Op-Ed: What's Really Behind Obama's New Push for Gun Control?

by John Lott

Despite the Libyan crisis and ongoing problems with America's massive deficit, last week President Obama decided it was time to focus on gun control. He wrote an op-ed, challenged the NRA to negotiate new gun control regulations, and met with gun control groups.

Of course, Obama's op-ed says he supports gun rights. Yet, he also emphasizes that he doesn't want people to "shout at one another" and supports "reasonable laws." Alas, this is simply positioning for the 2012 presidential election and does not accurately describe his true agenda on gun control.

Obama claimed in his op-ed: "My administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners, it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges." But he conveniently forgot to mention that he never initiated or supported this legislation. Instead, it was forced upon Obama by a large majority of Congress passing an amendment to a bill that he wanted passed, the "Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009." Just because Obama wasn't willing to veto a bill he wanted hardly shows support for the right to self-defense.

Indeed, Obama has been a consistent opponent of gun ownership. He enacted a ban on the importation of semiautomatic guns because, "The U.S. insisted that imports of the aging rifles could cause problems such as firearm accidents." He has proposed much more extensive reporting requirements on sales of long guns. Obama's nomination of anti-gun Andrew Traver to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives threatens imposing many new regulations. Still further, the Obama administration has actively pushed for the U.N.'s Arms Trade Treaty and continues to make inaccurate statements about the source of Mexico's crime guns.

And look at the judges President Obama nominated to the Supreme Court. Both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan have proven themselves to be adamantly against any protection for individual ownership of guns. The stark reality is if Justices Alito, Scalia, Roberts, Thomas, or Kennedy were to die or retire, the two precedents set in both the Washington, D.C. and Chicago gun bans would be threatened as these were narrow 5 to 4 decisions.

...The president isn't alone in pushing for more gun-control. But at least these other politicians, such as Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg, are a lot more forthright about their intentions than Obama. Perhaps that should be so so surprising since Obama will soon face re-election in all parts of the country, including in those areas that he famously labeled as being populated by "bitter" Americans who "cling to their guns, cling to their religion," not just a smaller Democratic-leaning constituency.

Click here to read the entire op-ed at FoxNews.com.