Well, that’s a relief. Gun owners can rest easy now that President Obama has promised that he’s not going to take everyone’s guns.
All those efforts to ban several popular kinds of handguns? He was just foolin’. “Assault weapons” ban? A mistake, to be sure.
In fact, anyone who doubts the president’s word on this is being silly. Just ask all those millions of people who got to keep their health insurance plan and doctor under Obamacare if they liked them, just as the president promised.
“Some of you are watching certain television stations or listening to certain radio programs, please do not believe this notion that somehow I’m out to take everyone’s guns away,” he told the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
“Every time a mass shootings happens, one of the saddest ironies is suddenly the purchase of guns and ammunition jumps up because folks scared into thinking that, ‘Obama’s gonna use this as an excuse to take away our Second Amendment rights,’” he added. “Nobody’s doing that.”“We’re talking about common-sense measures to make criminals don’t get them, to make sure background checks work, to make sure that we’re protecting ourselves.”
Obama’s sought to convince top law enforcement officials that enacting tougher national gun laws would cut down on the number of officers killed in the line of duty.
The president’s Chicago trip was also designed to rally law enforcement support for his effort to change the nation’s sentencing laws.
Obama is seeking to enlist police as allies at an uneasy time for law enforcement.
Officers are under greater scrutiny than ever following a string of police-related deaths of unarmed black men across the country, some of which were caught on video.
At the same time, an uptick in violent crime in certain U.S. cities has put officers at greater risk in the line of duty.
The Justice Department released a new report in conjunction with Obama’s speech showing an increase in ambush attacks against police over the past decade, even though rates are still down from highs in the 1990s.
“I understand we won’t all agree on this issue, but it’s time to be honest, fewer gun safety laws don’t mean more freedom, they mean more danger.” Obama said. “Certainly more danger to police. More grieving families, more Americans terrified their loved ones could be next.”
I’m not necessarily “terrified” that my loved ones could be the next victim of a mass shooting, any more than I am “terrified” they will be victims of a terrorist attack. But suggesting people are “terrified” allows the president to suggest just about anything to assuage their fear. So draconian registration proposals seem positively moderate. He’s only trying to keep us “safe.”
In truth, Obama wouldn’t dare try an Australian-style gun grabfest here, even though Hillary Clinton seemed positively enamored of the idea. A voluntary buyback program as has been proposed by many gun-control advocates would only take guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. A second-rate moron could figure out that criminals would be the last to get involved in a buyback program.
But that won’t slow the effort to trash the Second Amendment. No doubt the president is sincere in his statement that he isn’t coming after our guns.
Just like he was when he promised we could keep our insurance plans and doctors if we liked them.
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