Barack Obama and John Kerry: Geese of a Feather

By Gerard Valentino

Barack Obama is on the campaign trail touting his support for the Second Amendment as an individual right to bear arms - a laughable assertion by a candidate who has tried to reshape himself as a moderate liberal once he secured the Democratic nomination for president.

Luckily, for gun owners, Obama is more concerned with power than policy so he is unlikely to go after guns because it means a certain loss at the ballot box. John Kerry's decision to pander to hunters during the 2004 election is an infamous case of just how important the gun vote has become.

Although Obama hasn't taken drastic measures, like staging fake goose hunting trip, to prove he won't take our guns, there are a lot of parallels between his record and that of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

Due to his limited time in government, and his complete lack of accomplishment during that time, it is much harder to pin Obama down on most issues. As a candidate he is particularly adept at appearing to be all things to all people.

Unlike Kerry, who couldn't hide from his record, Obama has no specific record to hide from. Still, they have the same misguided view on guns, no matter how Obama tries to spin it.

Obama is a devout gun-grabber and sooner or later his true views will come out on the issue. Whether that is before or after the election remains to be seen. We don't have nearly as much to tie Obama to the anti-gun movement but what appears in his limited record is terrifying to gun owners.

He served on the board of the notoriously anti-gun organization, the Joyce Foundation, which bankrolls the anti-gun movement in Ohio. A state with an active pro-gun voting population combined with a big say in who wins the presidency in November. Bush defeated Kerry in 2004 largely on the gun vote, but Obama’s duplicity on the issue hasn’t yet been adequately exposed.

Statewide groups like Buckeye Firearms Association have done a good job exposing Obama’s support for gun-control, but as usual the traditional media refuses to pick up the story.

Still, there is enough evidence to tie Obama to morally repugnant theory of gun-control. Clearly, he learned from Kerry’s mistakes and hid well during his time in the Illinois state government. He was also completely invisible during his brief time in the United States Senate.

When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate it electrified the sportsmen and gun vote. Gun owners should have been on alert already because like Kerry, Obama is trying to play possum on the gun issue. Knowing it is the key to his election as president, he has simply side-stepped the issue to keep a sizeable number of gun owners in his camp.

The truth, if reported by the traditional media, would set those gun owners free, compelling them to vote their rights, and therefore vote for a ticket that includes Sarah Palin. She was for gun rights before becoming the Republican vice-presidential candidate, unlike the Obama/Biden ticket who consider taking away so-called assault weapons as a vital way to fight crime.

Obama is too sly to fall for the same ridiculous plan that doomed Kerry in Ohio and therefore, won’t insult gun voters by staging a phony goose hunting trip. He knows keeping the gun issue off the front burner is a key to his election.

Gun owners shouldn’t be fooled by the Obama plan to trick them into voting for someone who does not believe in the right to bear arms. Claiming Obama wasn’t in office long enough to prove his support for the right to bear arms is a sham perpetrated by his campaign to defraud voters. Sarah Palin was governor of Alaska for only two years yet there is no doubt about where she stands on guns.

Keeping someone like Obama out of the highest office in the land, where he can do insurmountable damage to the Second Amendment is paramount if gun owners want to carry guns for self-defense. He has supported gun control in Chicago, helped fund anti-gun groups while involved with the Joyce Foundation and picked one of the most rabid gun grabbers as his running mate.

The argument can be made that Obama’s record on guns stands as the single reason to vote against him since he does his best to hide his anti-gun bias. He is a typical gun grabbing anti-American liberal and will certainly try to damage the right to bear arms as president. Not all liberals are anti-gun, in Ohio, Governor Ted Strickland is a devout defender of gun rights and backs up his words by action in office.

What makes Obama scary is his knowledge that gun control is a loser at the ballot box meaning if he does move on our rights it will be through deception and lies.

Whether he gets away with it is up to the gun voters who can keep him from the oval office. At some point, Obama’s deeply held anti-gun roots will be exposed and he will have to answer for his war on freedom.

Once elected, it’s unrealistic to think he will suppress his true feelings and defend the Second Amendment. Forcing people to turn over everything to his socialist agenda is what drives Obama forward. It will shape his presidency and his actions on the right to bear arms.

Gun advocates are slowly growing wise to Obama’s tactics, just as they were wise to Kerry’s false conversion to supporting gun rights and the ridiculous notion he was a hunter. Now, it is incumbent on the gun owners of America to call out Obama and remind everyone that his views on guns match those of John Kerry.
Just like Kerry, those views are outdated and out of step with most Americans.

Kerry and Obama are birds of a feather when it comes to gun rights, hunting and freedom. It’s time to remind the anti-gun movement that a stealth gun grabber can’t get away with deceiving America’s gun owners.

To let him trick us know will empower him to do it again, and again, and again.

Gerard Valentino is the Buckeye Firearms Association Central Ohio Chair, BuckeyeFirearms.org, and writes for the ValentinoChronicle.com.