Posted on 02/16/2008 9:22:35 PM PST by jdm
Before speaking to a rally here, Obama said the nation must do a "more effective job of enforcing our gun laws, strengthening our background check system, being able to trace guns that are used in violent crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers -- so that we can crack down on them -- closing gun show loopholes."
+++
Obama said he believes in the Second Amendment, but that there is plenty of room for added gun regulations. "There is an individual right to bear arms, but it's subject to commonsense regulation," he said.
Mentioning his home city, Obama said local entities should also have the ability to have their own more strict regulations.
"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 said. "I think the notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang-bangers and random shootings on the street isn't born out by our constitution."
Hmmm, that should go over real well in the Texas primary on March 4. Just as the national Dems seemed to have learned their lesson on this issue, expect to hear a lot about guns if Obama is the nominee, for two reasons.
1. Guns are one of the few areas where McCain has a pretty solid conservative record. The NRA's leadership hates McCain due mainly to McCain-Feingold, but on the actual gun-rights issues he's voted pretty consistently for gun rights (e.g., he voted against the Brady Bill), although McCain has also clashed with the NRA over a gun show bill he co-sponsored with Joe Lieberman.
2. There is, nonetheless, a huge contrast to be drawn on this issue. Obama is about as anti-gun as you would expect from a Chicago politician - voted for assault weapons bans, voted to limit the number of handguns a person could buy, voted against lawsuit protections for gun manufacturers, supported a national ban on concealed carry, and worst of all voted against a bill protecting homeowners from being sued by burglars they shoot in their own homes.
Obama's not going to get a pass on that record from gun owners.
I don’t trust Obama.
I think that deep in his heart he is a socialist gun-grabber.
I would think that it would be a shallow dig
‘bout as deep as Paris Hilton...
He is a Socialist by his own words, actions, and associations.
McCain’s got a C+ rating from the NRA.
Let's see, he's knocked over the First Amendment with CFR, and he wants to knock over the Second Amendment by closing the non-existent gun show "loophole". Seems like he's trying to knock them all down, in order of appearance in the Bill of Rights. I fully expect him to propose a "Bring a Soldier in from the Rain Act" stipulating how soldiers are to be quartered in people's houses in times of peace, and then the "Untie the Hands of Law Enforcement Act" giving power to search without a warrant and without probable cause.
He's no conservative.
We'll see what the Supreme Court has to say about D.C.
C+ is nothing to brag about.
We were watching his speech tonight on tv..he is vapid! Full of platitudes and never says how anything will be achieved..how he plans to make his plans work...yet the crowds cheer! WE are in trouble, folks if this clever young gasbag wins the “WH” with his arrogrant wife.
Looks like a bullet vest under his shirt!
You and I are agreeing on just about everything tonight!
Obama is a constitutional scolar, yet believes the 2A is for hunting and sportsmen......... heard him say it in an earlier debate.
Geezers want to know!
Why a generation ago could you buy guns through mail order? DoD gave (or sold cheaply, I forgot which) surplus ammo to gun owners, usually though organizations like the NRA. Why did high schoolers all across the Nation take guns to school, or have access to guns at school, and there were no shootings. Why?
Wot?
Oh, only jazz musicians used mind altering drugs back then. Now I remember.
"Mmmm.. Change," drools Homer Simpson. "More gun laws."
Sorry, someone gave me a click through link to the comment section but I lost it. The post is kinda funny though.
McCain-C+
Obama F
Not what I would choose, either of them, but it is clear who is the lesser of two evils.
if he thought otherwise, he would realize that everything he believes would turn america into cuba and north korea.
The prescription drugs given them by the legal drug pushers?
The prescription drugs that have proven and the makers have even admitted side effects of suicidal thoughts ( and suicides) and violence = especially soon after someone stops taking them?
This shooter was on depression meds - as were almost every other shooter - That fact is quickly hushed up and the gun-controllers come out in force.
It has been known for years that these antidepressant drugs are dangerous and have these side effects, especially when given to young people...but there's alway a quick hush-up.
The pharmaceutical companies are powerful = and their henchmen in the medical field and in Washington - the FDA (which has a swinging door for lucrative jobs straight from the FDA to the drug companies - watch each others backs.
Our young people have become the drug companies cash cow.
I think the only thing that will stop them is for the victims of these shootings - including the families of the shooters - need to file a class action suit against those who make and push these drugs...
Do a GOOGLE search with these 4 words - psychotropic drugs mass shootings - then ask why is the cry not against drugs instead of 'gun control'?
You've got a good eye!
To quote Dr. Ron Paul:
“The lesser of two evils is still evil.”
You got that right!!!! ...one good eye! LOL!
A non-emancipated minor is a ward of his parents, hence not free.
An arrestee is temporarily not free.
A parolee is not free.
A convicted felon is not free.
One who has been adjudicated mentally incompetent is not free.
The government has the authority to restrict the right to keep and bear arms in those circumstances, and only those circumstances, where it has the more general authority to make somebody be "not free". Accept that, and the need for other "reasonable regulations" disappears.
Concede nothing...
Do you think the Second Amendment was ever intended to apply to slaves? Or to condemned prisoners walking to the gallows? Can such a notion be regarded as anything less than totally absurd?
The Second Amendment cannot, and could never, reasonably be interpreted as applying to all persons. I fail to see why acknowledging that is "conceding" anything.
The question is whether we should continue to allow an interpretation that says it applies to all persons, except when the results would be undesirable, or whether we should insist on a bright-line distinction as to who is and is not protected. I would suggest that linking the RKBA to freedom is by far the best linkage. One who is free has the RKBA. One who is not free does not. To deny the RKBA is to deny freedom. In circumstances when the state may legitimately deny freedom, it may deny the RKBA (if it couldn't deny the RKBA, it would have a hard time denying freedom). Conversely, the state may not legitimately deny the RKBA in any circumstance where it could not legitimately deny freedom.
Whose RKBA do you feel I would be conceding improperly?
So is the third of three evils.
So, where do you stop?
Ron Paul (when he was my representitive in Tx) had neo-nazi problems. He still does.
So that makes him also evil, right?
The second amendment was significantly limited by the Dred Scott decision, which asserted that it applied only to whites.
The 14th Amendment changed that, extending Federal rights to all citizens, and providing guidance on the proper extent of the rights of citizen ship.
I thought the logic of the Dred Scott decision was that if Dred Scott were a free man, he'd be allowed to keep and bear arms. Since it was more acceptable to deem him not-free than to let him keep and bear arms, he was therefore branded 'not free'.
There are plenty of places where one might reasonably dispute the state's authority to deny someone his freedom. I am, however, unaware of any circumstance in which the state would have the authority to deny someone his freedom and yet not have the authority disarm him. Accepting the equivalence between "having the right to keep and bear arms" and "being free" would nit allow the state to disarm anyone it couldn't disarm already, but would force the state to acknowledge that it was denying the freedom of those who were disarmed.
Concede nothing.
PING
It’s going to be an interesting few years. To Obama, it’s “common sense” that nobody but the police and military “need” semi-auto weapons. There is no conflict in his mind between banning semis and the 2nd amd.
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