Sandy Froman Exposes Obama the Gun Grabber

By Jim on April 4th, 2008

Great column by former NRA president, Sandy Froman. Obama is a gun grabber and a fraud. America’s gun owners are going to see this by the time November rolls around.

Hillary Clinton, liar though she is on other things, is absolutely right when she says that Obama is “not electable.” Obama’s anti-2nd amendment extremism is going to make sure that gun owners are out in force in November to vote for John McCain.

The campaign that has brought Obama this far is premised on the idea that he is some sort of post-partisan, transcendent figure who could bring America together and bridge the divide between the Red States and the Blue States.

But in the past couple weeks America has been getting glimpses of a Barack Obama that is nothing like this manufactured image. Between his spiritual leader’s anti-American tirades and his off-the-cuff comments, Obama is looking less like a unifying figure and more like an ultra-left political activist.

When it comes to gun rights, Obama recently stated in a press conference he believes the Second Amendment speaks to an individual right. He said, “There is an individual right to bear arms, but it is subject to common-sense regulation just like most of our rights are subject to common-sense regulation.” He explained what he means by common-sense regulation, “I think that local jurisdictions have the capacity to institute their own gun laws . . . the City of Chicago has gun laws, as does Washington, D.C.” He went on, “The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can’t initiate gun safety laws . . . isn’t borne out by our Constitution.” In other words, the DC handgun ban is okay with candidate Barack Obama.

Like many of Obama’s contradictions, his stated belief in the individual rights view of the Second Amendment is at odds with his support for DC’s categorical ban on handguns. That law is currently being challenged in District of Columbia v. Heller, now pending before the Supreme Court. Fifty five senators and 250 house members (including many Democrats in both chambers) signed a brief in that case supporting the individual rights view. Obama was not one of them.

And now we know why. As has been reported all week, in 1996 Obama filled out a candidate questionnaire where he revealed his true beliefs on all sorts of subjects, from abortion to school choice.

One question that has not gotten much attention, however, asks if Obama supports legislation to, “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.” His one-word answer—uncommonly direct and lacking the flowery eloquence we’ve come to expect from him—was “Yes.”

His answer could cost him the presidency. Since gun control became a partisan political issue in the late 1960s, the only two Democrats to win the White House (Carter and Clinton) have done so by portraying themselves to America as moderate, “common-sense” politicians in sync with Middle America. Supporting an absolute ban on owning any pistol or revolver is at odds with a vast super-majority of Americans, and shows Barack Obama to be far outside the mainstream of American politics.