Friday, February 22, 2008

Obama On Guns

Republicans have been left with, shall we say, a less than ideal candidate this election cycle- but Barack Obama is a man who cannot be trusted to follow the Constitution of the United States of America.

In his answers to the 1998 Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test, Obama said he favored a ban on “the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.”

By definition, this would include all pistols ever made, from .22 target pistols used in the Olympics to rarely-fired pistols kept in nightstands and sock drawers for the defense of families, and every pistol in between. Obama’s strident stand would also ban all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, whatever their previously legal purpose…

At no point [on his campaign site] does Obama recognize an individual right to own handguns, or explicitly recognize a right for Americans to use a firearm to defend themselves or others. The site explicitly states that Barack Obama recognizes civilian gun ownership for two just purposes, “hunting and target shooting.”

If ever there was a reason to vote for McCain, this is it.

At the bottom of the Hot Air story is a link- one worth reading;

at one point, in 1996, his campaign said he favored the banning of handguns, but Obama's campaign now says that he never believed that--he now says that the ban on handguns would not be "politically practicable" at the moment

In other words, he's still in favour of it but knows he can't come out and say that lest he drives away some voters. Reminds me of all those "present" votes he's cast in the past.

Obama outlined his anti-gun plan that includes increased penalties for the interstate transportation of firearms. The maximum penalty now for bringing a gun across the border is 10 years in prison. Obama is proposing to make it a felony for a gun owner whose firearm was stolen from his residence which causes harm to another person if that weapon was not securely stored in that home.

He's proposing restricting gun purchases to one weapon a month and banning the sale of firearms at gun shows except for "antique" weapons. Obama is also proposing increasing the licensing fee to obtain a federal firearms license.

He's also seeking a ban on police agencies from reselling their used weapons even if those funds are used to buy more state-of-the-art weapons for their agencies. Obama wants only those over 21 who've passed a basic course to be able to buy or own a firearm.

He's proposing that all federally licensed gun dealers sell firearms in a storefront and not from their homes while banning their business from being within five miles of a school or a park.

Now imagine Obama in the White House with a Democrat majority in Congress. H.R. 1022 would just be the beginning.

Not all of this is news by the way- as far back as February last year all of this came to light- you'd think that some of the Republican candidates might have mentioned this by now, say in every speech they gave, highlighting just how important it is that Obama doesn't win. They might even have pointed out that this would have affected not just American's right to self-defence but also the great, silent majority of hunters; not to mention the little matter of the Second Amendment.

Compare the story told by Condoleeza Rice of her father and others defending the homes of black families from racist attack using the only tool for the job- guns- with Obama's desire to disarm the average American with his ban on handguns of all types. Sounds like an effective TV commercial to me. "If the man who wants to be the first black president of America had his way, men like Condoleeza Rice's father would have been rendered defenceless against the likes of the Ku Klux Klan. Today, he intends to take away the average American's best defence against violent and predatory criminals who hold the current guns laws in contempt."

Something like that?

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