Revenge of the Bitter Gun Owners
Opinion Editorial by Jacob Sullum -
Oct 6, 2008
21 ratings from readers
Obama clearly recognizes the political dangers of publicly opposing the right to keep and bear arms. In his attempts to re-cast himself as a supporter of the Second Amendment, however, his integrity takes a hit.
Last
spring, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment
guarantees an individual right to arms, Democrats hoped the decision
would neutralize the gun issue.
Instead the ruling, by inviting
debate over which kinds of gun control are constitutional, has made
the issue more salient.
That’s
bad news for Barack Obama, who the National Rifle Association (NRA)
says “would be the most anti-gun president in American history.”
The Democratic nominee pays lip service to Second Amendment rights
while calling for “common sense,” “reasonable” restrictions.
But Obama’s sense of what’s reasonable, while common among the
left-liberal politicians and activists inside his comfort zone, may
seem decidedly unreasonable to the pro-gun voters the NRA is trying
to mobilize against him.
Since
these voters made a decisive difference in the 2000 presidential
election, and arguably in 2004 as well, this is a threat Obama
ignores at his peril. The NRA plans to spend $15 million urging
voters in battleground states of the Midwest and Mountain West to
“Defend Freedom” and “Defeat Obama.”
Meanwhile, the Obama
campaign is running radio spots in swing states such as Michigan,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that promise “Barack Obama and
John McCain will both make sure we keep our guns.”
Although
FactCheck.org faults the NRA for distorting Obama’s record, every
falsifiable claim in its TV spots has a factual basis.
In one ad, a
Virginia hunter complains that Obama supports “a huge new tax on my
guns and ammo,” referring to a position Obama took in 1999. He adds
that the Illinois senator voted to “ban virtually all deer-hunting
ammunition,” a reference to his 2005 vote for a federal ban on
rifle ammunition “designed or marketed as having armor piercing
capability,” phrasing that arguably covered deer-hunting
ammunition.
Finally,
the hunter complains that Obama wants to ban shotguns and rifles used
for hunting, alluding to his support for reinstating the federal
“assault weapon” ban. That law arbitrarily prohibited firearms
based mainly on cosmetic features that made them look scary to
gun-naive politicians.
In
another NRA ad, an Iraq war veteran from Wisconsin complains, “Barack
Obama opposes my right to own a handgun for self-defense.”
In a
1996 questionnaire, Obama’s state Senate campaign said he supported
a handgun ban. Today, Obama says that was a mistake, but the
questionnaire bears his handwriting, so he clearly saw it without
changing the supposedly erroneous answer.
As
a state legislator, Obama voted against a bill shielding people who
use handguns for self-defense in their homes from prosecution for
violating local gun registration rules.
Most tellingly, Obama has
repeatedly expressed support for local handgun bans such as the
District of Columbia’s, which the Supreme Court overturned, and
Chicago’s, which faces a constitutional challenge.
“What
works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne,” Obama says. The line,
meant to reassure gun owners, highlights his peculiar view that the
extent of an American’s constitutional rights depends on where he
lives.
The
specifics of Obama’s views may turn out to be less important than
the sense that he’s an urban sophisticate who is unfamiliar with
firearms and does not even understand the gun control laws he
supports.
In a 2004 debate, Obama explained the rationale for the
“assault weapon” ban this way: “Unless you’re seeing a lot of
deer out there wearing bullet-proof vests, then there is no purpose
for many of the guns.” He thereby conflated the “assault weapon”
and “armor-piercing bullet” issues, apparently not realizing that
ordinary hunting ammunition can penetrate “bullet-proof vests.”
The
NRA ads seek to reinforce the impression of Obama’s cluelessness.
“Where is this guy from?” asks the hunter. “He’s probably
never been hunting a day in his life.”
Two of the ads allude to
Obama’s notorious comment that working-class voters in Pennsylvania
and the Midwest “get bitter” during hard economic times and
“cling to guns or religion.”
What will Obama cling to when voters
question his commitment to the Second Amendment?
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. His is also the author of For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health. Sullum is a
graduate of Cornell University, where he majored in economics and
psychology. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and daughter.
