President Obama deserves congratulations for the new nuclear arms treaty with Russia. Reducing the number of nuclear bombs in the world is a good thing, and the Senate needs to ratify it as quickly as possible. So some of the big bullets are being removed as a threat to American citizens. But how about the .45 caliber-sized ones, Mr. President?
I am an ardent supporter of Barack Obama. The minute he announced his candidacy for president, I sent his campaign money. I bought Obama merchandise and gave it away to my friends. I volunteered to work on his campaign. I still have an "Obama '08" bumper sticker on my car.
But when it comes to the issue of his leadership on gun violence, I am extremely disappointed in my President. His first year in office is checkered with his actions and lack of actions that fill me with disillusionment. With regard to gun laws, this is not the leader I hoped Obama would be.
In February, '09, the Obama Administration failed to oppose a gun lobby amendment repealing District of Columbia gun regulations that were attached to a D.C. voting rights bill. In April '09, he remained silent on the 10th anniversary of the shootings at Columbine. And Obama really lost me when he signed legislation on May 22 of last year that allows loaded guns national parks.
The list goes on. In July, activists help defeat a gun lobby amendment that would have allowed the carrying of loaded, concealed weapons across state lines. Obama failed to speak out against the amendment. Later in August protesters began showing up with assault weapons at the President's town hall meetings, but the White House failed to condemn these security threats. Do you remember when it was deemed a threat to George W. Bush if someone showed up to one his public events wearing a t-shirt critical of him?
Every day in America, 85 people lose their lives to gun violence. That is more than two classrooms of men, women and children -- every day. The President needs to show more leadership on an issue that has life and death consequences for many, many Americans.
According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (named after Press Secretary James Brady, who was shot in the head during the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan), there have been at least 200 mass and high-profile shootings since Obama took office. It's time the President spoke up on this needless violence, and lead the fight to restrict easy access to guns.
Follow Rich Robinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RobinsonFlash
The minimal reforms made to the DC Code were necessary to comply with a Supreme Court ruling.
The "guns in parks" issue is a paper tiger. The real issue was that people kept unwittingly crossing onto NPS lands while lawfully carrying firearms and unintentionally committing a criminal act. The only thing the mis-named "guns in parks" bill did was to make the rule on NPS lands the same as the state-law rule. Whether people should be carrying guns is a question of state law...as it always has been. Moreover it must be noted that this policy change had already been made, but it was necessary to re-enact it in the legislature because gun-ban organizations were able to overturn the law by citing technicalities related to environmental impact statements.
I think that President Obama was wise not to comment on the Columbine anniversary. The last thing we want to do is give publicity to people who commit these kinds of crimes.
B.J. Clinton hit it on the nose: it was the failed so-called "Assault" "Weapons" "Ban" which transformed American politics for a generation, in a way not necessarily to the Democrats' advantage. Why in the world would we expect Obama to follow him needlessly into defeat? .
When his admin tried to reneg on a contract where spent military ammo brass was sold to US reloading companies and instead started shredding the brass to de-mil it and then selling it at a comparative loss to China, the repercussions from the industry and Congress were pretty swift and the admin was forced to honor the original contracts.
Seeing the writing on the wall and facing huge battles in his other agenda items, Pres Obama had to cave in.
And while you still may see an attempt at gun control from the Obama admin, the fact is they know that as soon as they try to smallest thing, they will be taken to task for it and people will use it as a "we told you so" moment.
He knew that gun control had been an issue going in to his election, with him and the DNC advocating stricter gun control and continued it into the first couple months of his administration (it was even on his White House "Urban Agenda" web page for a couple months). He saw the repercussions of that in the sales of ammo and firearms.
When his AG and staff investigated the claims of the gun control lobby regarding the effect of the Tiahrt Amendments, they quickly found out that the claims were not true.
When his AG and SecState both called for renewing the poorly written and ineffective AWB, he got smacked by a large group of congressional members of his own party when they sent a joint letter advsing the AG and president to back off.
When he instructed the AG to challange the Bush rule allowing concealed carry in National Parks and obtained an injunction stopping the rule temporarily, he was quickly over-ruled by his own party when Congress, even congressional dems, overwhelimingly approved an amendment to the credit card bill which not only trumped the injunction, but expanded what would be allowed to be carried.
There was not one mention of passing laws aimed (no pun intended) at criminals. There was not one mention of raising the penalties of using a gun in a crime and there was no mention of people having the basic right to self defense.
Have you ever noticed that every suggestion for new gun laws that the anti gun lobby comes out with is aimed at law abiding citizens instead of criminals? Do you wonder why you guys cannot even get respect for you opinions on Leftwing blogs?
Actually he actively campaigned on it.
What he compaigned on and what he never intended to do are by no means mutually exclusive categories.
Sit back and wait for the payoffs on DADT and NCLB and all the other promises. Sit back and enjoy the crickets chirping.
Face it, as far as performance goes, the Effendi might just as well have been a reverse Manchurian candidate or a Rovian plant.
Also, the Heller decision resolved a long standing line of legal argument.
If there is any connectiion between guns in private hand and crime, there is only one possible conclusion to be drawn from the data: more guns, less crime.
If you didn't immediately lose those people as friends they must be the kind of friends you don't need.
Let me help you out:
One man (Bill Kostic) in NH had shown up for a protest and only armed himself after being assaulted by uni0n g00ns. That happened on private property, four blocks away and 3 hours before the President was even in the area.
The man with the misnamed 'assault' rifle was part of a radio stunt and the authorities where alerted in advance and present at the 'event'. But MSNBC showed an anonymous black man carrying the "assault rifle," but editing it so that one was not able to see the man's race while suggesting racccial overtones. Intellectually dishonest at best.
in Arizona with Congresswoman Gifford (D-Ariz.). The description of that event was also misleading, as Giffords herself never felt there was any danger. Giffords stated: "A lot of people carry firearms here... at no point did I ever feel in danger and at no point did I ever feel there was a problem." The operational state of the gun nor the owner has yet to be determined so speculating on what 'wing' it came is just as dishonest as the distortion by MSDNC.
Also ,when asked about whether anyone openly carrying a gun outside Obama's event endangered the president's safety, the U.S. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said: "of course not."
About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States
Are we going to ban cars next then as well?
Additionally, in many ways cars are less restricted than guns. You can rack up a dozen speeding tickets and multiple DUI convictions and still get a driver's license, but one felony conviction or misdomenor conviction for domestic violence gets you banned from owning guns for life.
Furthermore, all states recognize each others' driver's licenses, but not their CCW permits. That's an error the Thune Amendment would have rectified.