ijosef wrote:...their advertising guy has a taste for irony? Who knows? Even though Obama's election caused the biggest gun buying panic in recent history, he hasn't done anything to take away our gun rights. I don't doubt for a minute that he is very pro gun control like many on the hard left, but Bill Clinton did a heck of a lot more than Obama has. Granted there's the Fast & Furious debacle which seemed to have been created to sew the seeds for a gun control push (and for which Attorney General Holder should've resigned in shame), but there hasn't been any gun control legislation passed.
When you step back for a minute, and attempt clear your head of all the over-the-top Obama hatred we are constantly bombarded with, you realize the sky, in fact, has not fallen. Currently, we have more states with "shall issue" carry laws than we have ever had (well, in modern U.S. history, anyway), and compared to the rest of the "western" world, we have it pretty damn good when it comes to gun laws. I don't for a second give Obama credit for any of this, but he certainly is not the evil anti-gun socialist the far right and the NRA (of which I am a member and proud supporter) wants us all to believe. Given the ability to live out his deepest, most secret wishes, I don't doubt for a second we would have stricter gun control, but he has also stated on numerous occasions that he does support the second amendment (he sure as hell better, he's the president and sworn to uphold the constitution!) and he truly believes in the individual right to posses and bear arms. He has also said it should be up to the states to create "sensible" gun laws. Now "sensible" can mean many things to many people, and I doubt his idea of sensible would align with my own, but his public statements on the issue have been way better than many of the far left. The great "ammunition shortage" of '08 was all completely self inflicted. There was no logical reason for it to have occurred, and I hope we, as intelligent thinking adults, have the sense to not "shoot ourselves in the foot" again, so to speak, this time 'round. No matter how much he may (or may not) want to, he simply cannot reduce the second amendment to ashes overnight, and thanks to millions of diligent citizens and organizations such as the NRA, he wouldn't be allowed to. When it comes to gun rights, we are actually better off now than we were four years go. Think about it, really, we are. I wouldn't give Obama credit for it at all, but it's true. Has the current administration done (or attempted to do) some pretty bad and stupid things in the name of "gun control"? Yes, but when the NRA and others on the far right blow things so far out of perspective, they start to lose some credibility. That kind of over-the-top rhetoric also fuels the fire of the far left and the anti-gun zealots, which doesn't help us accomplish anything.
Not that anyone asked for it, but there's my $.02 (and then some - let the flames begin - although I'm not trolling, really)
Getting into topics outside of "gun control" I may get more worked up and anti-Obama, but there needs to be some perspective or we're going to do ourselves in again just like we did in '08. The media has a tendency to paint us as the crazies, and quite honestly, sometimes we do bring it on ourselves. Let's not add kindling for them - they will start fires.
-B
