Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

This is just laughable. But I understand that some Democrats don’t care about this stuff. We’re just not
one of them. If you’re one who doesn’t care about 2nd Amendment issues, fine. But when a political candidate tries to appear he cares or knows something about the issue when he clearly doesn’t it’s simply insulting. When I told my gun expert husband about Senator Obama’s latest on guns he laughed out
loud. Obama “aims
for the pro-gun vote”:

… .. 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.” Melody Zullinger, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs who received the Obama campaign e-mail on his gun record, said Obama sounds like he is “speaking out of both sides of his mouth.” “I was at one of our county meetings last night and I mentioned this to [federation members],” Zullinger said Friday of the Obama outreach. “Everyone basically blew it off and weren’t buying it.” … ..

Not buying it, no kidding. Senator Obama obviously thinks gun owners are cretins. We are not. As a gun owning household, we don’t belong to the N.R.A., and believe common sense gun laws are important and should be enforced. But
Obama’s gun record versus his pandering to gun owners isn’t going to fool anyone
who owns a firearm.

Here’s Obama’s record on guns, back in Illinois. He filled out a
questionnaire that Politico.com unearthed:

“Do you support state legislation to … ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns?” asked one of the three dozen questions. “Yes,” was Obama’s entire answer.

That’s it, just “yes.”

To get himself out of this mess, Senator Obama’s team said he didn’t even see
the questionnaire. They blamed his answer on an aide. But that wasn’t true,
according to Politico.com who did a follow up at the end of March:

Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he “never saw or approved” the questionnaire. They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position.” But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer. … .. Obama had greater role on liberal survey

So, what does Obama really think about guns (from link above)?

Both versions of the 1996 questionnaires provide answers his presidential campaign disavows to questions about whether Obama supports capital punishment and state legislation to “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.” He responded simply “No” and “Yes,” respectively, to those questions on both questionnaires. But a fact sheet provided by his campaign flatly denies Obama ever held those views, asserting he “consistently supported the death penalty for certain crimes but backed a moratorium until problems were fixed.” And it points out that as a state senator, he led an effort to reform Illinois’ death penalty laws. On guns, the fact sheet says he “has consistently supported common-sense gun control, as well as the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

So he was for banning handguns, a ridiculous position, before he was against
it. When he was really for “common-sense gun control,” though Obama’s
against D.C. citizens having 2nd Amendment rights. (By the way, the Chicago
Tribune has scrubbed the original article on this subject that quoted Obama
directly.) Link to the
following quote:

On the other hand, Although Obama supports gun control, while campaigning in gun-friendly Idaho earlier this month, he said he does not intend to take away people’s guns. At his news conference, [Prof. Obama] voiced support for the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns, which is scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court next month.

ABC
News, however, has another quote on the issue: But asked today about
the DC handgun ban currently being reviewed by the US Supreme Court, Obama declined
to take a position for or against its Constitutionality but did express broad
support for the rights of local jurisdictions to make such decisions for themselves.
“The city of Chicago has gun laws, so does Washington, DC,” Obama
said. “The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can’t initiate gun safety
laws to deal with gangbangers and random shootings on the street isn’t born
out by our Constitution.”

My position on the D.C. case has been made clear. Residents should be able to own handguns. Period.

Gun owners with any brains want sensible gun laws enforced. However, that does
not include punishing law abiding citizens, because you think gangbangers shouldn’t
have guns. How keeping guns away from the citizenry is considered “gun
safety laws” is beyond me. If that makes me a bad progressive, so be it.

As for Obama talking to gun owners, it comes off as pandering because it’s
clear that the senator doesn’t get gun owners. You can’t fake it on this one.

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