Interesting story over at MSNBC today: "Shooting for the sweet spot: How McCain, Obama say they'll balance crime and the Second Amendment." It compares the presidential candidates' positions on 2nd Amendment and gun control/gun rights issues. We already know what the National Rifle Association thinks: it is planning to spend $40 million this year opposing Obama, after spending $20 million against John Kerry in 2004.
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Presidential Candidates and Gun Control
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Of course the NRA is going to oppose the Messiah. They know what his real record on gun control is: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obama-and-the-attempt-to-destroy-the-second-amendment/
As a moderate Republican, I personally believe Obama's claims that he interprets the 2A as an individual right. I believe he has changed his position over the years, after traveling to places like Montana and Vermont, which are states with high gun ownership and relatively low crime. Obama has changed his position on gun rights over the year to focus particularly on urban gun crime. When Biden made the claim that Obama "will not touch his Beretta", I can believe him. Biden's Beretta is a $6,000, custom made, non-repeating double barrel hunting gun. John Kerry owns one. John Edwards owns one, etc. No one will go afte these guns. However, Obama is skating around the issue of handguns and repeating weapons. His website still says he all for an Assault Weapons Ban. An "assault weapon" is anything they want to define. Generally, specific characteristics such as capacity, bayonet lugs, pistol grips, retractable stocks, muzzle brakes, threaded barrels, etc.
The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban was a miserable failure. Proponents of the ban argue that it helped immensely, and kept dangerous guns off the streets. Proponents argue that crimes with "Assault Weapons" have skyrocketed since the ban sunsetted in 2004. Interestingly enough, AK-47's did not disappear during that time. There were still millions on the street, grandfathered in. Manufacturers did not quit manufacturing and selling them. They simply shaved off the bayonet lug, welded the muzzle brakes on, and stuck lower capacity magazines in them, making them "compliant". Everyone that bought one, simply went out and bought the high capacity magazines for them, which were still legal to manufacture and sell, seperately. Do we think that criminals aren't smart enough to buy the banned components seperately? Were drive-by bayonettings that much of a problem to being with? Come on! There are people passing laws that know NOTHING about these weapons, and are regurgitating things they hear from the anti-gun lobby fear factories. If there was a decrease in gun crime during the 10 year AWB, it has nothing to do with the guns that they banned, because the guns were still readily available. I bought a high-capacity AK-47 variant in 2003, legally, during the peak of the Assault Weapons Ban, at a local gun store. The ban did nothing. It illustrated feel-good measures on paper, and gave the appearance of action.
What the NRA will be doing over the next month is educating people as to what Obama WILL approve, and what he will ban. As we all know, Obama, cannot draft legislation. Congress will do that. Once Obama gets in, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy of New York will draft her yearly Assault Weapons Ban re-enactment, and try to get the votes to get it to Obama. More than likely, she will not have the support. Too many Republicans and Blue Dog Dems to allow it to happen. Dem. House Majority Leader, Harry Reid, is very pro-gun. Of course, with the approval rating in congress, that balance of power can change at any time.
Of course no president can propose legislation. But what a president can do is appoint Supreme Court Justices. I'd bet dollars against dimes that a President Obama would appoint justices who would look at the Heller decision and say "Stare decisis? What's that?"