we would, but we haven`t. We`re not going to in the future.
We respect Second Amendment rights, First Amendment rights, Fifth Amendment rights. We respect the Constitution. And you`ll keep your guns.
By the way, if you want to go buy more ammo and you want to buy more guns
and you want to yammer that someone is going to take away your guns, that`s
fine. If that`s a reason that you want to buy another gun, go ahead, do it. But I don`t think President Obama has proposed to do anything with gun legislation, except to expand, as you said, guns in national parks.
SCHULTZ: Yes. Now didn`t Mitt Romney sign a permanent assault weapons ban while he was governor of Massachusetts? Why doesn`t that matter?
SCHWEITZER: Not only that, he raised fees -- he quadrupled fees on guns. He raised tuition at the fastest rate in the country. He raised taxes. And when he left office in Massachusetts, people have somehow forgotten he left the people in Massachusetts with the largest debt per capita in America. Now he says he`s going to do good with money by cutting taxes by 20 percent -- let`s see -- and spending two trillion more on the military and 716 billion dollars even more than Ryan or Obama proposed in Medicare.
I don`t know how he does his math, but somebody ought to buy him a two
dollar calculator.
SCHULTZ: Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana, great to have you with us tonight on THE ED SHOW. Thanks so much.
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