Court ruling shows future of gun rights hinges on Presidential election

by Chad D. Baus

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a local California law banning gun shows on government property, such as fairgrounds. Taxpayers engaged in legal commerce can now be prohibited from doing so on the property they, in part, own and pay to maintain. Observers say the ruling is likely to lead to a host of similar ordinances across California, and beyond.

If this ruling concerns you, consider this: the next President will choose two, and perhaps three, Supreme Court justices.

For gun owners, this begs a question: Can John Kerry be expected to appoint justices who would support our individual Second Amendment rights, or will he find activist judges who would agree with his supporters - that the Second Amendment does not recognize an individual right to bear arms?

Radical anti-gun and anti-hunting groups know the answer, and have endorsed Mr. Kerry. Yet polls suggest some gun owners may not yet be as certain, suggesting that the Kerry campaign's attempts to hide a 20-year record of opposing gun rights by painting the Senator as a hunter and Second Amendment supporter have worked.

Then again, it appears the masquerade may have worked too well: in recent weeks, trailing in the polls, Kerry has had to spend greater amounts of time attempting to reassure his base on a multitude of issues, including gun control. As such, Americans are now getting a glimpse of the horror behind Kerry's pro-gun mask.

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Buried in an October 4 Cincinnati Enquirer story about John Kerry's latest visit to Ohio was the hypocritical candidate's latest provably false statement about guns and gun shows:

"Today, a terrorist can come into a gun show in America and buy a weapon of war, and they couldn't do that before George Bush refused to support an assault weapons ban."

As anyone who is the least bit familiar with the recently expired Clinton Gun Ban knows, Kerry's assertions about new avenues for terrorists at gun shows are ridiculous. Far from controlling "weapons of war", the ban outlawed certain semi-automatic firearms with cosmetic features that made them look militaristic.

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Having failed in his attempts to keep the issue of gun control out of the campaign altogether, Kerry has now joined the gun ban extremists by misrepresenting what the ban did – and did not – do.

Throughout the summer, and aided by a sympathetic media, the gun ban lobby screamed that Uzi and AK-47 imports (which are still banned) would soon be on store shelves. Kerry's comments about terrorists and gun shows borrow on the same rhetoric, and provide insight into just what American gun-owners should expect from a President Kerry.

Gun shows account for less than one percent of guns obtained by criminals, and there is not even anecdotal evidence that renewing this law would prevent terrorism. Kerry's rhetoric simply has no basis in fact. But his willingness to use it gives basis for this prediction:

Shotgun photo ops and claims of being a lifelong hunter aside, if he is elected President, Kerry the “hunter” will give way to Kerry the “banner”, and the freedoms some gun owners seem to take for granted will come under fire.