There’s A Little Ross Perot In All Them Varmints
May 22, 2007 at 10:22 am
John McCain says this about Mitt Romney’s stance on immigration:
“Maybe his solution will be to get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn.”
The Washington Post points out:
The comment managed to tweak Romney on both his support for gun rights (he once bragged about bagging small varmints) and a past controversy involving his lawn service employing illegal immigrants, including one from Guatemala.
Good tweaking. But political history buffs might want to remember another lawn-related campaign classic, from Ross Perot.
Long ago, Roger Simon reported this from the 1992 presidential campaign:
“The Vietnamese had sent people into Canada to make arrangements to have me and my family killed,” Perot said. “The most significant effort they had one night is five people coming across my front yard with rifles.” This attempted hit was taking place in 1969 and the reason the North Vietnamese had hired the Black Panthers to kill Perot is that Perot was trying to get our POWs out of Vietnam.
No telling if the Black Panthers were armed with varmint guns.
John McCain Presidential Election political junkie 2008 campaign political trivia
richard said,
May 22, 2007 @ 3:25 pm
Actually, the cartidge used in the U. S. M-16 rifle (a Panther favorite) has a civilian use in bolt-action rifles (as the “.223 Remington”) for . . . varmint hunting!
Indeed, the M-16’s civilian, semi-auto-only, versions (AR-15; Bushmaster) are themselves used on a particular varmint, the northern plains prarie dog (a rodent), where the practice is to mow down these vermin in mass quantities, at farmer request.