Sportsmen for Obama? - Parsing Obama

Parsing Obama

Monday, 22 September 2008

It is reasonably well known that Obama tends to do less than well when he runs off script. For this reason, he tends to travel with his teleprompter. His words are carefully chosen meaning that what he does not say can be as or more important than what he does say. And that is why we must look carefully at his words.

So, what does Obama say on the Second Amendment?

His website ( Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Sportsmen ) used to say:

Respect the Second Amendment: Millions of hunters own and use guns each year. Millions more participate in a variety of shooting sports such as sporting clays, skeet, target and trap shooting that may not necessarily involve hunting. As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting. He also believes that the right is subject to reasonable and commonsense regulation.

Refining his statement, the same Fact Sheet has now been editted down to:

Respect the Second Amendment: Millions of hunters and shooters own and use guns each year. Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates and individual right, and he respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, trasport, and use guns.

First and foremost, the Constitution does not create any rights. It ACKNOWLEDGES rights that predate the writing of the Constitution. It is amazing that a ten year professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago does not get this.

At any rate, for all this belief in people's individual rights in the Second Amendment, that did not prevent Barack from believing that D.C.'s complete ban on handguns post May 1976 was constitutional ( The Chicago Tribune, November 20, 2007, "Court To Hear Gun Case" ).

And remember Obama sliding offscript:

Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2008

“Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ he said.

It would seem that Barack has given thought to taking them all away. That is consistent with his 1996 questionaire where he advocated the banning of all handguns. ( Obama has attempted unsucessfully to distance himself from this questionaire. )

Obama has been trying to forget about this issue by repeatedly saying that he is not going to take our guns away. Never does he say that we will be able to continue to acquire them or that our children will be able to buy firearms.

Barack has also been very open about his advocacy of a new assault weapons ban. The most popular rifle in the country would become illegal to acquire under Barack's leadership.

One must ask Barack where he thinks the Constitution draws the line with "shall not be infringed".

If Barack really believed in the whole Constitution, our Second Amendment rights would be addressed under the "Civil Rights" tab on his site instead of under "Sportsmen" which sits under "Additional Issues". Gun rights are apparently the ugly step child that Barack does not what to bring up.

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