Does He Want To Take Your Guns?

Everyone by now has heard Barack Obama trying to reassure skeptical Pennsylvanians that he’s not going to take their guns:

“If you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it,’’ Obama said. But the Illinois senator could still see skeptics in the crowd, particularly on the faces of several men at the back of the room.

So he tried again. “Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ he said. “This can’t be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. I’m not going to take away your guns.’’

There’s two telling things about this.  One is that even the most left leaning candidate to serve in recent memory can’t come out explicitly in favor of gun control, and at least has to feign support for the Second Amendment.  Remember that just eight years ago, presidential candidates were running on national licensing and registration, and renewing the assault weapons ban!

The other thing is, there’s a whole lot of things Obama can do to end gun ownership in this country without going door-to-door.  I actually believe him when he says he’s not going to take your guns.  But will he let your children buy guns?  Will he let you pass your guns along to your children?  Will he use onerous regulation, to close down every gun shop?  Will he use environmental regulations to close down shooting ranges?

President Barack Obama can end gun ownership in this country in a generation without he or any of his agents setting a single foot in anyone’s home.  He might argue that he doesn’t have the votes in Congress to do it, but that’s not comforting.  There’s a lot of damage an Obama Administratin can do with no help from Congress, and that’s why this guy needs to lose, and lose big.  Pennsylvanians should not fool themselves.

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Gun Rights Attack Ad

Here’s my attempt to make a pro-McCain/Palin attack ad against Joe Biden.  Joe Biden deserves a special place in hell.  With Barack Obama, I merely do not like his policies.  He’s a good orator, and a talented politician.  But very little can describe my loathing of Joe Biden.  If I were stuck on a deserted island with Joe Biden, assuming I couldn’t fashion a set of earmuffs out of coconuts, I’d probably throw myself off the nearest cliff.

This week Biden said something that was utterly laughable.  He said that he was raised not to attack people who he disagrees with politically.  Well, pretty clearly he does not honor his upbringing:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2lJd9c-Ufs[/youtube]

Special thanks to my friend Jason for providing the video, and the idea of splicing these two together.

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Boston Globe Mislead

When are reporters going to learn that the Brady Campaign does not provide them with accurate or clear information?

According to the Brady Campaign, Washington state has some of the most lax gun control laws in the country. There is no license, permit, or registration required to buy or own a handgun, and background checks are not automatically required for gun sales.

Zamora surrendered to police Tuesday and is being held on $5 million bail. How much grief could have been spared had this rageful man been saved from himself?

The Boston Globe makes it sound as if you can walk into a gun shop in Washington and not have to go through a the background check.  Washington’s gun laws are not vastly different than most states.  From reading this, you’d almost believe that there was some kind of loophole.  There was no legal way for Zamora to get a gun in Washington, or anywhere in the United States.  He would have had to get it illegally.  So the solution to that is to pass more laws that crazy people won’t obey?  Murder is already about as illegal as you can get.

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Possible Screwup in San Franscisco Lawsuit?

It looks like the lawsuit by NRA and SAF against the City of San Francisco may fall flat on its face due to failure to tie a City Ordinance banning guns from public property to the lease agreement promulgated by the housing authority, which is apparently a federal entity.

Ordinarily, you win some and you lose some, which is why you proceed on multiple fronts, but this is a big enough screw up that the City of San Francisco might be able to seek to have their legal costs recovered. These are not mistakes we can afford to make in the immediate post-Heller legal climate.  Hopefully this isn’t as bad as these articles seem to make it out to be.  Don Kates is one of the lead attorneys on this case, and he’s experienced at these kinds of suits, so it’s kind of hard to believe he’d make a mistake like this.

Hat tip to War on Guns

UPDATE: In the comments Chuck Michel says: “I assure you there is no screw up here“  That’s good to hear.

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The Western Ticket

Todd Zywicki thinks this ticket has a distinctly Western feel to it:

It feels like Goldwaterism. And I think this trickles through to the worldview of the candidates and then to policy. It seems pretty clear to me (especially after last night) that John McCain sees himself as Gary Cooper riding into to town to single-handedly clean-up corruption and gun down the rascals.

Palin has a female version of this feel to me. I saw one similar point by Chris Matthews talking about Palin–he observed that although women are going to like Palin “men will like them too.” Why? Because she likes men, and peole like those who like them. What does he mean? I think it is related to this. She has a sense of independence. But also, she obviously likes sports (and was a sportscaster), her speech suggests that she likes cracking jokes and being sarcastic but in a non-mean-spirited way (contra some of Jim’s observations–her cracks come across as locker room “razzing” to me). This has a western tinge to me as well.

If McCain actually were going to ride into town to clean-up corruption by gunning down rascals I might feel better about voting for him.  But seriously, I do agree about the western feel this ticket has, and I like it.  I also think it’s interesting that both Bitter and I see reflections of Sandy Froman in Palin.  Sandy is also a Western woman.

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Be Afraid

Be very afraid:

Under the treaty, governments would also be required to report their arms transfers to an international register, a move which arms control advocates say will lead to greater public scrutiny and confidence.

If these ideas are allowed to proliferate, and find roots, the shooting community in this country will be in a lot of trouble.  Got an eye on a new Glock?  Too bad, they won’t export to the United States because we lack proper control.  New Anschutz?  Too bad, your country doesn’t track firearms closely enough.  Definitely forget about a Beretta, you citizen of a third world arms bazaar you!

It’s a serious worry that in a few decades, international treaty will make it nearly impossible for Americans to import arms from overseas.  That’ll be a boon to the American gun manufacturers, but a detriment to the shooting community as a whole.

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