First of all, don’t shoot the messenger, I don’t subscribe to the above line of thought (tho I do have a few quibbles with Obama’s platform). That said…
I have a friend who is completely and bitterly resigned to seeing Obama take away many of his gun rights, slowly but surely piece by piece. Some of the posts I’ve been seeing on other fora have expressed certainty that Obama will tax the majority of Americans back to the stone age so as (to name one) provide extra creature comforts for the welfare class. There’s also been talk that Obama will attempt to squelch various talk radio formats (i.e. Rush and the like), tho how he will do that is not clear.
How likely is it then that Obama will renege on many of his campaign promises and become more or less what the right has been painting him as all along? I realize that that question is very open-ended, and some will undoubtedly quibble on that basis. In my view he would be fucking away a golden opportunity by playing the revenge card (both “liberal” revenge as well as “black” revenge), and doing idiotic stuff like screwing gun owners, leading to a rerun of 1994 in 2010 and setting the Democratic Party back another 8-12 years. If he instead rises above this petty us-vs-them (and indeed it was this hope that he would transcend petty party politics that lead many here and elsewhere to vote for him) and tries to steer a new path through the wreckage that would be a much wiser course of action. Or are many on the right just running on irrational fear (of the unknown, for one) right now?
If he’s a decent guy, press him to make a specific prediction. If it’s loony, make a friendly bet. Set odds. Get it in writing.
The NRA has been making this slippery slope argument for years. It’s effective. The CEO of that organization pulls in over $1 million per year, and is worth every penny to the gun dealers.
Gun advocates often note that the Assault Weapons Ban had mostly cosmetic effects (though the magazine regulation wasn’t completely superficial). Why don’t panicked 2nd Amendment stalwarts listen to their own arguments?
He is a middle of the roader. Not close to being a lefty. I want someone who can actually change things. He is practically a repub. His economic ideas are close to McCain, He will not pull the troops. He wants more in Afghanistan. What will change?
At least he can bring back the fairness doctrine. When it was in ,I really liked it. When it was removed it had a bad effect that never went away.
Of course he would not do any of these things – at least not in his eyes, nor those of his supporters.
But one man’s reasonable, prudent, and limited gun control is another man’s first step towards confiscation. What one guy calls “spreading the wealth” another guy calls “taking from those who earned it and giving to those who didn’t.” Of course nobody would say they’re quashing dissent; they’d say they are requiring fairness. It’s not that anyone’s lying – they just see the same action differently. Everyone thinks they’re the sane, honest, centrist and the other guy is the lying extremist nut.
Obama could well do all that your freind fears without breaking any promises whatsoever.
Despite the rhetoric, that’s a pretty strong gun control stance. It’s my understanding that the Tiahrt Amendment currently limits access to the gun trace information to law enforcement officers engaged in investigating a crime. So under the guise of helping law enforcement, he’s really just trying to completely open up the ATF’s records for all manner of misuse.
“Commonsense” seems to be to gun rights as “for the children” and “national security” are to other rights. So it’s worth being cautious about that statement despite the claim of supporting the second amendment. Given Obama’s track record on gun issues, “commonsense” is most likely to equate to “whatever he can get away with”.
The gunshow loophole is just a deceptive way of referring to private sales. Making guns childproof is vague and could easily include excessive provisions similar to DC’s pre-Heller gun storage laws.
Supporting making the AWB permanent is pretty straight-forward: He wants to pass another version of that law from '94 that made the Democrats lose control of Congress and which was allowed to sunset after 10 years when it was discovered it had no significant effect on crime.
In short, there’s some pretty compelling evidence, based on Obama’s own campaign platform, that he’ll be bad for gun rights.
Talking specifically about gun rights, Obama was on record as saying he thought the DC restrictions would be upheld as Constitutional. They weren’t, so, despite his credentials as a Constitutional scholar, his judgment as to what is Constitutional and what is not is pretty poor. He isn’t going to be able to institute his bad judgment until he nominates some more lefties to the Court, however. So in that sense, he won’t be able to be a liberal boogie man - he can’t do what he claimed.
I suspect it will be the same for many or most of his promises - he lacks the experience to shepherd legislation thru Congress, and tends, as is the weakness of the outsider, to grossly over-estimate his own ability to influence things.
Probably the same for Obama. He doesn’t have much by way of coat tails - the Dems were going to gain seats no matter what.
I’m guessing he won’t be held to account for any of the promises he can’t fulfill - not by the MSM, and certainly not by the Obamaniacs. But if the economy doesn’t improve, he will be blamed for that.
He’s got a tough row to hoe, and it would take an above-average President to hoe it. Nothing in his background suggests that he will be anything of the sort. Maybe he will surprise us. But probably not.
Obama has a lot on his desk right now what with the two wars and an economic crisis, and stirring the gun’s rights hornet’s nest is the last thing he needs.
On the other hand, I think a single-issue gun’s rights voter would have been rational to vote against him: whatever his stance on gun’s rights, Obama certainly isn’t going to go to the mats to protect gun ownership if, say, another Columbine-style shooting pushes the whole issue to the front of the agenda.
IMO, that actually makes the Assault Weapons Ban (and Obama’s support of its reintroduction) worse. I am of the opinion that the government should not regulate anything without sound reasoning, and I have not heard anyone even try to present an internally consistent explanation for why a rifle with bayonet mount and flash suppressor needs to be banned if a rifle with just the flash suppressor or just the bayonet mount does not.
I actually saw him wearing an army-green hat with a red star in it. And he was speaking Communist. Plus, if he gets splashed with cold water, he turns into a woman.
Okay, maybe that was Ranma. Still, Obama… Ranma… both end in MA… suspicious, I say.
