Obama Floating New Semi-Auto Ban Puts Administration Intent on the Radar

Black Rifle Ban
Obama Floating New Semi-Auto Ban Puts Administration Intent on the Radar

USA – After days of cautious remarks that avoided “gun control” in the wake of the theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., which prompted criticism and lament from vocal disarmament proponents, President Barack Obama broke his silence Wednesday in New Orleans and promised “to lead a national discussion,” The Washington Post is reporting.

“Obama told the National Urban League here that he believes a lot of gun owners would agree that ‘AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers,’ not civilians on American streets,” the report relates, offering the first official renewal of a “jewel in the crown” goal he’d articulated and then had scrubbed from the White House website (noting that history has conveniently been sealed from Internet Archive “Wayback Machine” searches). Also gone from the official record were his plans to exploit trace dataimplement more federal edictsend private sales, and mandate defensive gun use impediments under the guise of “childproofing.”

So naturally, early in his term, the administration and its allies were quick with the damage control when Attorney General Eric Holder let slip that a renewed “assault weapons ban” was in the works—to help fight crime in Mexico, of all reasons. Committed career gun-grabber and then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took point on that, quickly throwing cold water on it in a very public way.

Some time passed before Sarah Brady let slip the administration preferred doing things “under the radar.” That way, they could give Obama cover with a bad grade, and the administration’s media cheerleaders would be able to ridicule the notion that there was any threat to gun rights, and parrot the claim that Obama had actually expanded them by signing National Parks carry into law and allowing guns on Amtrak trains.

That counts on most of the public not recalling the administration was initially not going to appeal a loopy ruling against park carry based on nonexistent environmental concerns, and what he actually signed was a credit card bill it served his purposes to sign, where the carry provision was included as a rider. As for Amtrak, all that did was bring train policy in line with what commercial airlines allow, that is, travelers’ guns declared and locked up in the stowed luggage, and it cost the administration nothing while giving them a “pro-gun” credit to crow about—although they still managed to screw it up.

As for demonstrable anti-gun actions by the administration that were sometimes not overtly represented as such, but nonetheless were hostile to the right to keep and bear arms, the Sotomayor and Kagan nominations to the Supreme Court stand foremost. Other examples, randomly presented here, include using OSHA to harass shooting rangesblocking the importation of surplus rifles and proposing the same for shotguns, reversing the position of the United States by reanimating the soon-to-be-revealed UN Arms Trade Treaty (not to forget other treaties), and, of course, “Project Gunwalker.”

With this as background, Obama ending his self-imposed citizen disarmament discussion embargo, not only before the election but the day before speculation in some quarters has him signing the ATT, ought to put gun owners on high alert. Why he chose to do this now can perhaps be dismissed as a sop for the frenzy being ginned up by the media. Then again, it could signal he knows something or has reason to be confident, is no longer afraid to touch the third rail, and is ready to come up from under the radar. If that’s the case, the presidential race will turn into a national referendum, and whose side the militantly anti-gun media will take is a foregone conclusion.

They’re not even trying to hide it anymore.


About David Codrea

David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance. Read more at www.DavidCodrea.com.

David Codrea

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BonHomme Richard

He did such a good job of gun control in Chicago.

EthanP

He's placating his base. The MSM will cover this a little and drop it hoping the public will forget all about it. He has promised them (anti 2nd Ammendment types) total victory in a second term. We with the various Gun Rights groups (I myself am NRA endowment) must never give up our vigilence.

"Water sleeps. Enemy never rests."