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Barack Obama has not been an anti-gun president. His administration’s only tangible move against Second Amendment rights: the recently implemented long gun registry for some 8500 U.S. gun dealers in border states. Created by imperial fiat Executive Order, the long gun registry gives the ATF free license to trample on federal law (the Firearm Owners Protection Act) prohibiting ANY government gun registry. Otherwise, nada. When it comes to “is the president keeping away from the 2a third rail?” American gun rights groups won’t take “yes” for an answer. They believe—or say they believe to raise cash for the cause—that a re-elected Obama will be a gun grabber unleashed. Their most compelling evidence . . .
An off-hand remark made to the Brady Campaign during a White House meeting after a crazed gunman shot 20 people, killing six people and wounding Representative Gabrielle Giffords. Supposedly, President Obama said his administration was “working [on gun control measures] under the radar.”
TTAG called bullshit. The quote came from the most dubious of all sources: the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. As the Brits would say, they would say that wouldn’t they? Just as the NRA needs anti-anti-gun hysteria to keep their coffers full, the Brady Campaign needs some glimmer of gun grabbing hope to justify their existence.
The tampabaytimes.com has decided to do a little fact checking on the now infamous quote:
Relying on a secondhand quote of Obama — relayed to Washington Post by gun control advocate Sarah Brady — the NRA claimed that “Obama admits he’s coming for our guns, telling Sarah Brady, ‘We are working on (gun control), but under the radar.’ ”
The genesis of the quote is a brief 2011 White House meeting between Obama, Brady, her husband Jim, and former Brady Center [sic] to Prevent Gun Violence president Paul Helmke.
Helmke told PolitiFact there was no promise from Obama on gun policy, and certainly no dramatic pledge to come for anyone’s firearms.
Likely, the president was talking about an in-the-works program to get gun dealers in border states to forward some gun purchases to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Helmke said.
Brady told us her quote has been misinterpreted and that she herself never spoke with Obama about gun policy. “What ever I might have said or agreed to was purely speculative as I never spoke to the president myself about this issue,” she said.
Whatever was said and what it was referring to is murky, but the NRA took a fragment of an unclear quote and prescribed the most far-reaching, conspiratorial conclusion — when there simply isn’t enough evidence for such a sweeping claim. We rated that claim Pants on Fire.
Roger that. And shame on Sarah Brady to allow the made-up quote to remain in play despite the fact that she knew it was a complete fabrication (most likely by herself). But then why would we expect the antis to tell the truth about guns?