I get very few emails from readers. People just don't take the time. So, when I do, I read it several times and carefully consider what is being said.
Brad went to the effort and it is appreciated. He said:
I just wanted to thank you for providing this information. I love this country and respect the Constitution wholly. I consider myself an amateur marksman and enjoy shooting with friends. However, I do not take as hard a line as you do against Obama. I truly believed that Obama's voting record was more to be afraid of than what you presented. I have had people suggest, and sections of your site echo this, that Obama is a gun grabber of the worst kind. I don't see it. I see a man voting as best he can with his constituents in mind. I know you are looking to turn votes against Obama with this site, but I wanted to congratulate you on a greater success - you are enabling intelligent and meaningful conversations across the country. Please accept my honest approval of your work and genuine thanks.
If people will just start thinking, that must be a good thing. If Brads of the world read this site and are happy with Obama, so be it.
But I do wish to address one part of the note. Brad states that he believes Obama was simply representing his constituents. Such behavior appears to be all too rare in today's representatives.
That does not mean that it is always a good or appropriate behavior.
I do not know all of the Oaths of Office out there, but I would expect they should all say something about 'respect and defend the Constitution'. Probably Illinois legislators have some such verbiage.
At any rate, you should not be willing to violate your oath of office to properly represent your clients. And to vote for and push some of the legislation that Barack Obama has championed is no less than an assault on the Constitution of the United States. D.C. v. Heller clearly showed that Obama campaigned for legislation that would have, if passed, violated the Second Amendment.
Rather than follow his constituents, Barack Obama should have displayed some leadership in defending the Constitution from the lesser educated. After all, he was a 'professor'.
From my vantage point, I see three possibilities.
Barack was enthusiastic about what he advocated, thought them to be Constitutional laws, and is a gun grabber of the worst sort. This would be like leading the lemmings off the cliff.
Barack was ambivalent about what he advocated but was willing to push for the legislation not considering the Constitutional implications so that he could represent his constituents. Here, Barack follows the lemmings off the cliff.
Or Barack knew of the Constitutional implications of his proposals but was willing to forgo his oath of office to represent his voters. Rather than display some leadership, Barack was going along and 'following orders'. In this scenario, getting reelected was more of a concern than doing what was right for the country.
It does not matter which possibility was reality. They are equally damning.
The issue is not just his stance on gun control; it is the man and his leadership.
Any which way you slice it, Barack Obama displays a distinct lack of appropriate leadership. He is not fit for the Presidency.
Obama votes against gun owners on almost every occassion that he can.
Obama was on the Board of Directors of the Joyce Foundation who fund numerous gun control organizations that acknowledge wishing to end firearm ownership in the U.S. While we are here, I would love to know why Barack would associate himself with an organization that pushed what he should have recognized as an unconstitutional agenda.
Pay particular attention to the start where Obama seems to take ownership of the 'individual rights' view and how good it is that the Supreme Court has adopted his view.
fYesterday I received an emaily that started like this:
Howdy folks,I am a 6th generation Idahoan who grew up hunting and fishing. I also grew up a Republican (despite my own family's democratic views) but have changed my affiliation in recent years. You are my presidential candidate. Your views on and your support of issues facing the interior west are right on. Especially the platform you are building around public lands and sportsmen's issues.I saw that my good friend and fellow conservationist, .... ....... in Montana did a short piece with BBC about sportsmen supporting Obama. I would love to see more of that kind of outreach and exposure here in Colorado where I now reside.and on....
Does this reader actually see something to believe I am positive about Obama or is he making an assumption without reading past the title?
We all get to have our own opinion. But, we don't get to have our own facts.
I can only conclude, from that facts that Obama is a gun grabber of the highest order.
So, is my writing unclear? Can readers not percieve my opinion and research the facts for themselves?
Please let me know.
I want there to be no confusion. Obama would be a disaster for our Second Amendment rights.
The 4th of May was interesting moment for truth. A mailer to Indiana votes was titled "Where does Barack Obama Really Stand on Guns?".
It looked and sounded like something straight from the National Rifle Association. Interestingly, it came from Hillary Clinton's campaign.
So, if you think only the vast, right wing conspiracy is out to get Barack, guess again. When a single conclusion comes from both sides of a campaign, perhaps you should look at the facts behind the conclusion:
Clinton then Obama show their true colors as unabashed gun grabbers. Barack starts at 3:08 into the video. To complete the picture, the mediator proves his ignorance of gun law:
Obama, once again, supports our Second Amendment rights, but sees no problem with local gun control. Using the worn out "yell fire in a theater", Obama equates firearms ownership with unlawful use of a firearm.
Politico has discovered something we have known for some time:
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has worked to assure uneasy gun owners that he believes the Constitution protects their rights and that he doesn’t want to take away their guns.
But before he became a national political figure, he sat on the board of a Chicago-based foundation that doled out at least nine grants totaling nearly $2.7 million to groups that advocated the opposite positions.
The foundation funded legal scholarship advancing the theory that the Second Amendment does not protect individual gun owners’ rights, as well as two groups that advocated handgun bans. And it paid to support a book called “Every Handgun Is Aimed at You: The Case for Banning Handguns.”
Obama’s eight years on the board of the Joyce Foundation, which paid him more than $70,000 in directors fees, do not in any way conflict with his campaign-trail support for the rights of gun owners, Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Obama’s presidential campaign, asserted in a statement issued to Politico this week.
LaBolt stressed that the foundation, which has assets of about $935 million, doesn’t take “detailed policy positions,” but rather uses its grants to “fuel a dialogue about how to address public policy issues like reducing gun violence.”
For this last statement to be true, you would have to wonder how much money they have granted to gun rights organizations. The answer would be exactly $0.00.
