He’s Going For It…

President Obama is going for gun bans and sale restrictions:

President Obama touched the third rail of guns here on Wednesday, pivoting off last week’s Colorado movie theater shootings to call for a “consensus around violence reduction” in the country.

With the last public event of a four-day trip that started with a visit to the Aurora, Colo., hospital where almost two dozen victims were brought after the shootings, Obama threw his weight behind measures to strengthen background checks at gun shows and other efforts to keep weapons out of the hands of mentally-ill people.

“These steps shouldn’t be controversial, they should be common sense,” Obama said during the National Urban League conference. …

“But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldier and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities,” he added. …

“There’s talk of new reforms. There’s talk of legislation. And too often those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere. But what I said in the wake of Tucson is we’re going to stay on this persistently.”

Obama said he’d “continue to work with members of both parties and with religious groups and with civic organizations to arrive at a consensus around violence reduction.”

And with those comments, AK-47s will be backordered until the election.

UPDATE: Sean has the video.

Related posts (automatically generated):

  1. State of the Union
  2. Dick Morris on President Obama
  3. How the Second Amendment Fared

56 thoughts on “He’s Going For It…”

    1. You underestimate the stupidity of the average person. They voted for Obama once when he said this exact same thing. And more likely than not, they will do it again.

      1. This is what the press is quoting him as saying in defense of signing a bill that had GOAL’s support (note that he redirects the question I assume he was answering to Obamacare at the end):

        “Where there are opportunities for people of reasonable minds to come together and find common ground, that’s the kind of legislation I like. The idea of one party jamming through something over the objections over the other tends to divide the nation, not make us a safe and prosperous place. If there’s common ground, why, I’m always willing to have that kind of conversation.”

        Common ground might be taking it a bit too far, but there were good reasons for GOAL to support this bill instead of what would have happened due to the intersection of the existing law and the sunset of the Federal AW ban. Or so we are told by people on the scene then, like Bitter.

        A bigger problem is his now claiming “reasonable minds to come together and find common ground“, in that he gratuitously trashed gun owners at the signing, for what that’s worth.

        And I don’t think I’m “a hack and an idiot”. I think he’ll do “better” … probably not much better, but better. I doubt we’ll see much action from him on this, it’s way, way below the priorities of reversing a lot of Obama’s stuff (with the permanent bureaucracy resisting every step), and reducing our annual trillion plus dollar deficits before we hit a brick wall, which I expect to fail.

        As Bob Krum commented prior to the primaries but expecting a Romney win, “2012 will be the last year that a Republican is ever elected President“. I think there’s a real good chance of that for whichever party is in power when that happens.

      2. BTW, what did you expect him to say when he was called on this, as was inevitable after the Aurora shooting?

        And how can you characterize his reported comments I quoted above (is there a full transcript yet?) as “bragging” in an anti-gun sense (the bill, not his comments)?

        1. I meant the “(the bill he signed then, not his comments then)” vs. his comments now.

          Boy, I sure wish we had an preview or editing capability like we used to have; that’s probably even more important after Aurora and it going political on the national stage, lots more eyeballs on political gun blogs like this one.

          1. Look, let’s just agree that Romney isn’t a fan of guns or the true meaning of the 2nd Amendment.

            I dislike the guy and nothing he says is going to erase what he did. Still it was horribly stupid for him to bring up his signing of the Mass AWB.

            But I really don’t think he could help it any more than Obama could help it making his statement. They can only lie for so long before they slip and tell the truth.

            1. What was stupid about it. The law had backing from both sides. That’s what happens when you have a pro-gun side willing to water down a bill until they can get 51% support. Why wouldn’t he have signed it? Both the anti-gunners and the pro gunners liked it.

              Bipartisanship = Double Penetration

            2. Look, let’s just agree that Romney isn’t a fan of guns or the true meaning of the 2nd Amendment.

              No disagreement here!

              I dislike the guy and nothing he says is going to erase what he did.

              Ah, but what he did, sign a GOAL approved bill, was good for us. (What he said wasn’t.) And, yeah, I don’t like him either. But I don’t have to, don’t even have to care so much about your first point; to quote Milton Friedman:

              I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.

              I.e. exactly what happened with Obama, although I think it helps that he’s not a cultural Baby Boomber, doesn’t care very much about their culture war.

              Still it was horribly stupid for him to bring up his signing of the Mass AWB.

              Ummm, did he? I haven’t watched that clip or read a transcript, but I’m assuming he was asked the question and made that answer. If he’s brought it up, I would expect the report to quote him, all the more damaging with the bitter clingers who view him skeptically in the first place.

    1. Well, it’s been noted for some time he’s given up on the “white working class”, the Jacksonians, a group of people in e.g. Appalachia that wasn’t thrilled about him in 2008 and decisively broke against the Democrats in 2010.

      He’s going to lose the votes anyway; it remains to be seen if he can cobble together enough other groups to win.

      This is almost certainly a mistake, though. As has been noted before support for gun control is soft, pro-RKBA is very hard. It’s hard to see how at net this will win him votes … although as you might recall he won in 2008 on a “renew the AW ban” platform, I think he even mentioned that at his infamous Denver speech.

  5. Why would he work with Religious communities and civic organizations on gun control?
    As a Constitutional Professor he should know the 2nd Amend is settled law, and an individual right.
    But at least now the Democrat gun owners know exactly where he stands and can vote the most unconstitutional President out of office.

    1. Don’t misunderstand how clever Obama is on this. You can have all the AK-47s and AR-15s you want, they will just be subject to a tax. And the tax is 1005, meaning that you have to turn them into the BATF. You’re still permitted to own them, but we’ll just apply a special tax! This is what happens when the camel’s nose is finally in the tent. Thank you SCCJ Roberts…

      1. It should take Congressional action to sweep semi’s into NFA-34; though doing it through an Executive Order would not be beyond the hubris of this President.
        The question would be how many Senate Dems would fall on their swords to uphold such an order.

  6. I bet that underfolder that my Cabela’s has had on their rack for months will be gone this weekend.

  7. Any time Obama or his party says something is “common sense” or “reasonable”, you know you’re about to lose a basic right.

  8. “Only Mexican drug cartels should be allowed to possess assault rifles. I will resume walking more weapons to Mexico when I am reelected.”

  9. This would be some of the government help he was talking about. Some firearms shops are going to have a good year, i’d bet.

    It should play well merged with the call for gun control from a top US Islamic group’s call for gun control. Best of all, the leader was embraced by a top Obama DOJ official. Oh, and there is this:

    The federal prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation case had just weeks before named ISNA as an unindicted co-conspirator. In a related court order by the federal judge hearing the case later unsealed, Judge Jorge Solis ruled that there was “ample evidence” that ISNA and other U.S. Islamic groups had acted in support of Hamas.

  10. No, no….for 3 years or better we’ve been told we’re paranoid for thinking Obama wants to ban guns. Clearly this must take out of context.

  11. So he’s going to work with religious groups…scratch Jews, Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, etc.
    Ironic, but Muslims would be one choice that is left, but don’t know if they would help reduce violence. What to do, what to do…this guy is an out and out serial liar.

  12. Hate to tell him, but our military does not use an ak-47as a standard issue weapon…doesn’t even have a clue, just loves the sound of his own voice blabbing on and on…c’mon November

  13. I think we should start a drinking game based on the number of times BO uses the words “common sense” in his speeches.

  15. “Going for it” with “it” being the gun salesman of the year award (again)?

  16. What will the DoJ, ATF, DEA ICE sell to Mexican drug lords -? M4s SAWs -? That’s gonna affect the marketplace.

  17. It’s going to be real good to see the back of him in January. Then we can settle down to the work of trying to repair the damage this spendthrift, America-hating, anti-white, racist liar has done.

  18. “But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldier and not in the hands of crooks.”

    Do you suppose Obama knows anyone who has a gun? I would not be surprised to learn he’s two degrees of separation from anyone who owns a gun. No more than that, however, because Bill Ayers no doubt knows lots of people with guns, though I would not bet on them being what comes to mind as typical gun owners.

    Obama merely projects onto gun owners his own preconceptions.

    1. Come now, surely his Secret Service bodyguards have guns.

      Unless you’re saying he doesn’t know them like they’re real people.

      Which, come to think, is a possibility.

  19. Regarding speculation that he feared “losing his base” if he didn’t come out for gun control, I don’t think sophisticated analysis would support that strategy.

    I have never been aware of an election that was WON based on adamant support for gun control; it may be a bigtime gun controller has won an election, but I have never seen evidence that supporting gun control was a primary vote-attractor.

    Anecdotally, I have observed several elections where a candidate should have been viable, based on their public service record, but chose to make support for gun control the highest profile issue in their campaign. They all did miserably, usually getting less than 30 percent of the vote, when I normally would have expected them to get at least in the low 40s. That includes Democrats in districts of inner city Philadelphia, in primary elections; no matter how successful they’d been in other offices, building a campaign on gun control did not attract many votes. Unless there’s better, less anecdotal analysis than mine, that shows otherwise, I’m very surprised at Obama’s decision. Keeping his mouth shut was working for him.

    1. Maybe a key to defeating pro-gun-control candidates, then, would be to convince them that they need to make it their One Issue…

  21. You want to reduce the number of AK-47s, Mr. President?

    Hey, I’m all for that. Let’s focus solely on AK-47s, and see if your idea works there.

    Just one thing, though. Take away all the guns from criminals first — and prove that you’ve finished the job — and then you can start in with the law-abiding citizens. Because otherwise, you’re just trying to buy off the Criminal-American demographic for the election.

    Deal? I didn’t think so.

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  23. You are missing the key point.
    He actually said “AK-47s belong in the hands of soldier and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war”

    No American believes that – those are the enemy soldiers he thinks should have AK-47s. Only our enemies want AK-47s on the field of war. AK-47s do not belong in the hands of soldiers. No African or Afghani ten-year old should be carrying an AK-47.

    Make a commercial with his words, then footage of a child soldier interview.

  24. Bongo’s base is the FSA. They will vote for him for as long as they think he will keep the public trough full.

  25. Obama said he’d “continue to work with members of both parties…”

    When did he start? I don’t recall a single issue on which Obama has seeked input from a Republican. The sooner he goes the better.

      1. From a notorious right wing source, here’s the quote including the context.

        He’s continued to try to govern that way, e.g. before Obamacare, no piece of legislation like it such as Social Security or Medicare was passed without significant bipartisan support; doesn’t seem to have worked well.

  26. Pray he goes after “assault weapons”. Nothing will fire up the base like that.

  28. I don’t own a centerfire long gun. Never had much interest in black rifles or AK’s. That will change in the next few days.

  29. The AK 47 is a piece of crap. It’s a cheap, easily produced piece fo crap which is why terrorists, and lowlifes carry it not the professuional soldiers of the US military.

    BHO is an idiot.

  30. In fairness, he talked about AK-47s in the context of keeping them away from criminals. So he could be referring to background checks and not a renewal of the AWB. Of course if he does come out and say the word “ban”, it tells us what he thinks of the American people… we are all criminals.

  31. Wellllll, shee-at. I was just about to plunk down the $ on my first EBR; a .40 PDW for the home/coyotes. Prices are gonna shoot through the roof I bet.

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