Thoughts On Obama’s New Gun Control Measures

President Obama announced the most sweeping gun control regulations in a generation yesterday. As your editor and as a long-time gun owner myself, I guess I need to weigh in on the subject. But my thoughts may not be what you think.

Let’s begin by going back to something you may have forgotten. In 2009, President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, made the following statement in a Wall Street Journal interview, in reference to the financial crisis of 2008:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste… It’s an opportunity
to do things that you think you could not do before.”

Emanuel went on to explain that in times of crisis, the government can seize the moment to enact all sorts of draconian regulations that would otherwise be resoundingly rejected by the voters. In retrospect, this was an egregious government secret that should have never passed his lips. FYI, Rahm Emanuel is now the mayor of Chicago, one of the “murder capitals” of the US, despite having some of the strictest gun laws in the land.

President Obama, in my opinion, seized on the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December as a crisis that enabled him to unleash his gun control proposals yesterday – that have already enraged gun owners across America. He was just waiting for the right opportunity.

Second, I found it disgusting that Obama chose to use elementary school children as his “props” for his news conference yesterday. These people will stop at nothing to advance their liberal agenda. What else is new? But let’s move on to the gun control issue itself.

President Obama’s exercise in gun legislation by photo-op and Executive Order yesterday may cheer liberals and outrage gun owners, but it will do almost nothing to curb gun violence. Some of the new Executive Orders – 23 in all – may seem reasonable, such as expanding the amount of information available for background checks.

Ditto for the admonition to “launch a national safe and responsible gun-ownership campaign.” Never mind that the National Rifle Association has been doing that for years. And some of the actions actually make sense, such as helping schools and churches develop more effective emergency-response programs.

But the fact is that none of these new gun control edicts will have any significant effect on evil people who can still obtain weapons and then attack innocents in schools, theaters and other “gun-free” places.

Again, that is not to say that there were no good or sensible ideas in the president’s gun control proposals. As a long-time gun owner and hunter myself, I don’t have major heartburn over universal background checks.  But keep in mind that “private sales” of guns are a small percentage of the total.

And we must keep in mind that the Colorado shooter, James Holmes, passed a background check, as did the Virginia Tech killer. It’s not a panacea. If there was a clear way to identify “dangerous people” in advance, we’d already be doing it.

Likewise, I don’t have a big problem with a 10-round limit on gun magazines – if you can’t hit your target with 10 shots, you probably don’t need the gun, much less a 30-round clip. On the other hand, does the president have the right to invoke such restriction? I don’t think so.

I could go on and on about Obama’s gun control wishes and his 23 Executive Orders/Actions yesterday, and his proposed restrictions that will require congressional approval, but the point is:

These actions, if implemented, will have little effect on wackos who can
obtain weapons and murder innocent people in “gun-free” public places.

And who knows what additional gun control plans Obama has, especially if the Dems win control of the House in 2014? Just something to think about…

Have a great weekend everyone!

3 Responses to Thoughts On Obama’s New Gun Control Measures

  1. I find it interesting that the ultimate concern for those who believe in unlimited access to guns and no gun controls of any kind, is based on fear–fear of gun registry, etc. rather than simply limiting magazine capacity and seminautomatic weapons. There still need to be some guns that ought to be limited to the military–especially since the Supreme Court separated militia from gun ownership (wrongfully so, i think). Since private gun owners no longer need to populate a militia–we have military reserves for that–limiting such basic ought to be a no-brainer.

    You may be right that “criminals” might still get such weapons with ease–but that does not mean that limits ought not to be set on such.

    Thank you.

    John Lamsma

  2. Gary, I think the mentality of your sentence “These people will stop at nothing to advance their liberal agenda.” is what is wrong with this country. You could easily change the sentence to read “These people will stop at nothing to advance their conservative agenda.” Us v. Them will get us no where as we have seen over the last years. We need to evaluate proposals put forth by the democrats and the republicans on their merits and whether the proposals are in-line with our values not by who has put them forth. Blindly accepting that all liberal proposals are evil and all conservative proposals are right or vice versa seems to me to be the highest form of ignorance. We need a country of independent thinkers to move forward.