Wow! Talk about trying to deceive the public! He’s been consistently for gun control and yet he plans to hide his voting record behind his gun advocate supporters. How post-partisan of him! Let’s all admire his cunning and skill:
Barack Obama did not hunt or fish as a child. He lives in a big city. And as an Illinois state legislator and a U.S. senator, he consistently backed gun control legislation.
But he is nevertheless making a play for pro-gun voters in rural Pennsylvania.
By highlighting his background in constitutional law and downplaying his voting record, Obama is engaging in a quiet but targeted drive to win over an important constituency that on the surface might seem hostile to his views.
[...]
The campaign has asked gun rights advocates like state Rep. Dan Surra, a Democrat from rural Elk County with an “A+” rating from the NRA, to form a coalition of supporters who can vouch for Obama.
“It is clear out there that I am for Obama, and they have reached out to me as a sportsman and a gun owner,” Surra said Thursday. “There has been an outreach to pro-gun legislators, pro-gun people who are sympathetic to Obama’s message.”
The campaign sent an e-mail this week to the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, saying it would “appreciate all sportsmen taking time to learn the facts: Our candidate strongly supports the right and traditions of sportsmen throughout Pennsylvania and the United States of America.”
Notice the language, he supports “sportsmen” owning guns, nothing about having guns for protection. His record is pretty clear that he’s supported gun control:
Obama has long backed gun-control measures, including a ban on semiautomatic weapons and concealed weapons, and a limit on handgun purchases to one a month. He has declined to take a stance on the legality of the handgun prohibition in Washington, D.C., which the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing, although Obama has voiced support for the right of state and local governments to regulate guns.
In the Senate, he and Clinton broke on one vote, in July 2006. Siding with gun-rights advocates, Obama voted to prohibit the confiscation of firearms during an emergency or natural disaster. Clinton was one of 16 senators to oppose the amendment.
A two-page white paper on Obama’s website doesn’t mention his voting record.
Instead, he introduces himself as a former constitutional law professor who “believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms.”
“He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting,” the paper states. “He also believes that the right is subject to reasonable and common sense regulation.”
He hasn’t declined to take a stand on the DC case, this Politico reporter is pretty lazy, it only took me a minute to find a quote on it and it’s pretty funny where the quote is from — a Politico question and answer session with Obama on gun control:
Q: You said recently, “I have no intention of taking away folks’ guns.” But you support the D.C. handgun ban, and you’ve said that it’s constitutional. How do you reconcile those two positions?
A: Because I think we have two conflicting traditions in this country. I think it’s important for us to recognize that we’ve got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of law-abiding citizens use it for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets. And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of background checks for children, the mentally ill. We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment and people’s traditions.
He mentions owners protecting their families here but I’m not buying it because his actions and words in the past undermine that inclusion and I think it’s telling that he doesn’t always remember to include it when speaking of gun rights. Here’s what John Lott says about this story:
This is the same guy who told me back in the mid-1990s when we were talking about the Chicago lawsuit against gun makers that he didn’t think that anybody should be able to own a gun.
posted April 6, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Choke, laugh, choke laugh laugh. This is typical of the poor Democrats.
posted April 6, 2008 at 1:50 pm
I appreciate your concern to inform the public of what’s really going on but in today’s society where most guns used in crimes of violence are in fact first obtained legally and in “no fault” to the original purchaser, somehow end up in the hands of a person who has intent to commit a crime, or who pass it off to a person who cannot themselves acquire a gun. Most saddening of all is when the gun “falls” into the hands of children and a life is lost. I agree the constitution is instrumental to our freedom and future, but do you deny that in many ways these freedoms have already been butchered. I believe you should choose your battles wisely and the energy you’ve spent to discredit Obama on his choices and opionions on gun safety and violence in this country could have been better spent defending a freedom that doesn’t kill hundreds of thousands each year. The numbers are staggering but more shocking is the lack of gun violence almost every other part of the world. It is a problem that is very real and very localized in our backyard. I can only be led to believe that there is a gross disrespect for a LETHAL weapon in too many of our fellow Americans. Right or wrong is a matter of opinion. I can see you are an intelligent person with a voice that is heard, so why not influence the masses on a bigger issue. With all the constitutional rights that are slowly and cleverly infringed upon we lose the values and freedoms that make us proud to be an American. Choose to believe it or not we are no longer as “free” as we like to think. I support this truth and these issues being LOUDLY acknowledged, yet in a presidential race as important as this in regards to our planet and the impending consequences we face as well as wars we are currently involved in and an economic drop or lull that needs to be resolved, why pick apart this issue? Whether you’d be willing to admit it or not we both know that protecting the right that relates guns in America is the farthest from the issues that matter. You are taking the few people who may be trying to become educated on the campaigns and filling there heads with your opinion and scrutiny on a subject that should be at the bottom of the list. We need change. We need to protect our future here in America and our future generations. Do you really think this piece did anything more than possibly clutter the minds of people and alter the decision making based on a freedom that literally KILLS. I would rather inspire truth on issues that will determine a future that so many AMERICANS choose to take lightly or would rather believe has nothing to do with the individual. I challenge you to make a positive difference.
posted April 6, 2008 at 2:05 pm
And in regards to the first comment left here i wonder how an errogance and ignorance of such proportion is created. Are you honestly so high and mighty that you think you can so easily mock and dismiss a equal and intricate PARTNER in our government today. To pass judgment in such little words on a mass of people and power that has more demensions than you will obviously ever understand only emphasizes a common problem in America today. Republican, Democrat i am not advocating either generlization for in today’s world there is no cut and dry or black and white. To generalize in such a matter of fact tone a huge body of people shows how much so many people need to learn. You would be suprised of the overlapping grey issues. and also significant differences in two members of the same “party”. I’m glad you’re proud of your decision to be republican but anyone regardless of your political party who dismisses the other half of our descion makers and there power is the one who really choked. and it would make me laugh if it wasn’t so sad and serious of a problem.
posted April 6, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I have voted for 65 years, the Party is not what it is all about.
the integrity and knowledge of what is importent for the good of our country is what we need to think about and consider before voting.
I have not been able to find a shred of truthfulness or integrity in O Bama, and it frightens me that he may be nominated and then he surely will be beat and we are back under the hideous rule that we have been under for the last 7 1/2 yrs.This country needs to get God back in our schools and in the homes and get our jobs back in our country and let China,Russia and the rest know where we stand and get our boys home, line them along the Mexican and Canadian borders and protect our own country. and get on with our lives, after we have deported ALL illegal aliens back where they come from.
posted April 6, 2008 at 6:51 pm
“I agree the constitution is instrumental to our freedom and future, but do you deny that in many ways these freedoms have already been butchered.”
I’m sorry but I believe that it is incredibly important to protect our freedoms. I would be just as fierce in my criticism if our freedom of speech were being impinged on or freedom of religion. If they succeed in taking one, what makes you think they’ll stop until they take them all? I have a God-given right to protect myself and my family and will not give that up because others are using their guns illegally.
And we shouldn’t punish lawful gun owners just because others are not using their’s in a legal manner or locking them up and keeping them away from kids as the law dictates (in NJ you need both a safe and a gun lock and the gun has to be unloaded when it’s stored and the keys cannot be available to the kids). Those who do as they are required to by law should not be punished because of those who break the law.
posted April 7, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Amazing how easy it is to distort someone’s record. Reality-check, ladies. Obama’s positions have been appropriate even as read in your blog entry. And by the way, there is fishing in Hawaii, where he grew up, and he wants to hunt, Wisconsin is quite close to Chicago.
posted April 8, 2008 at 9:02 am
I hope and pray that Obama is right and that we CAN one day have “reasonable, thoughtful gun control” that respects people’s rights and traditions. But there are people in this country who will never be satisfied with anything less than the “freedom” to buy any number of any sort of weapon, without a background check or any other screening. It’s much harder to get a driver’s license (permission to operate a lethal weapon) than it is to buy an Uzi or a Saturday night special in most states. In our community recently, we lost two wonderful young students whose lives would have contributed so much to the world. They were killed by a murderous thug who was supposed to be on probation. He probably didn’t buy his weapon legally, but he could have. Would the victims have been able to save themselves if they, too, had had guns? Highly unlikely. All you have to do is to look at the murder rate in other countries to see the difference between societies which do have “reasonable, thoughtful gun control” and ours. When everyone owns guns, you’re not living in a free country, you’re living in an armed camp. And as for “not being able to find a shred of truthfulness or integrity in Obama,” may I respectfully suggest that you go to YouTube and listen to the entirety of the speech he gave in Philadelphia on race. If you don’t hear truth in his words, vote for McBush.
posted April 10, 2008 at 7:02 am
Well, the court is about to decide how reasonable his view is.
posted September 8, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Truth of O’Bama-Biden plans to obliterate Second Amendment:
http://www.gunbanobama.com http://www.nraila.org/obama
Strong Majority of Voters Disagree With Barack Obama on Second Amendment and Self Defense Issues:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/09-02-2008/0004877182&EDATE=