Nevada debate: ''Dems beat a hasty retreat on gun control''...or did they?

By Chad D. Baus

In coverage of the most recent Democrat presidential debate in Nevada, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media claim Democrat presidential hopefuls beat a serious retreat on their support for gun control .

Even if true (actual transcripts cast doubt on these claims), does anyone really believe their positions won't revert to form if elected?

From the story:

The candidates were mindful of an issue that has hurt the party in
rural areas and beat a hasty retreat on gun control.

Clinton said she no longer supports the proposal, which she made in
2000, for national registration of gun ownership. Obama agreed that
the political climate for registration is not there but promised to
act against unscrupulous illegal gun dealers. Both Clinton and Edwards
pledged to work to reinstate a Clinton-era ban on certain kinds of
assault weapons. Edwards talked about how families owned guns for
sport in North Carolina, but added, "I don't think you need an AK-47
to hunt."

This summary doesn't really get to the extent of the candidate's statements (a transcript is provided below).

Senator Clinton did flip-flop on her handgun registry idea (and nothing says she can't flip right back if elected), but she also called for a renewal of the failed and now-defunct "assault" weapons ban passed by her husband in the 1990's. As an aside, pro-gun Republicans would do well to take note of how similar Clinton's talking points are to Rudy Giuliani's and Mitt Romney's (both have also called for the Clinton Gun Ban's renewal on the campaign trail).

Senator Obama avoided a question on his past support for licensing and registering gun owners by conceding that he "[doesn't] think that we can get that done". He then went on to call for abolishing the Tiahrt Amendment, which maintains firearm trace information within the law enforcement community and out of the hands of politicians, trial lawyers and special interest groups.

John Edwards claimed that when growing up in the rural South "everyone around me had guns" and "everyone hunted", but he is apparently in the Jim Zumbo camp when it comes to a lack of knowledge about how many hunting applications exists for small-bore semi-automatic rifles. He too called for a renewal of the Clinton Gun Ban.

Both Edwards and Obama seem to labor under the false impression that the Second Amendment recognizes the right of the people to hunt, rather than the "right of the people to keep and bear arms".

The bottom line at this point in time is that ignorance reins among the vast majority of Presidential candidates in BOTH political parties, no matter what the media wants you to believe.

[TIM] RUSSERT: We arrived in Nevada, the headline in Nevada Appeal newspaper: Nevada leads in gun deaths.

RUSSERT: The leading cause for death among young black men is guns — death, homicide. Mayor Bloomberg of New York, you all know him, he and 250 mayors have started the campaign, Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Senator Clinton, when you ran for the Senate in 2000, you said that everyone who wishes to purchase a gun should have a license, and that every handgun sale or transfer should be registered in a national registry. Will you try to implement such a plan?

CLINTON: Well, I am against illegal guns, and illegal guns are the cause of so much death and injury in our country. I also am a political realist and I understand that the political winds are very powerful against doing enough to try to get guns off the street, get them out of the hands of young people.

The law in New York was as you state, and the law in New York has worked to a great extent.

CLINTON: I don’t want the federal government preempting states and cities like New York that have very specific problems.

So here’s what I would do. We need to have a registry that really works with good information about people who are felons, people who have been committed to mental institutions like the man in Virginia Tech who caused so much death and havoc. We need to make sure that that information is in a timely manner, both collected and presented.

We do need to crack down on illegal gun dealers. This is something that I would like to see more of.

And we need to enforce the laws that we have on the books. I would also work to reinstate the assault weapons ban. We now have, once again, police deaths going up around the country, and in large measure because bad guys now have assault weapons again. We stopped it for awhile. Now they’re back on the streets.

So there are steps we need to take that we should do together. You know, I believe in the Second Amendment. People have a right to bear arms. But I also believe that we can common-sensically approach this.

RUSSERT: But you’ve backed off a national licensing registration plan?

CLINTON: Yes.

RUSSERT: Senator Obama, when you were in the state senate, you talked about licensing and registering gun owners. Would you do that as president?

OBAMA: I don’t think that we can get that done. But what I do think we can do is to provide just some common-sense enforcement. One good example — this is consistently blocked — the efforts by law enforcement to obtain the information required to trace back guns that have been used in crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers.

That’s not something that the NRA has allowed to get through Congress. And, as president, I intend to make it happen.

But here’s the broader context that I think is important for us to remember. We essentially have two realities, when it comes to guns, in this country. You’ve got the tradition of lawful gun ownership, that all of us saw, as we travel around rural parts of the country.

And it is very important for many Americans to be able to hunt, fish, take their kids out, teach them how to shoot.

And then you’ve got the reality of 34 Chicago public school students who get shot down on the streets of Chicago.

We can reconcile those two realities by making sure the Second Amendment is respected and that people are able to lawfully own guns, but that we also start cracking down on the kinds of abuses of firearms that we see on the streets.

RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, Democrats used to be out front for registration and licensing of guns. It now appears that there’s a recognition that it’s hard to win a national election with that position. Is that fair?

EDWARDS: I think that’s fair, but I haven’t changed my position on this. I’m against it. Having grown up where I did in the rural South, everyone around me had guns, everyone hunted. And I think it is enormously important to protect people’s Second Amendment rights.

I don’t believe that means you need an AK-47 to hunt. And I think the assault weapons ban, which Hillary spoke about just a minute ago, as president of the United States I’ll do everything in my power to reinstate it. But I do think we need a president who understands the sportsmen, hunters who use their guns for lawful purposes have a right to have their Second Amendment rights looked after.