President Barack Obama - A Gun Owner's Worst Nightmare

12:05am Thursday, June 19, 2008

By Dean Rieck

If you're not thrilled with the idea of having John McCain as the next President of the United States, you're not alone. He's angered gun owners with anti-gun statements and support for so-called "campaign finance reform," which has done little except limit free speech and curtail grassroots political activism.

But would you prefer President Barack Obama? Obama is without doubt the single most anti-gun candidate to ever seek the office of President. By word and deed, he has consistently, without exception, worked to trash the Second Amendment and do away with guns and gun rights altogether.

I know you might not like either of these candidates. But politics is about dealing with reality. And the reality is this: The next President of the United States will be McCain or Obama.

Does that irritate you? It irritates me. But that's the way it is.

Buckeye Firearms Association has presented plenty of information about John McCain and his less than perfect record on gun rights. He has called for GOP "tolerance" for closing so-called gun show loopholes, supported bans on "cheap guns" and certain assault weapons, and wanted safety locks on some guns.

But he's not a hopeless case. He voted against holding gun manufacturers liable for gun crimes, voted against the Brady Bill, voted against background checks at gun shows, and opposed D.C.'s gun ban.

Whatever you think of John McCain, he's not a gun owner's worst nightmare. Barack Obama is.

In his short political career, Obama has worked overtime to crush gun owner rights. Would-be President Obama ...

Endorsed a complete ban on handgun ownership in Illinois.
Supports gun bans in any city that wants one, including Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Wants to totally eliminate the right of concealed carry nationwide.
Voted to make it possible to prosecute innocent citizens who use firearms in self-defense.
Voted to allow predatory lawsuits intended to bankrupt the firearms industry.
Wants to bring back the failed Clinton assault weapons ban, discredited even by Clinton's own supporters.
Voted to ban virtually every type of rifle ammunition used for hunting and sport.
Supports gun registration for law-abiding gun owners.
Refused to sign a friend-of-the-court brief affirming that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right.
Served on the Board of Directors of the Joyce Foundation, the number one source of funds for anti-gun organizations.
Supported a ban on gun stores within five miles of any school or park, which would practically eliminate every gun store in the country.
Voted to prevent gun owners from knowing when the state of Illinois ran record searches on them.
Supports forcing gun manufacturers to embrace micro-stamping, a financially ruinous and technically absurd farce.
Wants to create and enforce mandatory waiting periods, under the assumption that only angry people buy firearms.
Supports the ludicrous one-gun-a-month rule on gun sales.
Supports banning cheap handguns, which would affect black and poor Americans the most, constituencies he claims to champion.
Supports banning police departments from reselling firearms, even if the money raised would help purchase new equipment.
Supports mandatory firearms training for all gun owners regardless of the cost or consequences.
Supports a ban on gun ownership for anyone under 21 years of age, which would help weaken the American hunting tradition.

Add to this the fact that he would be in a position to nominate wildly liberal Supreme Court judges and negotiate with ravenously anti-gun activists seeking to ban gun ownership worldwide, and you begin to see the nightmarish direction America could take under an Obama presidency.

I won't tell you who to vote for. As an American, you must cast your own vote for your own reasons. Just remember that like it or not, no third party candidate has any chance at all of winning. Virtually all the votes will go for either McCain or Obama. Polls indicate this could be a close race. A handful of votes, including yours, may decide the outcome.

And as of the time I'm writing this, there is still a chance that Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate, putting Obama, Hillary, and Bill in the White House - a terrifying anti-gun hat trick.

Think about it long and hard. President John McCain or President Barack Obama? The decision is yours.

Dean Rieck is BFA's Marketing and Communications Director and a direct marketing consultant for clients in the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

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