“The problem that progressives have on the gun issue has far less to do with the typical policies they espouse than the rhetoric they employ.” - The Third Way

“It’s critical that progressives recognize that only an aggressive outreach strategy to gun owners will ensure that your opponent’s message about your gun record does not define your candidacy.” - The Third Way

Those two instructions to so-called “progressive” political candidates explain Barack Obama’s camouflage of lies and deceptions that hide his consistent history as an aggressive proponent of virtually every aspect of gun control -- from gun-owner licensing and universal firearms registration; to criminalizing private ownership of whole generic classes of now-lawful firearms; to what I call denial of civil liberty at local option.

The bait-and-switch gimmick of employing rhetorical tricks to hide very real gun control agendas, and to create a fraudulent history to assure that “your gun record does not define your candidacy” are the central lessons offered in a political/propaganda playbook or script proffered by something called the Third Way.

Titled, “Taking back the Second Amendment,” the script is built around a central public opinion finding:  “Voters overwhelmingly support the Second Amendment and believe that it confers an individual’s right to own firearms” – a finding confirmed long ago by NRA’s own polling of American public opinion.

The Third Way’s propaganda manual is co-authored by Jim Kessler – who as then-U.S. Rep. Chuck Schumer’s policy director husbanded legislation that became the 1994 Clinton gun ban.  This political playbook is a stark study in duplicity and is word-for-word the blueprint for both Barack Obama’s stunningly empty embrace of the Second Amendment, and of the media’s total participation in this intellectually dishonest campaign of deception and obfuscation.

“Don’t let your opponent define you by your record.”

In this case, Barack Obama’s opponent is the National Rifle Association and the millions of individual citizens we represent.

Indeed, we have defined Obama’s record with a gold-standard analysis of his words and deeds.  He has earned his “F” rating, just as he’s earned the endorsement of the Brady Campaign (formerly Handgun Control Inc.) which universally supports registration and licensing as precursors for outright gun bans.

Yet Obama makes such statements as, “I take a back seat to no one in support of Second Amendment rights, but I also support… continuing the ban on assault weapons…  Our gun rights come with the responsibility to keep them out of the hands of criminals, terrorists and children.”

My mistake -  that’s a direct line from Kessler’s script to be memorized by poseur anti-gun candidates.

Here is a real Obama quote from an appearance in South Dakota as reported by the Boston Globe: “As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen….  We can work together to enact common-sense laws … so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals.”

And here is what appears on Obama’s campaign website:

“Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals…” Even Kessler’s former boss, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, is now talking the Third Way talk, while still walking the gun-ban walk. But while Kessler was Policy Director and gun control point-man to the then-New York Congressman, Schumer testified before an April 5, 1995 Judiciary Committee hearing on the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Schumer sputtered:  “There is no constitutional question here… If anyone tried to sell the baloney we’ll hear today, they would be arrested for consumer fraud.  The NRA’s Second Amendment is an empty cereal box in the marketplace of ideas…”

Further, Schumer said the belief that the Second Amendment was an individual right “is poisoning our political dialogue… The sickening fruit of this poisonous lie are obvious in our society…. Like flat earth fanatics, Second Amendment fanatics just don’t get it… It does not guarantee the mythical individual right to bear arms…”

 That extraordinary rant notwithstanding, Schumer said in a May 8, 2002 press release:  “The broad principle that there is an individual right to bear arms is shared by many Americans, including myself.”

Nothing Chuck Schumer espoused in 1995 has changed.  I suspect nothing in his heart-of-hearts has changed either… just the rhetoric he employs. It is the same with Barack Obama, who stands with Schumer in the forefront of the most radical supporters of oppressive gun controls.

Following the Third Way dictate about not permitting any one but himself to define his record – Obama falsely claims to be “moderate” on gun control saying he has never supported a ban on handguns.

For starters, as a member of the deep pockets Joyce Foundation board of directors from 1998 through 2001, Obama approved over $30-million in grants to fund anti-gun projects – including massive funding of the Violence Policy Center (VPC) whose singular goal is to rid America of private ownership of handguns. Obama has repeatedly voiced support for local handgun bans like Chicago’s oppressive law.

In addition, there is a long list of radical gun control strictures that Obama sloughs off now calling them “common sense gun safety.”

Obama…

-  Voted to allow reckless lawsuits designed to bankrupt the firearms industry;

-Voted for legislation that would have given government bureaucrats free rein to ban almost all rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting;

- Would re-impose the failed and discredited Clinton Gun Ban;

-  Supports a proposal to ban gun stores within 5 miles of a school or park, which would eliminate almost every gun store in America;

-  Favors a ban on high capacity magazines;

-  Favors gun-owner licensing and gun registration; mandatory micro-stamping; mandatory waiting periods; one-gun-a-month sales restrictions; and a ban on inexpensive handguns;

- And wants to repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which prohibits information on gun traces collected by the BATFE from being used in reckless lawsuits against firearm dealers and manufacturers.

There is virtually nothing in the gun control bag of tricks that Obama has not at one time or another supported. And what anti-gun measures he has not sponsored, championed or supported, his running mate, Joe Biden has. Yet, over and over he follows the Third Way script with his hollow promise about his Second Amendment.

The huge majority of Americans who believe in the Second Amendment as their personal individual right need to understand that if Obama’s wish list of “gun control” were to become law, there would be virtually nothing left of the right to keep and bear arms – especially the implicit and inherent right to self-defense.

Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the D.C. gun ban case (District of Columbia v Heller), Sen. Obama and his running mate, Delaware U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (NRA-“F”) were asked to join with 55 other Senators of both parties on a friend of the court brief upholding the Second Amendment as an individual right.  They both refused, proving yet another example of “progressive policy” versus the “rhetoric they employ.”

As the Heller case was being weighed by the Federal courts, Obama’s campaign expressed his strong contention about the District of Columbia’s oppressive gun ban declaring that Obama “… believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws… Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.” (Emphasis added)

This description of Obama’s view of the D.C. law was expressed in the November 20, 2007 edition of the Chicago Tribune.  For seven months Obama never once repudiated that statement of support for D.C.’s ban.  Had it been a misstatement by his campaign as he now claims, he had ample opportunity to disavow it – but he did not.

  In fact, in a February 11, 2008 interview on Washington’s WJLA Obama was asked about his support for the D.C. gun ban, answering, “I teach constitutional law, and what I said was that I believe in the Second Amendment as being an individual right and I have said that consistently.  I also think that individual right is constrained by the right of the community to maintain issues of public safety.”  (Emphasis added)

When the interviewer said, “But you support the D.C. handgun ban and you said that it’s constitutional”.  Obama nodded gravely in the affirmative and said, “Right, right.”

During the April 16, 2008 Philadelphia Democratic debate Obama said “As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right…”

Over and over Obama puts forth this notion of a civil right – the liberty of individual Americans – being trumped by state and local government.

 Civil rights at local option? Isn’t that what the entire civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 60’s was about -- ending the notion that a state or locality could trump an individual citizen’s civil rights -- like the right to vote, or the right to be a full participant in public education, or the right not to be denied access to public accommodations? Civil rights at local option; isn’t that why Rosa Parks so courageously refused to ride in the back of the Birmingham bus?

Where 50 years ago politicians stood in the schoolhouse door or blocked admission to state universities based on race, Obama would reserve the power of today’s equally oppressive local politicians – like his own Chicago boss, Mayor Richard Daley – to stand in the doorway of homes and businesses of law-abiding citizens who wish to own handguns for self defense.

Then on the day of the Supreme Court’s landmark Heller decision, June 26, 2008, Obama said that the earlier statements in support of the District’s now unconstitutional ban were “inartful,” and suddenly claimed that the decision striking down the D.C. ban was in line with his vision all along.

Policies versus rhetoric -- Obama style?

Self-defense in the home with handguns was indeed the essential core of the U.S. Supreme Court’s remarkably clear decision in District of Columbia v Heller, declaring the District of Columbia’s firearms ban an unconstitutional breach of the Second Amendment as an individual right. In a 5 to 4 split decision, the high court ruled that the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns and on all operable registered long guns in the home violated the letter of the Second Amendment.  Of equal importance was the Court’s recognition of armed self-defense by ordinary citizens as an essential purpose of the Second amendment - the very spirit of the right to keep and bear arms.

In writing for the Court’s majority, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia declared:

“The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.” (Emphasis added)

“In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.” Continued...