President Obama continues his executive action/gun control publicity tour with a stop at the propaganda outlet known as the New York Times editorial page. Writing in an oped titled “Guns Are Our Shared Responsibility,” the president informs readers that “I will not campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform.”
Any candidate seeking out an endorsement from Obama is probably on the gun control train anyway, and is an Obama endorsement worth much these days even among Democrats? More than half of likely voters disapprove of his job performance, according to Rasmussen.
Obama’s opinion piece begins with a whopper: “The epidemic of gun violence in our country is a crisis. Gun deaths and injuries constitute one of the greatest threats to public health and to the safety of the American people.”
But just last night at a different stop on his publicity tour at the propaganda outlet known as the CNN “Guns in America” town hall forum, Obama acknowledged that we are at an all-time low murder rate in this country. When confronted by Taya Kyle, widow of American Sniper Chris Kyle, Obama nodded his head in agreement when she explained “while you’ve been president, we are at the lowest murder rate in our country, all time low of murders. We’re at an all-time high of gun ownership, right?”
Obama did not disagree.
And in his opinion piece, the president concedes that he will “take action” because “it’s clear that common-sense gun reform won’t happen during this Congress.” In other words, it won’t happen constitutionally.
Obama laments that gun manufacturers have no liability — “the gun industry is almost entirely unaccountable,” he writes. But how should the gun industry be accountable? Their product operates as it should. Their product may sometimes not be used properly, but do we hold other companies responsible when their products are not used properly? Does the government mandate that Toyota should be “accountable” if a drunk driver plows his Camry into another car?
What Obama wants is for people to stand up to the “gun lobby’s lies” but what those lies are, we don’t learn. During his publicity tour stops, Obama talks about the NRA as if it were some tyrannical independent entity that has inserted itself into the political sphere sui generis. However the NRA exists because of its membership, because of the public spirit, because securing the gun rights of Americans is important to the citizens. The NRA represents the people’s will; the organization does not act alone.
The president closes his piece with the statement: “Change will be hard. It won’t happen overnight.”
Hopefully, Obama’s change won’t happen at all.
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