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Maybe Obama doesn't want our guns
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Published: May 24, 2009
"GET YOUR GUNS WHILE YOU STILL CAN!!!" screamed a Thursday ad in the Journal promoting the gun and knife show today at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds in Winston-Salem.
It's a familiar refrain that's been sounding since Barack Obama won the presidency: He wants your guns and he's coming for them now, Second Amendment be damned. Gun shops nationwide have been reporting brisk sales of guns and ammo, we've heard from countless news stories. Last month, Steve Elliott, the Blacksburg, Va., promoter who brought his show here this weekend, told Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes that Obama clearly has an anti-gun agenda.
His wife, Annette Elliott, told me last week that she saw a similar jump in gun sales when Bill Clinton was president. But Obama, she said, is "the most anti-gun president ever."
"It's pretty scary stuff and the public's aware of it so they're out buying their guns. … You tell people they're gonna ban ice cream, they're gonna turn out and buy ice cream."
As Obama ran for and won the presidency, I heard fellow gun owners tell me he would take away our firearms. But if he really does want to do that, he's got a funny way of showing it. Earlier this month, the Journal reprinted an editorial from The Washington Post which basically gave the president a "C" on living up to his campaign promises for gun control.
He hasn't fought to close a loophole that allows buyers at gun shows to forgo background checks if they purchase guns from private sellers or hobbyists instead of registered dealers. North Carolina has that loophole, although not for handguns. He has proposed adjusting the Tiahrt amendment on spending bills to make it easier for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to share gun-trace information with local and state counterparts.
But his proposal "would leave in place the rest of the amendment, including a provision that puts gun trace data off-limits to Freedom of Information Act requests and another that forbids the government from requiring gun dealers to conduct annual inventories to assess how many guns are ‘missing' and have probably made it to the black market," according to the Post. And most notably, Obama has eased off his campaign promise to reinstate a U.S. ban on assault weapons.
Obama is a pragmatist. He realizes that to get anything done in Congress, he has to have the support of his Democratic Party. And increasingly, that party includes staunch defenders of the Second Amendment, which guarantees "the right to keep and bear arms."
For example, North Carolina's new U.S. senator, Democrat Kay Hagan, recently voted for a bill that would expand gun rights in Washington, D.C. Her Web site notes that "obtaining a lifetime hunting license is a Hagan family tradition … Not only is responsible gun ownership a part of the fabric of North Carolina, but it is also a fundamental constitutional right. Sen. Hagan is a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights, and will fight to ensure law-abiding citizens are not restricted in their right to bear arms."
Rep. Heath Shuler, a Democrat from Western North Carolina who identifies himself as "a lifelong hunter and sportsman," makes a similar statement on his Web site: "As a member of Congress, I will always defend your Second Amendment rights and oppose burdensome regulations that attempt to limit the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans."
Ferrel Guillory, the director of the Program on Public Life at UNC Chapel Hill, said that, "What's happened is senators like Hagan and Jim Webb in Virginia and others have tried to position the Democratic Party somewhere in the centrist range on weapons, and I think that's what you see Obama doing, saying, ‘Let's just cool it … let's just have a respectful debate.' "
Obama, Guillory said, hasn't flip-flopped on gun control, but he first wants to concentrate on big issues such as jobs, health care, and Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I think what you see Obama trying to do is not add fuel to the fire. But the people whose livelihood and whose politics depend upon the culture wars are still putting kindling on the fire."
Annette Elliott said that Obama is biding his time on taking away gun rights.
"I honestly think he's a smooth, polished politician," she said. "I don't think he's changed his true position, I think he's politically changed his position so it won't harm him."
For now, she and her husband are enjoying brisk sales at their gun shows. The fear of Obama taking our guns isn't just hype, she said. But they are in the gun business, she said.
"Of course, it is what we do."
■ John Railey writes local editorial for the Journal. He can be reached at 727-7357 or at jrailey@wsjournal.com.
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