It's hard to believe that less than 20 years ago a full 25% of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were rated "A" by the National Rifle Association. These days, any Democrat who's not vocally demanding a ban on semi-automatic firearms is committing political heresy, even in more conservative parts of the country, like New York's 24th Congressional District.
The district, currently represented by Republican Claudia Tenney, is considered a safe seat for the GOP. Two years ago Tenney clobbered Democrat Dave Wagenhauser by more than 30 points, defeating him 66% to 34%. The fourteen counties that comprise NY-24 are largely rural, and are home to a fair number of gun owners. That's a conundrum for Democrats, because a candidate appealing enough to be competitive in the general election isn't likely to win the Democrat primary, where voters skew much further left than the district as a whole.
Tenney faces a primary opponent of her own, and there are three Democrats running for their party's nomination as well. Surprisingly, the right to keep and bear arms may be more of an issue in the Democrat primary than the Republican primary this time around.
The campaign for Diana Kastenbaum on Monday criticized opponent Alissa Ellman over comments in a previous interview in which Ellman described herself as “pretty pro-gun” and suggested Democrats were “wrong” to over-regulate firearms.
Hugh Smyth, Kastenbaum’s campaign manager, said the remarks raise questions about Ellman’s alignment with Democratic voters and the party’s long-standing support for gun safety measures. He pointed to policies such as universal background checks, red flag laws, and restrictions on assault weapons as widely supported within the party.
Ellman's an interesting figure; an army veteran who was later diagnosed with cancer she believes was related to exposure to toxins during deployment in Afghanistan. Ellman served as a claims processor for the VA's Survivors and Dependents Educational Assistance, but was canned during the DOGE purge of federal employees. That, in turn, made her a favorite of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who brought her as a guest to President Trump's State of the Union address last year.
When Ellman announced her candidacy last July, she said she initially planned on running as an independent but balked at having to get 15,000 signatures in six weeks in order to appear on the ballot. So instead, she decided to run as a Democrat.
“I choose to run as a Democrat because the majority of my values align with the working class,” she said.
Where Democrats are wrong, Ellman said, is in trying to “over-regulate” guns.
“I’m pretty pro-gun,” she said. “I grew up in the country, where guns are pretty necessary. If you get a break-in in the middle of the night, the police aren’t going to get to you quickly. I carried a loaded weapon with a round in the chamber for 18 months while deployed.
“Democrats need to have a clear plan, not just be anti-Trump,” Ellman said. “I don’t know how they can sit in their ivory tower and take people off of Medicaid. And do that to give tax cuts to billionaires!”
Now, as far as I can tell, that's about the only statement Ellman's made that's suggestive of support for the Second Amendment, and it still leaves plenty of room for her to embrace things like "assault weapon" bans, "red flag" laws, waiting periods, and even "gun-free zones." She told one local paper last September that she believes in "gun rights," but her campaign website is devoid of any mention of the right to keep and bear arms, even in the section entitled "Defending Your Rights."
Amusingly, Kastenbaum's campaign website is also missing any talk about the Second Amendment or the gun control laws her campaign manager is currently trumpeting. The sole issues Kastenbaum mentions are the environment, healthcare, and education.
As far as I can tell, the only time that Kastenbaum has brought up the Second Amendment was a Facebook post written shortly after anti-ICE protester Alex Pretti was shot and killed in Minneapolis. It reads:
UPDATE: 5-7 ICE and Border Control agents wrestled a citizen to the ground and then multiple shots fired as 37-year old man shot dead. Claim is he was armed. In Minnesota it is legal to open and concealed carry of a firearm. Demand bodycam footage! So all you gun owners, your right to carry a weapon is now being questioned by DHS.
It seems like a misstep for Kastenbaum's campaign to make an issue out of Ellman's vaguely stated support for the Second Amendment when Kastenbaum hasn't exactly been running as a gun-grabber, especially when Kastenbaum herself said last September that her campaign "won’t be tearing each other down" because Democrats "all need to be tearing down Tenney instead.”
I suspect that Kastenbaum is quietly panicking over some national attention that Ellman's about to receive. Later this month she's set to appear on an episode of The Daily Show. That will almost certainly generate some donor dollars from Jon Stewart's liberal audience and raise her national profile as well, at least on the left.
