As If It Matters 2008: Gun Control
McCain: John McCain believes that the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is a fundamental, individual Constitutional right that we have a sacred duty to protect. We have a responsibility to ensure that criminals who violate the law are prosecuted to the fullest, rather than restricting the rights of law abiding citizens.
Obama: Obama also favors commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. He supports closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. He also supports making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.
This was addressed a bit in a previous post.
As my personal stance on guns is pretty much summed up, in its entirety, in the blurb from McCain’s site — this doesn’t look good for Obama. I’d be willing to listen to a fuller explanation of Obama’s position but, unsurprisingly, you can’t really find it on his campaign site. Because of that, I had to check out his voting record and quotes.
Ok for states & cities to determine local gun laws. (Apr 2008) — sure, every locality is different… as long as they’re not banning them or anything.
FactCheck: Yes, Obama endorsed Illinois handgun ban. (Apr 2008) — oops.
Respect 2nd Amendment, but local gun bans ok. (Feb 2008) — double oops.
Provide some common-sense enforcement on gun licensing. (Jan 2008) — fair enough… although he uses “common sense” on his website without really describing common sense. Common sense is great but is kind of different depending on the individual. For me, “common sense” says equal protection applies to gay people. To others, “common sense” says it doesn’t.
2000: cosponsored bill to limit purchases to 1 gun per month. (Oct 2007) — Not really easy to run a store this way? And — why? What? The 2nd gun is going to be the one you use to go on a killing spree?
Concealed carry OK for retired police officers. (Aug 2007) — Should be ok for everyone who has never committed a crime.
Stop unscrupulous gun dealers dumping guns in cities. (Jul 2007) — OK, sure.
Keep guns out of inner cities–but also problem of morality. (Oct 2006) — I’m all for keeping guns away from criminals, but I’m sure there are law-abiding folk in the inner city who want to protect themselves from gang members. Why shouldn’t they have that access? You know what would keep people safe from gang activity? Killing gang members.
Bush erred in failing to renew assault weapons ban. (Oct 2004) — Why? Because of the frequency with which criminals use Uzis to rob banks? When’s the last time you heard of a convenience store getting robbed with an army-grade weapon?
Ban semi-automatics, and more possession restrictions. (Jul 1998) — No.
Voted NO on prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers. (Jul 2005) — No. I fail to see how this is even allowed. It’s not as though the product malfunction. It did what it was designed to do.
People who obey the law don’t use guns to murder people to show how tough they are or to steal things from other people. They use guns for sport and to protect themselves. What Democrats fail to realize, for whatever reason, is that criminals will always have access to weapons. Always. I could very likely post an ad on Craig’s list and have an illegal gun tomorrow. I shouldn’t have to do that. I should be able to easily get permission to both own a gun and carry it with me. Because of bans like the ones that Obama, apparently, supports the criminal on the subway has more of a right to protect himself than I do.
As a strict Constitutionalist I can’t agree with Obama here. There is no explanation he can give me that suffices. If you want to create extra penalties for those who use illegal weapons in commission of a crime — sure, I can do that. But to make it a crime for someone to have a weapon just because he has a weapon? No. Sorry. It’s really nice to say that it’s the police’s job to protect you but they don’t. The police won’t save you from a mugger and won’t save you from a home invasion. Each person should have the right to protect themselves.
Also; for the people who believe that the 2nd Amendment was meant to protect state-militias — and for the aforementioned Justices Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens who can’t find an absolute right to bear arms or believe the Framers wouldn’t want the ability of government regulations restricted — can any of them (or you) tell me why the Framers made nine amendments to protect the rights of the people but apparently made one kinda non-absolute amendment that may or may not have been intended to protect the people? The entirety of the amendment is: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. The Framers specifically use “the right of the people”. Is there any place in the Constitution where they ambiguously use “the people”?
The answer, of course, is no. The Framers created an amendment that says: “We can’t take the right to bear arms away from you because we may need you to use them to protect the security of the free state some day. In fact, this is so important that we’re putting it in here so some president with a bug up his ass can’t decide to just take them away.” Just because the government doesn’t want to call in their half of the deal anymore doesn’t mean that we’re any less able to take advantage of ours. And, news for you, a good number of gun owners in this country, if it were invaded, would happily join the Militia for the security of the Free State again — shoot things that needed shooting — and then go back to work the next day.
As an aside; can you imagine making this argument about any of the other amendments and how quickly the ACLU Lawyer Ninjas would attack? I mean… picture Stevens’s argument had he made it regarding freedom of the press: [The majority] would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons press. THAT’S THE WHOLE REASON FOR A BILL OF RIGHTS! THEY’RE RIGHTS!!! NOT SUGGESTIONS!!!!
And, as one-issue voters go… this is a big one.
10-8 round for me. (3-1, McCain).