Whose Got Next?
By Rob Hanson, illustration by Don Coker
Though the heavyweight of issues for voters this time around still might be up in the air, one thing is certain, hunters, shooters and anyone of the outdoorsman persuasion have gun control on their mind.
Before the last election between George W. Bush and John Kerry, in an article titled “The Deepest Divide: God, Guns and Gays” in Business Week in May of 2004, Paul Magnusson wrote, “For most voters in November, a candidate's positions on ``God, guns, and gays''—the trinity of so-called values issues that Southern Republicans have perfected to hammer liberal opponents—won't matter as much as the economy or the Iraq war.”
Those assertions could be even more prominent in this year’s election than the last one as the country surpasses a half-decade at war and teeters on the cusp of economic recession, not to mention brutal prices at the gas pumps.
Still, there are many who feel the Second Amendment was accidentally edited out of the Ten Commandments, and those diehards will go to the voting booth with shooting traditions high on the agenda.
Even though the real election has just begun, both McCain and Obama have been around long enough to polarize the public on their gun-control intentions.
Google “gun control Obama” or “gun control McCain,” (really, try it) and see what happens.
There isn’t a whole lot of informational literature out there, mostly crazy-right extremists shouting about Obama disarming America and a bunch of left wingers shouting back about McCain wanting to arm every man, woman and child.
And it certainly won’t be long before the public gets a glimpse of campaign ads featuring Obama kneeling next to a downed grizzly and McCain interrupting Saturday morning cartoons by cracking the action on a 12 gauge.
That might be a little extreme, but reading everyone and their brother’s blog about gun control and solely relying on campaign ads could lead to misinformed decisions.
Before the candidates unleash their best voter-swaying tactics, take a look each candidate’s views and a few issues they voted on before running for president …
Obama
Millions of hunters own and use guns each year. Millions more participate in a variety of shooting sports such as sporting clays, skeet, target and trap shooting that may not necessarily involve hunting. As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting. He also believes that the right is subject to reasonable and commonsense regulation.—From the official Obama campaign website,www.barackobama.com.
In his time as an Illinois and U.S. senator, Obama has voted on a number of gun-control issues and, for the most part, has been true to his Democrat roots, maintaining a stance that the Second Amendment must be respected, yet local gun bans should be put in place when appropriate.
Obama co-sponsored three bills in the Illinois Senate in the year 2000 that touched on major gun-control issues. The first, a bill that required an applicant for a firearm owners identification card to sign a release waiving any right to confidentiality and consenting to the disclosure of the applicant’s mental health records.
The second bill, SB1318, the Firearms Liability Act, made anyone who transferred a firearm liable for any injury or death that was caused by a firearm.
The third bill is probably one of the most drastic gun-control measures that Obama co-sponsored. Bill SB1614 in the Illinois Senate, had it not been put down, would have made it a felony to purchase more than one handgun in a 30-day period, with the exception of federally-licensed gun dealers. The bill was slightly confusing in that aside from the military and the law enforcement, it also allowed “some hunters” to purchase more than one handgun per 30 days.
After a year in the U.S. Senate, in 2005 Obama voted in favor of a bill that was eventually passed, requiring trigger locks to be provided with all handgun transactions.
Keeping in line with the Illinois Firearms Liability Act, Obama also voted against bills that would protect gun manufacturers from lawsuits (in most situations) following violent crimes committed with their products in 2005.
Although the National Rifle Association gives Obama’s gun control stance and “F,” he has, however, stepped out of character on more than one occasion.
In July of 2006 the U.S. Senate was called to vote on SA4615, an amendment to H.R. 5441, which was appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security. The introduced amendment prevented any funds from being used to confiscate firearms during a major emergency or disaster. Obama voted in favor, and the bill was passed. And according to author David Mendell in his book, From Promise to Power,
Obama voted in favor of an Illinois Senate bill that would give retired police officers the right to conceal and carry. Mendell wrote, “When I queried him about the vote,” he [Obama] said, "I didn't find that [vote] surprising. I am consistently on record and will continue to be on record as opposing concealed carry. This was a narrow exception in an exceptional circumstance where a retired police officer might find himself vulnerable as a consequence of the work he has previously done—and had been trained extensively in the proper use of firearms.”’
Despite a voting record that has some gun owners up in arms, Obama has stuck to his guns on the campaign trail in 2008, insisting that he believes in the right to own guns—just a restricted right to own guns.
“As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms,” he said in a transcript provided to the New York Times from the Federal News Service from the Philadelphia primary debate April 16. “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, and, you know, in the same way that we have a right to private property but local governments can establish zoning ordinances that determine how you can use it.
“And I think that it is going to be important for us to reconcile what are two realities in this country. There's the reality of gun ownership and the tradition of gun ownership that's passed on from generation to generation. You know, when you listen to people who have hunted, and they talk about the fact that they went hunting with their fathers or their mothers, then that is something that is deeply important to them and, culturally, they care about deeply.”
When asked in the same debate about a controversial questionnaire that indicated support for an all-out ban on handguns, Obama reiterated claims that the survey was filled out by an out-of-line staffer, not himself.
“No, my writing wasn't on that particular questionnaire, Charlie. As I said, I have never favored an all-out ban on handguns,” Obama said. “What I think we can provide is common-sense approaches to the issue of illegal guns that are ending up on the streets. We can make sure that criminals don't have guns in their hands. We can make certain that those who are mentally deranged are not getting a hold of handguns. We can trace guns that have been used in crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers that may be selling to straw purchasers and dumping them on the streets. The point is, is that what we have to do is get beyond the politics of this issue and figure out what, in fact, is working.”
In more recent news, Obama has made it clear that he is interested in bringing back the assault weapons ban of 1994 and has yet to make a decision on the ongoing debate of whether the 1976 bill that bans personal firearm ownership in the District of Columbia is constitutional or not.
To see a complete list of bills co-sponsored by Obama, visit www.ilga.gov.
McCain
“John McCain believes that the right of law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms is a fundamental, individual Constitutional right that we have a sacred duty to protect. We have a responsibility to ensure that criminals who violate the law are prosecuted to the fullest, rather than restricting the rights of law abiding citizens. Gun control is a proven failure in fighting crime. Law abiding citizens should not be asked to give up their rights because of criminals - criminals who ignore gun control laws anyway.”—from the official McCain campaign website, www.johnmccain.com.
Despite a few tiffs between the NRA and McCain over his support for background checks at gun shows, he is the more likeable candidate in the eyes of the gun lobby. Even for a Republican candidate, he has almost been pioneer on the gun-control issue, saying that he supports “no gun control.” McCain claims that he does not own any guns currently, but has carried them in the past in his time with the military.
McCain’s long-standing opposition of gun-control efforts dates all the way back to 1993’s Brady Bill, which was voted on in February of 1994. The bill, which allowed waiting periods of up to five days for handgun purchases, was opposed by McCain.
He also voted against the assault weapons ban in 1994 and its renewal in 2007. And McCain did vote for the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005, which would have protected firearm manufacturers from lawsuits.
However, like Obama, McCain has stepped out of his consistency a time or two. Unfortunately for him, those moves subsequently dropped an NRA rating that he enjoyed for much of the 1990s of “A” to “C” in 2000.
McCain supported the aforementioned background checks at gun shows and in 2005, voted along side Obama in supporting mandatory trigger locks on handgun transfers.
However, McCain has strengthened his relationship with the NRA recently with his “no gun control” rhetoric.
As reported by Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times on May 17 in an article titled “Courting N.R.A; McCain Criticizes Obama and Clinton on Gun Control,” McCain spoke at this year’s annual NRA convention.
“I strongly support the Second Amendment and I believe the Second Amendment ought to be preserved—which means no gun control,” he said. “For more than two decades, I've opposed efforts to ban guns, ban ammunition, ban magazines and dismiss gun owners as some kind of fringe group unwelcome in modern America.
“The Second Amendment isn't some archaic custom that matters only to rural Americans, who find solace in firearms out of frustration with their economic circumstances. The Second Amendment is unique in the world. It guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms. To argue anything else is to reject the clear meaning of our founding fathers."
More voting records available at www.senate.gov.
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