If You Like Your Guns You Can Keep Your Guns

The NY Times covers Obama's townhall on guns in Virginia. Oddly, CNN allowed some awkward questions from the audience:

Earlier this week, Mr. Obama made an emotional plea during a White House event where he announced executive actions intended to expand background checks. At the forum on Thursday night, a rape victim, an Arizona sheriff and a gun shop owner each questioned Mr. Obama, urging the president not to make it harder for law-abiding citizens to obtain guns.

“I have been unspeakably victimized once already, and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids,” the rape victim, a woman named Kimberly, told the president. “Why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you are putting make it harder for me to own a gun?”

Wait, taking away the Great Equalizer might increase inequality in the availability of physical force? Hmm, maybe Obama wants to end the war on women by way of unilateral disarmament? NO!

Mr. Obama was polite but firm throughout the event, insisting that his efforts to improve the existing background check system would have no real effect on their ability to purchase guns.

He rejected accusations that he wants to confiscate guns, calling that a ridiculous idea.

“Yes, it is a false notion that I believe is circulated either for political reasons or commercial reasons in order to prevent a coming together of people of good will” to solve the problem of gun violence, Mr. Obama told the audience and Anderson Cooper, who moderated the forum.

Yes, its a false notion circulated by this animatronic Obama puppet, who said this at an NRA sponsored event White House press briefing last October:

Statement by the President on the Shootings at Umpqua Community College, Roseburg, Oregon

...

We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings.  Friends of ours, allies of ours -- Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours.  So we know there are ways to prevent it.  

Anyone who follows this closely (which may not include Obama) knows that Australia legislated the mandatory confiscation/repurchase of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns.

And Governor Cuomo of the non-trivial state of New York ruminated about legislated confiscation in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting.

So, facts not in dispute include that Obama has told bald-faced lies about his legacy achievements, most famously his "Lie of the Year", 'If you like your health care plan, you can keep it'. As to his credibility on the gun issue, Obama stayed with the claim that 40 percent of gun purchases were made without background checks long after fact-checkers had debunked it. (Yes, the NY Times editors are dead-enders on this one, but waddya expect from people who would link to The Onion to support their gun claims?).

Even at his most recent press performance Obama was, well, slippery about the current law on background checks. And he can't seem to let go of the notion that among developed countries mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon, which is not so.

So let's not pretend Obama has worked hard to build credibility and trust on this issue. Liars lie.

Beyond that, the notion of gun confiscation certainly exists as an end objective in certain progressive quarters, probably including Obama's head. Just as the abortion debate is poisoned by the (surely correct) belief among pro-choicers that some pro-lifers favor a complete abortion ban, the gun control debate is poisoned by the belief among the guns-owners rights side that the middle ground is a slippery slope.

Comments

[sbw]

Yay!

[henry]

Right... we can keep them locked up at the police station except when we check them out for approved purposes. And by "guns" he means "smart guns" with government controlled safety override.

[buccaneer morgan]

Except we tried parts of this plan in 68, and Nicholas Johnson will tell you it didnt work.

[Sue]

My progressive acquaintances on FB fully support Obama taking guns away from us. And just like his previous position on SSM, they hear the dog whistle he is blowing when he says he isn't trying to take our guns.

[Jeff Dobbs]

Paragraphs between...

Hmm, maybe Obama wants to end the war on women by way of unilateral disarmament? NO!

...and...

Yes, its a false notion circulated by this animatronic Obama puppet

...need indentation.

I don't want TM to be falsely maligned by people thinking he wrote those 'graphs.

[buccaneer morgan]

They forced everyone into becoming a dealer, and shocker it didn't turn out the way They thought.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--Yes, its a false notion circulated by this animatronic Obama puppet--

That's pretty funny.

[Rex]

I really wish someone would ask him what this gunshow loophole is that he is trying to close. Then his abysmal lack of knowledge would become visible to everyone.

[Miss Marple]

Rex,

I agree. I always enjoy it when he tries to explain technical things.

[Miss Marple]

Leaving for afternoon errands.

Se you all later.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

--I really wish someone would ask him what this gunshow loophole is that he is trying to close.--

I really wish someone would ask him that question somebody asked the ATF on twitter;

"So Mr President, say I'm a Federal agency and I sell a bunch of guns to Mexican cartels, do I need a federal firearms license."

Imagine the rage that would kindle between lil Barry's ears.

[buccaneer morgan]

A norman the android moment, in that instance.