Obama Shows Anti-Gun Cards Early

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), firearm sales in 2008 rose 10 percent over 2007, and ran 15-percent higher in October alone. And these figures might be on the low side. My friends at Passport Holsters saw a 30-percent increase in the second half of 2008, which shows every sign of continuing into 2009. Clearly, it’s gun-owners’ concerns about anew administration in Washington that have been fueling the boom in firearms and accessories.

Personally, I’ve been resigned to a less gun-friendly president (and Congress) since the night of the election, but I’d hoped the Obama/ Biden team would have more important issues on their agenda (like the economy, maybe?) that would keep them occupied for awhile. And I had assumed that, as smart as Barack Obama seems to be, he’d be smart enough to wait until after he was reelected in 2012 before he started polarizing the people with unpopular legislation.

But apparently, in my rush to give him the benefit of the doubt, I overestimated both his intelligence and his commitment to unite the American populace with solutions to problems that actually exist. He hasn’t even taken office yet, and last week, his administration’s agenda for curtailing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans was posted on his website. Curiously, the Obama/Biden gun-control agenda is missing from the website today, as we go to press.

So maybe there is someone in his entourage smart enough to realize that he should at least wait until he’s inaugurated before he starts alienating people.

In any case, President-elect Obama has stated that he is opposed to concealed-carry laws; he’s stated that he would make permanent the expired "assault-weapons" ban of 1994 that banned firearms based on cosmetic appearance; he’s promised to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts public access to sensitive, lawenforcement-only firearms-tracing data; and he’s called for "childproofing" all firearms.

And perhaps most telling of all, he’s appointed Rahm Emanuel, the chief architect of the Clinton/Gore guncontrol agenda, as his chief of staff. For what it’s worth, Mr. Obama, I have some advice for you: You would never have been elected if it weren’t for the votes of millions of law-abiding American gun owners. Those gun owners elected you to fulfill your promises.

Those promises were to fix the economy, stabilize the housing and stock markets, restore our standing in the world community, create jobs, ensure social security, and help us provide affordable education for our children. Keep those promises and you will go down in history as a great American president. But you were not elected to rewrite the Constitution. Mess with the Bill of Rights and you will quickly become less popular than your predecessor. Editor Keith Lawrence Technical