Why America’s gun owners are justifiably up in arms

By Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman

From the prospect of an incoming president and vice president with decidedly anti-gun-rights voting records, to a liberal West Coast mayor determined to ban firearms by “executive order” without benefit of city council or legislative review, American gun owners have good reason to doubt the sincerity of Liberal Democrats now in control of Congress and soon to control the Oval Office, who claim to support firearm civil rights.

Far too many red flags are being waved for gun owners to take a benign posture just six months after a landmark Supreme Court ruling confirmed what they had known all along; that the Second Amendment affirms and protects a fundamental individual civil right to keep and bear arms.

President-elect Barack Obama is on record supporting gun registration, permanent renewal of the ban on so-called “assault weapons,” slapping an exorbitant increase on the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition, and banning handguns outright. His buffoonish vice president-elect, Delaware’s Joe Biden, is a veteran gun control advocate who authored the original “assault weapons” legislation.

Recently, it was revealed that prospective Obama Administration employees were being asked this invasive question: “Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.”

Aside from demonstrating a serious ignorance of gun laws – only five states require some level of gun registration, and only in New York City and in New York's Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties is there a renewal requirement – this question suggests that gun owners, or kin of gun owners, will face anti-gun discrimination in their job search. Call it guilt by association, either with firearms or with a relative who owns one.

If this is the kind of “change” we can expect under the Obama administration, gun owners have reason to worry. The more that Democrats “change” the more they stay the same. American citizens flocked to gun shops after the election. Many of those people, ironically, were first-time gun buyers or gun owners who voted for the Chicago Democrat. Obama reinforced gun owner apprehension by appointing Rahm Emanuel – point man for the Clinton administration on gun control issues – as his chief of staff. Eric Holder, his nominee for Attorney General, signed an amicus brief in support of the Washington D.C. gun ban, while arguing that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms, positions soundly rejected by the Supreme Court.

Both houses of Congress are controlled by Obama’s Democratic Party, and leadership positions are occupied by devoted anti-gunners. As we detailed in our recent book, These Dogs Don’t Hunt: The Democrats’ War on Guns,, the party excels in pro-Second Amendment rhetoric, but labors to reduce that right to a highly-regulated privilege.

This brings us around to Mayor Greg Nickels of Seattle. He has promised to ban even legally-carried guns from city (make that public) property, by executive order. Nearly 250,000 Washington State residents are licensed to carry concealed handguns, and it is also legal in the Evergreen State to carry handguns openly, without a license.

Nickels was advised by the State Attorney General that he lacks the authority under Washington’s model pre-emption law to enact a gun ban, but he has vowed to do it anyway.

Gun owners see this as imperial arrogance, and suspect that if Nickels can ignore his own state’s preemption statute, then Congress and a Democrat president might just presume to ignore the Constitution.