{"id":183444,"date":"2013-02-26T21:43:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-27T02:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/02\/26\/in-your-face-wayne-lapierre\/"},"modified":"2013-02-26T21:43:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-27T02:43:00","slug":"in-your-face-wayne-lapierre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2013\/02\/26\/in-your-face-wayne-lapierre\/","title":{"rendered":"In Your Face, Wayne LaPierre"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There was a primary to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in the Illinois 2<sup>nd<\/sup> Congressional district, and it ended up a referendum on gun laws, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/02\/27\/us\/voting-primary-jesse-jackson-jr-house-seat.html\">the pro-gun control candidate won it in a walk<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Riding a wave of \u201csuper PAC\u201d spending that helped catapult her to the front of a crowded Democratic field, Robin Kelly, whose campaign called for tougher national gun laws, clinched her party\u2019s nomination Tuesday in a special primary election for the House seat vacated by Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The outcome of the contest, which had been unexpectedly cast into the center of the national gun debate, was welcome news for Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York and a staunch gun-control advocate. He poured more than $2.2 million into attacking Ms. Kelly\u2019s chief opponent, Debbie Halvorson, this month.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Flooding Chicago airwaves, Mr. Bloomberg\u2019s super PAC, Independence USA, ran a series of advertisements criticizing Ms. Halvorson for opposing certain gun control measures and endorsing Ms. Kelly as the alternative candidate. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">In Illinois\u2019s Second Congressional District, which includes parts of the South Side of Chicago and southern suburban counties, Mr. Bloomberg\u2019s super PAC financed a wave of mailers and television advertisements that criticized Ms. Halvorson, a former House member, for having gotten an \u201cA\u201d rating from the National Rifle Association in earlier elections and for opposing bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Last week, the Illinois State Rifle Association responded to Mr. Bloomberg\u2019s effort by sending out mailers asking its members in the district to vote for Ms. Halvorson on Tuesday. Ms. Halvorson said she had not asked for the endorsement.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">She was considered a front-runner after Mr. Jackson resigned in November, just weeks after his re-election. He pleaded guilty last week to one count of fraud for spending campaign money on personal expenses and celebrity memorabilia.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">In he victory speech, Ms. Kelly, a former state representative who has worked as a chief of staff for the Illinois state treasurer, told supporters they had sent \u201ca message that tells the N.R.A. that their days of holding our country hostage are coming to an end.\u201d <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Your mouth to God&#8217;s ear, Ms. Kelly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was a primary to replace Jesse Jackson Jr. in the Illinois 2nd Congressional district, and it ended up a referendum on gun laws, and the pro-gun control candidate won it in a walk: Riding a wave of \u201csuper PAC\u201d spending that helped catapult her to the front of a crowded Democratic field, Robin Kelly, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1136,998,1000,1055,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-congress","category-elections","category-gun-laws","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}