File this one under “no good deed goes unpunished.” The President of the United States pens an editorial on gun control for an Arizona newspaper. The resulting polemic garners hundreds of thousands if not millions of uniques for azstar.net. A few days later, the paper’s editorial staff doesn’t just bite the hand that feeds, they tear it off like a great white shark and rip it to shreds. Here’s the kicker: this they do not because they believe the President of the United States was dancing around the possibility of curtailing Second Amendment rights (as he surely was). But because he wimped-out on gun control. Check it out . . .
Obama’s call in the Arizona Daily Star last week for better firearms enforcement fell far short of the kind of common-sense, middle-of-the-road reforms that are needed in this country – and that also, ironically, generally prevail in public opinion polls . . .
. . . the president failed to step up and insist on meat-and-potato reforms that also are imperative, including several he supported in his campaign. Among them:
• Reinstating the expired federal ban on military-style assault weapons . . .
• Reinstating a federal ban on extended-capacity magazines . . .
• Closing the gun-show “loophole,” an intentional exception to the background check law which allows criminals and other undesirable gun buyers to acquire firearms in private sales . . .
• Improve the NICS system itself. It relies largely on data provided by the states, and many states – among them Arizona – don’t provide much, especially information about people found too dangerously mentally ill to legally purchase weapons.
• As we noted last month, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is badly underfunded. Obama should be leading the charge to get ATF into fighting shape . . .
That’s the problem with playing hot button issues like gun control straight down the middle: you please exactly no one. Well, except for the people who know (and care) nothing about the issue, who think you’re a swell guy for being so damn reasonable. Mission accomplished?
the loophole needs to be closed
The “loophole” does not exist.
“Obama’s call in the Arizona Daily Star last week for better firearms enforcement fell far short of the kind of common-sense, middle-of-the-road reforms that are needed in this country – and that also, ironically, generally prevail in public opinion polls .”
Really? exactly what non-biased poll is that?
Generally speaking, I think the gun rights movement is wasting its time focusing so much on Obama. I know a substantial segment of the right is obsessed with him (he’s a Socialist Muslim from Kenya or whatever, and he may even be a black guy, sort of). He’s a politician, he wants to get re-elected, he wants to score political points. He is not passionate about taking away anyone’s guns. Hell, I don’t think he’s passionate about much of anything. He is a creature of his environment. And he is a very, very savvy politician (for the record, I was never one of those lefties calling GWB stupid – W was (is) a shrewd politician, whatever other issues I may have with him).
Politicians put their fingers in the wind, and act accordingly. If we want to keep our gun rights, we’ll have to change the direction of that wind. Enough of the hating and bashing. It’s time for a marketing campaign!
“Politicians put their fingers in the wind”
No. Politicians put their fingers in our pockets.
Denying him another chance at a SCOTUS pick is not a waste of time.
When you’re the leader of a team, any mis-step that the team makes, they look at the leader first. “Why didn’t you keep them in line?”
The overall hatred of Obama isn’t entirely irrational – he cannot control Holder or the agencies involved in the Gunwalker scandal, and has surrounded himself with Clintonistas that are notorious gun-banners.
Although somehow I think this whole birther crap is a leftist front. No one is going to be that stupid or driven to grab a birth certificate.
I wish the left was organized enough to field a bunch of people to pretend to be right wing wackos. Alas, I fear the birther phenomenon is what it appears to be, which wouldn’t be much, if Fox News wasn’t so happy to amplify it.
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