S-O-R-O-S
Posted on 11/13/2008 7:31:10 PM PST by Red Steel
Well, fellow sportsmen and women, another four years have come and gone, and in just a few days we will elect a new president. For those of us who care about Second Amendment gun rights - and that should be every citizen - I think we can all agree we've had a great eight years under George W. Bush, at least on the issue of gun ownership.
President Bush has left our guns alone, in other words. Despite a Democratic Congress, liberal anti-gun nuts have made not one single attempt to take our firearms away. As Dan Rather might say: Zero. Zip. Nada. That's because they knew the president would veto any anti-gun legislation, and they didn't have the votes to override him.
What a difference from the likes of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Remember them? Mr. Gore, during his presidential campaign, flirted with the idea of national handgun registration, and the Clinton-Gore administration itself campaigned to convince federal judges to impose judgments amounting to billions of dollars against the firearms industry, all in an effort to bring the industry to its knees.
During this past eight years, those clouds have cleared, and we have also had a dramatic and historic Supreme Court ruling affirming the constitutional right to individual gun ownership, as embodied in the Second Amendment.
But we now face a real dilemma, and gun owners need to think long and hard about the choices they will make this coming Tuesday.
As of this writing, Democratic nominee Barack Obama is leading in virtually every major public opinion poll. His rise has been fueled by obvious disaffection with the Republican Party on a wide variety of issues by many Republicans and independents as well as Democrats.
No doubt many of the disgruntled are gun owners.
But gun owners and Second Amendment supporters need to be very clear about one thing: Barack Obama is the most radical anti-gun candidate for president ever, and, if he is elected, he will absolutely try to take your guns and your gun rights away.
First, consider that the National Rifle Association has given Sen. Obama a rating of 'F.'
Now, before everyone who thinks the NRA is a radical right-wing organization stops reading this (presumably because they have been listening to the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and national liberal organizations such as MoveOn.org), please, before you do, let me assure you it is no such thing.
The truth is, the NRA endorses liberal Democrats as well as conservative Republicans and candidates with a wide variety of ideological viewpoints in-between - as long as those candidates strongly support Second Amendment gun rights.
They don't care if you're blue or red or white or black or from the planet Jupiter. All they care about is how you vote when it comes down to gun ownership rights and hunting.
This year, for example, the NRA has endorsed liberal Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen in his race against conservative Republican John Gard, while another liberal Democrat, Rep. Dave Obey, routinely wins the organization's backing. That was true, too, of Democrat Roger Breske when he served in the state Senate and compiled one of Wisconsin's most liberal voting records.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. These Democrats received the NRA endorsement because they scored an 'A' on their NRA scorecard, which is based exclusively on gun rights' issues.
Indeed, in an interview with The Lakeland Times, this is how Rep. Kagen described his endorsement: "The NRA recognizes my hard work to protect our Second Amendment rights. I did take an oath to uphold the constitution, and I think I am doing that and I'm honored to have their recognition and their strong support."
So much for the notion that the NRA is a radical, out-of-the-mainstream organization.
But while Reps. Kagen and Obey and other liberals were racking up their NRA endorsements, their Democratic congressional colleague, Barack Obama, was piling up an 'F,' and that should tell us just how dangerous this man is.
Of course, there are people who point to the aforementioned Supreme Court ruling - which overturned a Washington, D.C., ban on handgun ownership as unconstitutional - and assert that a vote for Sen. Obama would not threaten gun rights because the highest court in the land has already spoken on the issue.
That is absolutely wrong.
For one thing, the Congress and the president could enact legislation placing so many obstacles in front of potential gun owners, and making it so onerously expensive to actually own a gun, that the practical effect would be a gun ban for most Americans, even if no specific law strayed outside the perimeter of constitutional protection.
Sen. Obama has supported precisely such legislation in the past.
As an Illinois state senator in 1999, for instance, he supported increasing the federal excise tax on firearms by 500 percent, which would have made gun ownership too expensive for many Americans.
That same year, he supported banning the operation of gun stores within five miles of a school or park. Such a wide zone of exclusion would to all intents and purposes ban all gun stores in most major metropolitan areas and their suburbs, and, in fact, in many small towns.
How do you own guns if you cannot find a reasonable place to buy them?
In addition, he supported reinstating President Clinton's ban on semi-automatic weapons and magazines. That might sound reasonable to those unfamiliar with these firearms, but in truth it would ban all single-shot and double-barreled shotguns 28 gauge or larger, and hundreds of models of rifles and handguns.
And, if you can't ban guns, why not ban ammunition as the next best thing?
That's exactly Sen. Obama's position. In 2005, the Democratic nominee voted for a measure pushed by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to prohibit virtually all center-fire ammunition used for hunting or, for that matter, any other reason.
As anyone can see, there are many ways to successfully ban gun ownership and possession without actually prohibiting it outright. And that's what Sen. Obama has done time and again, in both the Illinois state Senate and in the U.S. Senate.
Now, on the campaign trail, he says he's not going to try and take our guns away - I've got a bridge to sell to whoever believes that - and, in any case, he has said, even if he wanted to, "I couldn't get it done. I don't have the votes in Congress."
Please, folks, do not fall for that line. He may not have the votes today, but he could have them come January, if Tuesday's elections go - and I hope they do not - as many predict they will.
The Democrats are within striking distance of a filibuster-proof Senate, especially with this week's conviction of Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, and there's no telling what might happen in House races.
This is what one major Republican consultant said about the impact of Stevens' conviction on Tuesday's elections, as reported by CNN: "Just one more seat. It can't really impact a national environment where 12 percent say things are going well."
In other words, polls tell the consultant the Republicans are going to disappear in a landslide, Stevens or no Stevens. The polls might be wrong, and the election of anti-gun majorities in Congress will probably not happen, but no one should take a chance by voting for Sen. Obama just because he assures us with narcotic words that he won't have the votes he needs in Congress.
If you do, those could turn out to be famous last words on the issue, for his promise that rational people will prevent him from doing what he has always wanted to do sounds a little crazy, as if he were a serial killer promising corrections officials that Neighborhood Watch groups would prevent him from killing again, if only the officials would let him out.
Well, in Sen. Obama's case, don't let him in. Vote on the actual record.
Congress aside, the Supreme Court itself is likely to change, and the landmark gun rights' decision could be overturned.
After all, that case was decided on a 5-4 vote, and the next president could get as many as three new Supreme Court picks. There's no telling how the composition of the court will change over the next four years.
Because the make-up of the High Court is so important, voters should always keep it in mind when selecting a president. Yesterday's landmark decisions could, by another court, suddenly become today's discarded paper trash, thrown out as quickly as a sandwich wrapper.
If that happens, the Obama administration could eat your exposed lunch, that is to say, your suddenly very vulnerable guns.
That returns us to my initial assertion - that, given the proper congressional make-up, given the proper Supreme Court membership, a President Obama and his cohorts would absolutely try to take our guns and our gun rights away.
Would he really, though? On the campaign trail, he says he won't.
That, my friends, is a lie, coming from a known liar.
Wasn't it Sen. Obama who pledged to join the public financing system with Sen. McCain but then broke that pledge to scoop up hundreds of millions of dollars in special-interest money? Wasn't it Sen. Obama who attacked the Bush-Cheney national energy policy on the stump but who voted for it in Congress?
Wasn't it Sen. Obama who promised to work to kill a bill granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies engaged in warrantless wiretapping but then voted to let those companies escape scot-free?
On all counts, yes, it was. So do you believe him when he says he has no interest in taking our guns?
Consider this. Sen. Obama now says he supports the Supreme Court decision to overturn the Washington, D.C., handgun ban, but that's not the tune he was singing before the ruling.
In February, he said "right" when asked by ABC if he supported the D.C. gun ban. He backed that up by refusing to sign a brief supporting the Second Amendment's right for an individual to keep and bear arms, a brief signed by more than 300 of his fellow lawmakers.
His history of supporting handgun bans goes all the way back to his first campaign for the Illinois Legislature in 1996, when he stated in a candidate survey, in his own handwriting, that he would support legislation to "ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns."
Most distressingly of all, he is so opposed to gun ownership that he has voted against letting people use a self-defense argument if charged with violating local handgun bans - which are now clearly unconstitutional - by using weapons in self-defense in their homes. That bill came after a man shot an intruder. Prosecutors found the shooting to be justified, but he was nonetheless charged with a handgun violation.
After the charge, legislators proposed a measure that would make self-defense in one's own home an "affirmative" defense against prosecution for handgun possession.
Sen. Obama voted against it. Four times he voted against it. The bill became law anyway, but imagine that - the man who would be president doesn't even want the citizens of this nation defending themselves in their own homes.
Certainly there are bigger issues than gun rights in this election. Our economy is in terrible shape, job loss is growing worse, foreclosures are at record numbers, and the list goes on. Sen. Obama calls himself a reformer who will change these things for the better. Yet Mr. Obama's record shows he is no reformer but instead is a Washington insider laden with rich special-interest friends. He has no intention of changing anything.
Except one thing: this nation's commitment to gun rights' and ownership, the right to enjoy the outdoors and escape life's challenges by hunting. In the end, Sen. Obama will try to change the way we live by disarming us, by taking away our ability to hunt, by depriving us of the right to defend ourselves, both politically and personally, a right the Founding Fathers knew was so important.
Sportsmen and women have changed the face of an election before. In 2000, NRA members and other sportsmen and women derailed Al Gore in his home state of Tennessee and sent him packing. Even Bill Clinton said that made the difference in that election.
On Tuesday, let's make a difference again. Let's tell the world we don't want Mr. Obama's idea of change when it comes to taking away our Second Amendment rights.
Let's assert those rights and take possession of the White House before the White House shows up to take possession of our guns.
But this can’t be! I saw a pro-2nd Amendment Obama commercial and was reassured at that one guy carrying a gun decked out in hunting gear! Reassured I tell ya!
Too bad it didn’t help in defeating “the one”!
Civil War II
coming soon
No surprise — he is a MARXIST SOCIALIST.
I’ve heard that Jim Webb, a wellknown hunting dude out west, and some dude in PA all made certain to tell everyone that the Obamao loved the RTKBA, we need names, if things go south, time to turn them to mud when the Mao flips.
You forgot racist.
But I digress...
“Obama is against gun ownership”
Then he has a perfect right not to have one!
Still not nearly as bad as Obama will be.
I couldn’t give less that 1/4th of a damn what an illegitimate coup leader thought about my countrymen’s right to be armed. Not 1/4th of a damn.
“Obama is against gun control-100%”
That’s nice....
Unfortunately there’s this little clause in the Constitution that says otherwise. You know Obama, the second one down, if you bothered to read it. If you ignore it, you’re in for a rude awakening.
Does PETA not realize that it is cruel to not keep the animal population in check by hunting them? Out here, the deer will starve because the population will be too large if we don’t hunt them. Most people eat meat, regardless of PETA’s rules and ideas. Maybe cartoons humanizing animal families is not such a good idea.
I strongly suspect that he is going to form the “National Civilian Security Force”, arm it, call it The Militia and disarm everybody else. Sorry, paranoid, I guess.
They believe that people should be kept in check......by hunting them.....
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