HOPE AND CHANGE

Guns Magazine

“The election of Barack Obama as President and Joe Biden as Vice President was a decisive victory for common sense gun laws,” the Brady Campaign crowed in its election follow-up report.

“The election also represents a critical loss for the National Rifle Association,” the report continued, gloating “The gun lobby pledged to spend $40 million this election cycle, with the largest portion to defeat Obama. They failed.”

John McCain’s defeat was hardly NRA’s fault. They did what they could to warn us “Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history.” But McCain’s past support for political speech suppression, aka “campaign finance reform,” and his continued endorsement of ending private sales, aka “closing the gun show loophole,” made him a tough sell — particularly to ornery gun owners fed up with sell-outs, and tired of holding their noses and voting “lesser of two evils.”

While choosing gun rights-friendly Sarah Palin as his running mate helped to mollify some gun owners, and fear of Obama’s history of overt hostility to gun rights motivated others, very few gun activists had the fire in their bellies to actually get enthused by the GOP ticket. When you don’t have that, your ability to attract contributions and volunteers suffers.

Add to that the “sporting purposes” crowd, who took their lead from the Obama-supporting American Hunters and Shooters Association (see “Beware of Moles,” January 2006 issue), secure in the belief their duck guns weren’t at risk. Well, Obama did say he wasn’t going to take anyone’s guns (followed by the foreboding admission he did not have enough votes if he wanted to). In a bit of side-drama, Dan Cooper of Cooper Firearms created such an Internet firestorm, when he told USA Today he supported and had donated to the Obama campaign, that he was forced to resign his position as chief executive.

So what does this mean for us as gun owners? Is it all doom and gloom?

Some commentators tell us not necessarily, pointing to the number of “pro-gun Democrats” who got elected. The thing is, nearly every one of those deferred to political party reality and endorsed Obama, you know, “the most anti-gun president …”

I have to question their commitment to buck their leadership, to resist the lure of the carrot, to endure the whack of the stick, to jeopardize key committee assignments, or forego that big helping of pork for the folks back home. Especially when going along with the agenda is just so much more rewarding.

Agenda? Sure, this is hot off the Obama/Biden power transition Web site, CHANGE.GOV.

“Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners … They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.”

What, you were hoping for something different? We ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Get ready for some change.