To my gun-owning Democrat friends: How could you vote for either one?

By Chad D. Baus

I've spent the last few weeks examining the choices left on the GOP primary ballot. I thought on this Ohio Primary eve I would take a look the choices my pro-gun Democrat friends are facing.

In Ohio alone, approximately 1/2 million people have hunting and/ or concealed handgun licenses. More importantly, Ohio gun owners made up 27 percent of the total vote in Ohio in the year 2000, the year Al Gore lost his Presidential bid thanks in large part to the pro-gun vote.

With those kinds of numbers coming to the polls, it is easy to understand why Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama are busy offering phony appeals to gun owners leading up to crucial primary contests tomorrow in Ohio and Texas.

But the truth with both candidates is something far more sinister. The truth is that any Ohio Democrat gun owner who votes for Hillary or Barack might as well be voluntarily turning their guns in for destruction.

In case you haven't heard by now, Hillary has added a claim of being a hunter to her stump speech:

Meanwhile, in the wake of the latest mass shooting on a "no-guns" college campus in his home state of Illinois, Obama expressed a new-found appreciation for the Second Amendment as an individual right, and saying he doesn't think the climate is right for passage of a gun registration scheme.

Obama is also attempting to assuage voters who contact his campaign website, responding to inquiries with a form letter email that "the rights of legitimate hunters and sportsmen should be protected."

The anti-gun media certainly wants you gun-owning Democrats to swallow this line. After a January debate, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media claimed both Democrat presidential hopefuls "beat a hasty retreat on gun control." During the debate, Clinton claimed she no longer supports the proposal, which she made in 2000, for national registration of gun ownership. Meanwhile, while addressing the pending Supreme Court hearing on District of Columbia v. Heller, an Associated Press headline screamed that "Obama Supports Individual Gun Rights"!

Both candidate and their anti-gun friends in the media are telling pro-gun voters to "move along...nothing to see here....move along." Are you gun-owning Democrats taking the bait?

I hope not, because the fact is, there is a LOT to see here with these two on guns, and Democrats who consider the Second Amendment to be the right that protects all others need to be aware of just what they will be voting for if they go to the polls tomorrow.

At a bare minimum, you will be voting to enact a much more restrictive version of the failed assault weapons ban that sunsetted in 2004, and to enact mandatory ammunition microstamping legislation[1] which would directly result in a broad semi-automatic handgun ban. (This wouldn't be just a California/ Schwarznegger-style ban on the manufacture of new pistols without micro-stamping capabilities (which, by the way, can be easily removed by criminals), but rather ALL models of semi-automatic pistols[2].)

What's that? You're a shotgun hunter and not all too worried about handguns? Then consider that in the wake of the Northern Illinois University massacre (in which the murderer used a shotgun) Obama spoke of his determination to do "whatever it takes" to end gun violence[3].

Before you tell me you're not convinced that "whatever it takes" would ever include coming for your Remington Model 870, consider this:

• Barack Obama believes local governments should be able to enact any gun control laws they consider necessary to end gun violence.[4]

As former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell observes, "To say that the Second Amendment means you can own guns, but that the city where you live can ban all gun ownership, means you have no Second Amendment rights at all."

• Barack Obama has opposed "letting people use a self-defense argument if charged with violating local handgun bans by using weapons in their homes. The bill was a reaction to a Chicago-area man who, after shooting an intruder, was charged with a handgun violation."[5]
• (Like Republican John McCain) Barack Obama has sought to ban the private sale of firearms at gun shows.[6]
• Barack Obama has tried to make it a felony if your gun is stolen from your residence and used in a crime, if the government determines you did not “securely store” the weapon.[7]
• Barack Obama was the only state senator to oppose a law that prohibited early prison release for sex offenders.[8]
• Barack Obama has called for restricting gun purchases to one weapon a month.[9]
• Barack Obama has called for banning police agencies from reselling their used guns even if those funds are used to buy more state-of-the-art weapons for their agencies.[10]
• Barack Obama has called for allowing only those over 21 who've passed a basic safety course to be able to buy or own any firearm.[11]
• Barack Obama has called for banning all sales of guns at federally licensed gun dealers' homes.[12]
• Barack Obama has called for banning federally licensed gun dealers' businesses from being within five miles of a school or a park.[13]
• (Like Republican John McCain) Barack Obama has called for banning the sale of inexpensive handguns used by many less-fortunate citizens for self-protection.[14]
• Barack Obama has called for forcing gun manufacturers to develop safety measures that would supposedly only the original owner of the firearm to operate the gun.[15] (Republican John McCain has expressed "intrigue" about such unreliable technology.[16])
• Barack Obama has called for increasing federal taxes by 500 percent on the sale of firearms and ammunition.[17]

In case you are wondering where all these scary ideas came from, consider this:

• Barack Obama is a former Board Member of the vehemently anti-gun Joyce Foundation[18] - the organization that has funded the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence to the tune of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

The evidences of Hillary Clinton's own support for gun control are already well-documented, since the Clinton Administration, over which she claims a co-Presidency with her husband Bill Clinton, established itself as a vehemently anti-gun administration.

And while Hillary now claims that she would no longer attempt to pass her idea for a photo ID gun licensing scheme, she has already called for a presidential summit on gun control.[19] I dare any pro-gun Democrat to try and argue the result of such a summit would not be more infringements on our rights.

My friend and co-writer at BuckeyeFirearms.org, Brian Stewart, observed recently that "gun owners are not stupid, nor are they easily fooled." For the most part, I agree. But when it comes to pro-gun Democrats, I can't say it any simpler than this:

If you go to the polls tomorrow to vote for Clinton or Obama because your union told you to, you prostituting your Second Amendment rights (and mine) for a better paycheck.

If you go to the polls tomorrow to vote for Clinton or Obama because you've always been Democrat, you prostituting your Second Amendment rights (and mine) for political gain.

In other words, with apologies to my friend Mr. Stewart, if you are a pro-gun Democrat, and you go to the polls tomorrow to vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, you are both stupid and foolish.

Chad Baus is a Member of the Fulton County, OH Republican Central Committee and the Buckeye Firearms Association Vice Chairman and Northwest Ohio Chair.

Footnotes:
[1] Sens. Obama, Clinton weigh in on NIU shootings, February 15, 2008, http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/clout_st/2008/02/sens-obama-clin.html
[2] Kennedy Introduces A Handgun Ban In Congress…Again, February 22, 2008, http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Read.aspx?ID=3561
[3] His Disturbing Pattern, February 21, 2008, http://www.nysun.com/article/71591
[4] Ibid
[5] Once You Take Away Barack Obama’s Likeability… What’s Left?, February 19, 2008, http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjRlOWRlOGNiOTljZTMxZjBlN...
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] Obama and Gun Control, February 18, 2008, http://volokh.com/posts/1203389334.shtml
[10] Ibid
[11] Ibid
[12] Ibid
[13] Ibid
[14] Ibid
[15] Ibid
[16] Early 2008 Presidential Contenders: Pick your gun control poison, January 15, 2007, http://www.buckeyefirearms.org/node/3493
[17] Obama and Gun Control, February 18, 2008, http://volokh.com/posts/1203389334.shtml
[18] The Joyce Foundation, September 11, 2007, Sportsmen for Obama?
[19] Clinton Wants a Gun Summit, http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2008/02/clinton-wants-a-gun-summit.html