A group reportedly organized by President Barack Obama and his “closest advisors” is launching a $100,000 anti-gun campaign targeting his political opponents on the gun issue, leaving liberal-voting gun owners yet more tongue-tied in their efforts to defend their November votes.
USA Today and Newsmax.com are reporting that the Obama support group, Organizing for Action (OFA) – which grew out of his campaign organization – is beginning the “blitz” today with a series of online advertisements. According to USA Today, “more than a dozen lawmakers” are being targeted by the campaign. The number is actually 16, all Republicans, and all named by the Los Angeles Times. The list does not include any member of Washington’s congressional delegation.
This could ignite some serious discussions in the firearms community, and on forums such as Northwest Firearms, Open Carry.org, Hunting-Washington and the Washington Concealed Carry chat group about the apparent errors in judgment exhibited by gun-toting Obama supporters who made no secret about their politics last fall. The argument at that time was that Obama would never go after their guns.
Obama and a group of his closest advisers launched Organizing for Action (OFA) in late January to transform his campaign operation into a tax-exempt group to advance his second-term priorities, including gun control, immigration and climate change.—USA Today
Now, it appears, open warfare has been declared as the president and his anti-gun followers are trying to capitalize on the Sandy Hook tragedy to rekindle support for a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” Newsmax reported that OFA is launching the effort as “the first test of the group’s ability to mobilize the president’s 2.2 million campaign volunteers to push for legislative change.” That “change” would be to the nation’s gun laws.
Newsmax is running a reader poll that asks the following:
1) Should the federal government regulate guns of any type?
2) Should Congress ban semi-automatic weapons?
3) If Congress does not act, should President Obama use an executive order to ban or strictly control the sale of semi-automatic weapons?
4) Do you agree that the Second Amendment gives citizens the right to own and bear guns without infringement?
5) Who did you vote for in the last election?
Barack Obama
Mitt Romney
Other
It is the last question that may trip up some gun owners, a few of whom were rather cocky last fall about their political choices, with an “I’m-smarter-than-you” attitude. The silence now from those folks is deafening.
So far, the survey is going decidedly against gun control, with a 71-28 percent split against federal regulation of firearms, a 77-22 percent split against a semi-auto ban, a 79-20 percent rejection of the notion that Obama should ban guns by executive order, and an 81-18 percent agreement on the Second Amendment’s protection of a right to keep and bear arms.
Newsmax has so far not added data on who voted for which candidate.
Question 4 in the poll is a bit misleading to the true gun rights activist because it is widely known that the Second Amendment doesn’t “give” anybody anything. It affirms that there is an individual right to keep and bear arms, and it protects that right from infringement by the government. How successful it has been is debatable.
Overall, though the survey is obviously not scientific, it gives a strong indication that the president and his OFA group are in for a bare knuckles political fight.
Sugested reading:
Assault on Weapons: The Campaign to Eliminate Your Guns
Shooting Blanks: Facts Don't Matter to the Gun Ban Crowd
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