Barack Obama's misguided and mistaken gun policies

By Gerard Valentino

Barack Obama's recent video message to Iran is widely seen as an attempt to create a dialogue between the two countries. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, he has all but shut down one of the most successful law enforcement programs in the country by putting up insurmountable administrative roadblocks to allowing Federal Flight Deck Officers from continuing to carry guns in cockpits.

The program, which is widely successful, lets pilots carry guns to protect the passengers and control of the plane. It was created after 9/11 to combat the possibility of another hijacking that might turn fully loaded jetliners into guided missiles.

Basically, Obama is reaching out to our enemies in Iran while destroying one of the ways we can stop terrorists often sponsored by Iranian money and training.

How a sitting president of the United States can make such a ridiculous decision is inexplicable.

Obama is relegating the safety of not only airline passengers, but people in high profile locations like the Sears Tower in Chicago, to the backburner by taking away the one of the last lines of defense. It is the second step Obama's administration has taken in destroying the rights of armed victims in America.

Recently, his Attorney General Eric Holder called for a renewal of the misguided Clinton Gun Ban that limited the gun rights of all honest law abiding Americans. As is usually the case with gun control laws, criminals were the true beneficiary since they never follow the law anyway and the law abiding were forced to use guns with limited capacity for self-defense.

Although only a couple of months into Obama's first term, it is time for all the pro-gun voters to admit they were duped by his campaign promise to not go after our guns. Clearly, he is after our guns and his decision to destroy the Flight Deck Officer Program should be a wake-up call to liberty minded people everywhere.

If Obama successfully takes away guns in cockpits, his next step will be try to dismantle legal concealed carry laws across the nation. There can no longer be any doubt that Barack Obama's administration has stepped over the line as an enemy of freedom and gun rights.

His choice to take action on gun rights while Americans are preoccupied with the economy is very telling since many predicted he was capable of such deception. Luckily, there are organizations like the National Rifle Association and Buckeye Firearms Association that expose Obama's actions.

Some gun owners mistakenly see the "assault weapons" ban as an attack on guns not used for sporting purposes, but if gun owners learned anything while Clinton was in office, the slippery slope exists and they will come for your semi-automatic hunting rifle and shotgun before long.

Now is the time to stand up and be counted in the fight to keep the gains we've made in the fight for our freedom over the last twenty years. To stand by and do otherwise is to lose the war after winning so many crucial battles, and that is not an acceptable outcome.

Obama's place in office is secure over the next four years, so we need to make our feelings known at the ballot box and punish our pro-gun friends who defended Obama during the campaign. Elections at the state level take place in 2010 and governors of several swing states went on campaign stops with Obama and promised us he would defend our right to bear arms. Now it is time to hold those politicians accountable for their choice to make promises Obama refuses to honor.

The same holds true for our friends in Congress who campaigned with Obama during the presidential election. By punishing those who supported him during mid-term elections, we can make our feelings known to the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.

Calls, emails and faxes sent to your representatives are crucial to save the Federal Flight Deck Officer program and every liberty minded American needs to help, but until they are punished at the ballot box, many politicians who supported Obama won't realize their folly.

Truth be told, 65 Democrats in Congress signed a letter that demanded Obama not go after gun rights. But, in the long run, they are beholden to the Democratic Party for money and support if they want to win reelection, and therefore might not stand by their own words. Party politics have a way of interfering with how a given official votes, even when they know better.

Prior to Obama's inauguration, many pro-gun enthusiasts promised diligence in tracking his actions on the gun issue. Now, we're calling for the help of every gun owner in America, as well as every liberty minded America, in calling Obama to the carpet for his decision. We also need to call pro-gun politicians who vouched for Obama's record on guns to the carpet as well.

Our president thinks he can divert our attention while destroying our freedoms and now is the time to make him realize he is mistaken and misguided.

Letting him get away with it now will empower him to act more aggressively in the future - that is a future we simply can't accept.

Gerard Valentino is the Buckeye Firearms Foundation Secretary/Treasurer.