What do Barack Obama and John McCain have in common?
Both got an F rating from the Gun Owners of America.
So what's the difference?
John McCain got an F-minus. Barack Obama did a bit better -- he only got an F.
An F-minus??? That's a grade?
It is, and here's why: While Barack Obama has promised he won't touch your guns, John McCain has promised he will put gun shows out of business.
As Pastor Chuck Baldwin put it in his post entitled "John McCain is a Liberal Gun Grabber" on the Gun Owners of America web site:
Let me say it straight out: a John McCain Presidency would be far worse than a Barack Obama Presidency. With a Democrat in the White House, conservatives and Christians suddenly find their principles and are able to offer resistance. Put a Republican in the Oval Office, however, and those same people become blind, deaf, and dumb to most any principle they profess.
Nowhere is McCain's chicanery and duplicity more jeopardous than in the area of the right to keep and bear arms. On issues relating to the Second Amendment, John McCain is a disaster! For example, the highly respected Gun Owners of America (GOA) rates McCain with a grade of F-. McCain's failing grade is well deserved.
... The Gun Owners of America report of the 106th Congress reveals that out of 15 votes relating to the right to keep and bear arms, Senator John McCain voted favorably only 4 times. Put that into a percentage and McCain's pro-Second Amendment voting record is a pathetic 27%.
Meanwhile, in my home state of Virginia this week, Joe Biden attended the United Mine Workers annual fish fry in Castlewood. Biden mostly talked about how John McCain -- in McCain's own words -- was anxious to remove health care regulation so it could soar like Wall Street. The audience hooted. Coal miners know something about being "given the shaft," and they also understand the importance of health care. Black lung anyone?
But Joe Biden also said something important to the folks in the Shenandoah: He too is a gun owner, and he too has a fondness for his guns. That said, let's sort fact from fiction, eh? Let's put an end to the National Rifle Association's "say-any-old lie-for-the-partisan-cause" tactic. This time, Joe Biden said, Virginia should not fall for it. Remember what we got last time.
As for guns, Biden made it clear and made it personal:
“I guarantee you, Barack Obama ain't taking my shotguns, so don't buy that malarkey. Don't buy that malarkey. They're going to start peddling that to you. I got two, if he tries to fool with my Beretta, he's got a problem. I like that little over and under, you know? I’m not bad with it. So give me a break. Give me a break."
A Beretta? Nice shotgun there Joe!
Of course most conservatives simply assume John McCain is a "good guy" when it come to guns, and that Barack Obama is "bad" on the issue.
They don't even bother to look up McCain's record.
As Joseph Farah notes, in a piece entitled McCain is Anti-gun:
"Before writing and promoting my new book, "None of the Above," I hadn't realized how willingly Republican-leaning voters would accept John McCain's election-year reinvention of himself .... I strongly suspect most Republicans preparing to drink the McCain Kool-Aid really don't know the record of their candidate. They hear he is pro-life, pro-gun, anti-tax – and they accept it, without examining his life in public service and voting record.
".... McCain has been at war with gun owners for a long time. In 2004, the year he considered switching to the Democratic Party and teaming up with John Kerry as vice presidential candidate, he sponsored an amendment to S. 1805 that would have outlawed the private sale of firearms at gun shows. Gun Owners of America pointed out the measure amounted to a nationwide ban on gun shows, because every member of an organization sponsoring one could be imprisoned if the group failed to notify each and every 'person who attends the special firearms event of the requirements [under the Brady Law].'
"In addition, Larry Pratt's great organization [GOA] warns that McCain supported legislation that would have forced federal agents to be more aggressive in arresting and convicting honest gun owners who inadvertently violate one of many arcane federal gun laws in acts that are, in and of themselves, just part of the innocent practice of gun stewardship.
"For instance, if McCain had his way, his legislation could send to prison a gun owner who travels with a gun through a school zone or who uses one of the family's handguns to go target shooting with a minor child. Someone who uses a gun for self-defense could be sent to prison for a mandatory minimum of five years because of technicalities in McCain's own legislation, according to Gun Owners of America.
OK, so those are two people with interesting points. Maybe valid ones. But what is John McCain's record? What does the National Rifle Association say?
Well the NRA, like John McCain, is all over the map depending on what day it is.
When push comes to shove, this organization is not concerned about hunters, or target shooters, or even those with self-defense concerns, so much as it is with its own direct mail returns.
Like partisan politicians, the National Rifle Association knows it has to "play to its base" in order to get direct mail cash to roll in.
And election season is a big time for direct mail. The NRA cannot afford (in terms of cash, not politics) to sit this one out.
And so they have to roll out a campaign targeted at the dyed-in-the-wool reactionary conservative who would rather vote for a gun-grabbing Hitler than for a Democrat who vows to uphold the Constitution and respect the Second Amendment.
Which explains why, when John McCain was merely a renegade Senator from Arizona the National Rifle Association called him “one of the premier flag-carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment.’’ The graphic below is a scan of the text taken straight from the NRA's own magazine.
Now, of course, the NRA is singing a different tune. They have flip-flopped.
Which tells you more than a little bit about the partisan nature of the NRA, doesn't it?
But let's forget that: Let's talk about John McCain and guns.
Did you know that back in 1986, John McCain voted to ban the importation of handgun parts made overseas, effectively killing a large portion of the home-protection market for affordable weapons?
In John McCain's mind, only criminals use low cost guns, and never mind if that is demonstrably NOT true. Rohm and Raven handguns have protected more homes from burglars than any other brand. And, as Roy Innis, president of the Congress on Racial Equality notes, "To make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that you're putting a money test on getting a gun. It's racism in its worst form."
John McCain not only supported the biggest gun ban in U.S. history, he also thinks a 24-hour BATF background check is too quick. He thinks the BATF should have 90 DAYS to decide if folks are OK to own a gun, and he thinks the BATF should also be able to require gun stores to conduct inventory audits, and that gun trace information should be more widely available to law enforcement officials and the public at large. [McCain's statement on Senate floor, 1-22-04.]
And while John McCain has opposed "assault weapons" bans (so far), he has said he would consider one. No doubt he and his good friend Joe Lieberman (the fellow he wanted to make Vice President) will get right on that after they "close the gun show loophole."
And that last one is a promised action. John McCain has promised "Traitor Joe" Liberman he will get that legislation passed. After all, they are best buddies. McCain doesn't go anywhere without his wife .... and Traitor Joe.
This is the John McCain Second Amendment record that the National Rifle Association will not tell you about.
But don't take my word for it. Listen to what Dennis Fusaro, Virginia state legislative director for Gun Owners of America , a Republican, and a lifetime NRA member, recently told CBS News:
"'On paper, Obama appears worse than McCain,' he said. But McCain is more dangerous, he argued, because he is more likely to successfully enact legislation that would result in fewer rights for gun owners. Obama, Fusaro believes, simply won't make the issue a priority."
Bingo.
That's why Gun Owners of America would rather see Barack Obama in office than John McCain.
At least with Obama you know where you stand and you can believe what he says. He won't shift around on you.
Obama is a constitutional scholar who has unequivocally said the Second Amendment is an individual right that includes the right to own a gun for hunting, defense, and sport shooting.
Obama has repeatedly said he will NOT take away your guns and will not move on gun legislation.
Obama has promised to do nothing on guns. On this issue, Obama is NOT promising change.
But John McCain has.
John McCain has promised Joe Lieberman he will close down the gun shows. And if elected to office, that's one promise John McCain is sure to keep.
Now the question is this: do you believe Barack Obama will be true to his word and offer no change in the Second Amendment arena?
Or do you believe John McCain will break his promise to best friend Joe Lieberman and deep six his own legislation (for which he starred in TV ads for Americans for Gun Safety) and NOT put gun shows out of business?
Choose or lose, and the devil take the hind post.
And never mind the economy, the war in Iraq, and the prospect of Sarah Palin dealing with the likes of Vladimir Putin, North Korea, Osama Bin Laden, Iran, Mexico, and Pakistan.
On guns alone, the safe bet (if there is one, and if you believe guns are actually a presidential issue) is Barack Obama.
It is, as Gun Owners of America put it, the diference between an F and an F-MINUS.
And it is, I think, the difference between a politician you can (hopefully) trust, and one you certainly cannot.
4 comments:
Do you really trust John McCain?
Nope. No. Nyet. Nono. Naa. Noe. Nae.
Not on guns.
Not on the economy.
Not on war.
Not in peace.
Not on a boat.
Not with a goat.
Not in fun.
And not with guns.
I do not trust John Mcain on the Second Amendment.
- Dave
You have said it before, I think: the D's will get a greater percenage of the House and Senate than they've got now. So what is going McCain to find common ground on other than the ban on gun shows? Hard to know, but guns would be the top of the agenda with Liberman whispering in his ear. On the other hand, if Obama gets in, he's got other things to do than muck with guns -- ending the war and not starting another one for starters. Lieberman will not get the time of day.
Another: Obama would like to see a second term; he has a lot of votes to lose by messing with guns. McCain will not have another term, and he knows it: he will not fear giving the finger to gun owners, and in fact, as ol' Maverick will enjoy it. Why do you think they call him Maverick? Because he does craps that makes no damn sense at all and because he cannot be trusted.
- Dan A.
One bit of political theatre that this Democrat had been anticipating was -- assuming she got the nomination -- Hilary Clinton's trip to the shooting range.
She would shoot a couple of targets and make a little speech about how her father taught her to shoot when she was 14 and she was pro-choice for gun ownership. She would wear the blue pantsuit.
It would all be Rodham-Clinton bullshit, of course, but it might convince some people.
Alas, I doubt that we shall ever see Sen. Obama's slim, elegant, hoplophobic fingers wrapped around an icky ol' gun.
Patrick parses the difference (drawing upon the pro-Ron Paul pastor) between an F and an F-.
When I taught at Colorado State University, I never had the option of giving a student a grade of F-, so the distinction seems rather abstract to me.
Perhaps Dan A. is right and Obama will be too busy with larger issues to think up any infringements on the very Second Amendment that he suddenly claims to respect. We can hope.
didn't know where else to leave this comment, so leaving it here. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tihd3W-YaSc for another chilling McCain video.
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