It\u2019s been a week and a half since Barack Obama was elected president. He won\u2019t take office for another two months. But he\u2019s already got one big group of Americans on their feet. <\/p>\n
What is Barack Obama\u2019s position on the rights to bear arms? <\/p>\n
Sen. Obama\u2019s campaign Web site says he \u201crespects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms.\u201d It promises he will \u201cprotect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport and use guns.\u201d <\/p>\n
Seeking to reassure gun owners, Obama told a campaign audience in Ohio in October: \u201cI will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won\u2019t take your handgun away.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the crowds mobbing America\u2019s gun stores this week say a large number of Americans — including first-time gun-buyers — don\u2019t believe it. <\/p>\n
In 2003, while serving in the Illinois State Legislature, Barack Obama voted in favor of a bill in the Judiciary Committee that would have made it illegal to \u201cknowingly manufacture, deliver or possess\u201d a so-called \u201csemi-automatic assault weapons,\u201d reports Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. \u201cUnder this bill, a firearm did not actually have to be semi-automatic to be banned. According to definitions in the bill, all single-shot and double-barreled shotguns 28-gauge or larger, and many semi-automatic shotguns of the same size, would be banned as \u2018assault weapons.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cAny Illinois resident who possessed one of these commonly used guns 90 days after the effective date would have had to \u2018destroy the weapon or device, render it permanently inoperable, relinquish it to a law enforcement agency, or remove it from the state.\u2019 Anyone who still possessed a banned gun would have been subject to a felony sentence.\u201d <\/p>\n
In an April television debate, Sen. Obama argued someone else on his staff improperly filled out a 1996 questionnaire stating support for a ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns — even after ABC News\u2019 Charlie Gibson told Obama \u201cYour writing was on the questionnaire.\u201d <\/p>\n
And the National Shooting Sports Foundation sent out mailers last month warning that — while in The U.S. Senate — Sen. Obama voted for versions of Senate Bill 397 that could have bankrupted gun manufacturers by allowing them to be sued for misuse of their products (\u201cequivalent to holding car makers responsible for drunk driving\u201d), as well as for a 500 percent tax increase on guns and ammo and a ban on virtually all deer-hunting ammunition. <\/p>\n
Americans aren\u2019t waiting to see which Barack Obama takes office in January. They\u2019re voting with their feet, and their billfolds. <\/p>\n
Glen Parshall of Bargain Pawn in North Las Vegas reported Wednesday that sales are \u201cthrough the roof. I can\u2019t get anything. I mean handguns, rifles, ammo, you name it. Ammo\u2019s doubled in (wholesale) price in the past week if you can find it. I had a line of people waiting for me this morning when I showed up for work, waiting to buy AR-15s. Everybody\u2019s fearful of the messiah, very, very much fearful, I mean hanging their heads and cannot believe he got elected fearful. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had that rush in \u201994 when they passed the first so-called assault weapons ban, but that\u2019s nothing compared to what we\u2019ve got going on now. I mean, people come through the door asking me \u2018If I buy this now, they won\u2019t be able to confiscate it next year, will they\u2019? I tell them \u2018My crystal ball is in the shop.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cMy biggest distributors nationwide, they\u2019ve got a strict allocation of two AR-15 rifles per week per dealer — if they get them. Everybody wants \u2019em. Brownell\u2019s is out of everything: nuts and bolts and screws. I just got done ordering a few barrels and upper receivers a few nights ago, but they\u2019re out of magazines. I can\u2019t buy a Glock anywhere in the country except the oddball ones, weird calibers or the ones in green with orange slides, things like that. I did find a couple ARs last week, match rifles that go for $2,000, I\u2019ve got those coming in for customers. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn October before this all started, my sales were approximately double what they were last October. This week it\u2019s up more than that, and It\u2019d be a hell of a lot higher if I had anything. People are looking for handguns, looking for rifles, looking for magazines. <\/p>\n
\u201cAmmunition? 7.62-by-39 was $180 a case last month, now it\u2019s $350 for a (thousand-round) case. .223 was $300 a case, I haven\u2019t been able to find any, but it would run me over $400 if I could get any. A guy across town got in two pallets\u201d (about 100,000 rounds) \u201cof 9 millimeter, it lasted about a day and a half. It\u2019s absolutely mind-boggling. I\u2019m still selling a lot of revolvers. I can\u2019t get short shotguns.\u201d <\/p>\n
But why do his customers believe Democrats impose more gun bans, we asked Mr. Parshall, who\u2019s sold guns and gold in this town for decades. After all, aren\u2019t crime rates highest precisely where law-abiding citizens are barred from carrying weapons for their own defense? <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what they care about. They\u2019re socialists. They want to be in total control. They want to confiscate — that\u2019s their word — all the IRAs and 401-Ks, put them in a government fund paying you 3 percent interest. People are afraid.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are terrified of losing their right to protect themselves,\u201d DeWayne Irwin, owner of Cheaper Than Dirt, a large gun store in Ft. Worth, Texas tells the Chicago Tribune. \u201cThe volume is ten times what we ever expected. It started with assault rifles, but at this point, people are buying ammunition, high capacity magazines, Glocks — it\u2019s all flying off the shelf. With the economy the way it is, people are worried about instability. They are scared of civil unrest.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are white people buying assault weapons?\u201d asks Ben Agger, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who wrote a book about the Virginia Tech slayings. \u201cI almost hate to say it, but there is a deep-seated fear of the armed black man, because Obama now commands the military and other instruments of the justice system,\u201d Professor Agger told the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper which routinely refers to semi-automatic rifles as \u201cassault rifles,\u201d which they are not. \u201cThey are afraid Obama will exact retribution for the very deep-seated legacy of slavery,\u201d Professor Agger figures. <\/p>\n
Oh, please. What we\u2019re seeing in the gun stores this week is not a nation arming itself for revolt, but Americans in a thoroughly defensive mode, stocking up now to avoid the Democratic gun bans they believe are coming. What many Americans fear is that Barack Obama — aided by congressional allies like Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York — will revert to his true, pre-campaign nature come Jan. 20, and once more move to take away Americans\u2019 guns. <\/p>\n
Obama \u201csays he\u2019s in favor of common sense gun laws,\u201d says DeWayne Irwin. \u201cWell, what people up north think is common sense is something different from us down here in Texas. The criminals have all this illegal stuff. I don\u2019t want to fight them with a handgun if I can get an AK. I\u2019m entitled to that. I should be able to defend my home.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of people concerned because our president-elect is extremely anti-gun and so is his running mate,\u201d says Jerry Bricco, owner of First Class Firearms in suburban Zion, Illinois. \u201cThey\u2019re afraid of future gun bans and what you will be allowed to get.\u201d <\/p>\n
After all, Democrats have tried before. In fact, a notable public figure said after Republicans recaptured Congress in 1994 that that happened precisely because Democrats tried to take away Americans\u2019 guns. <\/p>\n
Who was that insightful analyst? <\/p>\n
Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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