President Obama has made it known what he wants to do to curb gun violence.
He wants to limit the size of clips to 10 rounds; he wants complete background checks of everyone who purchases a firearm; he wants make assault weapons illegal, as they once had been declared.
Now, with that is it possible to have a rational debate on this issue? I hope so, but I fear it wonât happen.
Second Amendment advocates â or should I say âzealotsâ? â have launched their PR campaign against these measures. The National Rifle Association is airing a TV ad that says the president is a hypocrite because the Secret Service provides armed protection for his children but he opposes arming teachers and security personnel in our schools. I cannot at this moment think of a more despicable ad campaign in recent memory than that one.
Look at it here:
Letâs move on. Before the president announced his proposals, at least two House Republicans threatened to impeach Barack Obama if he issued executive orders to implement some of these measures. They contend Obama would violate the Second Amendment by issuing such an order. Oh my.
I am a gun owner. I have two rifles stored in a place where no one but me ever goes. I donât want the feds to take them from me. Based on what I heard today I am quite certain my rifles â both of which I have owned since I was a little boy â will remain in my possession. I also am equally certain that other responsible gun owners â the hunters, sports shooters and collectors to whom Obama referred today â also will keep their firearms.
However, to hear some hysterical critics tell it, the president has just laid the groundwork for the wholesale confiscation of every firearm in the nation.
I am certain I heard him say once again that he honors the Second Amendment and that hooded agents will not be barging into my home to take my guns from me. Didnât anyone else hear that too?
What the president wants is to make it more difficult for lunatics like the shooters who executed the children in Newtown, Conn., or killed movie patrons in Aurora, Colo., or opened fire on Christmas shoppers in Clackamas, Ore., to purchase weapons designed exclusively to kill many people in rapid-fire fashion.
Will these proposals do the job? We wonât know unless if we have rational, reasonable and thoughtful debate on the subject. I am ready to listen to that debate. I am not going to listen to frenzied rants from those who are sowing the seeds of fear.