And his associations, endorsements, and voting record speak for themselves. HR1022 is real, and would put us out of business, along with nearly every other gun-dealer in the country. Where is this thread, I'd love to see this "debunking."
Edit: Found it. This is a pile of crap. Allow me to respond in detail.
From
FactCheck.org: NRA Targets Obama
Quote:
Obama lays out his basic stance on guns in a "Sportsmen" fact sheet and also in an "Urban Policy" paper on reducing gun violence. The NRA's claims find little support here.
Regarding a Constitutional right to guns, Obama says:
Obama, "Sportsmen": Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he 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.
On the issue of urban policy, Obama says he favors "commonsense measures" to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and children, and that he would bring back the expired "assault weapon" ban and make it permanent:
Obama, "Urban Policy": Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.
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First off, "Sportsmen." The 2nd Amendment a'int about sports, period, The End. Secondly, there is no such bloody thing as the "gun-show loophole." It doesn't exist. It's a figment of Sarah Brady's imagination. What she's metamorphosing into a convenient and scary straw-man is the right of normal people to sell a firearm in a private sale, not for profit. It's like buying a used car. Thirdly, as it relates specifically to me, a renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban, especially in the form of HR1022 (which Obama supports) would put us clean out of business. We can't all sell Kreighoffs to John Kerry, you know.
Quote:
The NRA bases this overheated claim on a vote Obama cast on March 24, 2004, in the Illinois state Senate. He was one of 20 who opposed SB 2165. That bill, which passed 38 - 20 and became law, did not make it a crime to use firearms for self-defense, however. Rather, it created a loophole for persons caught violating local gun registration laws.
It states that in any Illinois municipality where gun registration is required it shall be an "affirmative defense" if the person accused of violating the registration requirement can show that the weapon was used "in an act of self-defense or defense of another ... when on his or her land or in his or her abode or fixed place of business."
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This is perhaps a mischaracterization; what they should have said was that Obama wanted it to
remain a crime to use a firearm in self-defense. He didn't even want the possibility of an affirmative defense out there!
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False: Obama is not proposing to ban hunting ammunition. And he did not, as claimed in an NRA TV spot featuring a Virginia hunter named Karl Rusch, vote to "ban virtually all deer hunting ammunition." What Obama voted for was a measure to ban "armor-piercing" ammunition, which the measure's sponsor has said repeatedly would not cover hunting ammunition.
This claim is based on Obama's vote on S. 397 in the U.S. Senate. Obama was one of 31 senators who voted in favor of S. Amdt. 1615 to S. 397 which sought to "expand the definition of armor piercing ammunition."
The amendment applied only to handgun ammunition "capable of penetrating body armor" and to rifle ammunition that is "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability," however.
It's true that common high-powered rifle bullets are capable of penetrating the vests worn by police, which are a defense chiefly against lower-velocity handgun rounds. But does that mean hunting ammunition is "designed or marketed as having armor piercing capability"? Or that a rifle round that some handguns might accept would be banned? That's the NRA's argument, and it was repeated on the floor of the Senate by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He said flatly that the measure "would ban nearly all hunting rifle ammunition," without any elaboration. However, the measure's sponsor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said his amendment was not intended to cover hunting ammunition:
Sen. Kennedy (July 29, 2005): This is not about hunting. We know duck and geese and deer do not wear armor vests; police officers do.
Kennedy's measure failed by a vote of 64 - 31.
By the way, the NRA has used this ploy before. It ran ads in 2004 claiming Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had voted "to ban deer-hunting ammunition" when he had actually voted on an earlier occasion for this same Kennedy amendment on armor-piercing rounds. Kennedy said then:
Sen. Kennedy (March 2, 2004): My amendment will not apply to ammunition that is now routinely used in hunting rifles or other centerfire rifles. To the contrary, it only covers ammunition that is designed or marketed as having armor-piercing capability.
Clarification, Sept. 29: We originally misstated the NRA’s argument. The group rests its case on the amendment’s language regarding handgun ammunition, not rifle ammunition. The NRA argument goes this way: The Kennedy amendment would have covered ammunition that “may” be used in a handgun and is “capable” of piercing police body armor. A few uncommon handguns can accept rifle rounds, such as the Weatherby Mark V CFP or the Thompson Contender.
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These handguns are neither few nor uncommon. They exist in huge numbers and are chambered in everything from .218 Bee to .500 Nitro Express. While I'm unaware of a specific AP loading in .500NE, if past history is any guide, one will be invented. What most people outside the gun industry don't realise is that the BATF&E can unilaterally declare something "armor piercing" when it isn't, can unilaterally declare what had previously been a legal "sporting-purpose" weapon an illegal "non-sporting-purpose" weapon, and all this at the stroke of a pen. Give them an inch, they'll take five miles.
Granted, this one's a bit of a stretch. But I don't trust slimballs like Kennedy to keep their promises, and I don't trust poll-chasers like Obama to leave something alone if it'd be popular to muck around with it.
Quote:
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While a complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable, I believe reasonable restrictions on the sale and possession of handguns are necessary to protect the public safety. In the Illinois Senate last year, I supported a package of bills to limit individual Illinoisans to purchasing one handgun a month; require all promoters and sellers at firearms shows to carry a state license; allow civil liability for death or injuries caused by handguns; and require FOID applicants to apply in person. I would support similar efforts at the federal level, including retaining the Brady Law."
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This restates Obama's alleged current position. Even this is insane, but one must consider that the original survey in question had Obama's signature. Either he's lying, or he signs things without looking at them, and I don't want Col. Henry Blake for a President, thanks. The proposals above are rediculous enough; civil liability alone would be a disaster. Sarah Brady, Mike Bloomberg, and their dispicable ilk would be more than happy (and have more than enough money) to sue ever gunmaker and importer in this country clean out of business. They've been trying for several years now, and a wide-open license like this would kill the industry. It's a backdoor gun-grab.
Quote:
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I don’t think that we can get that done. But what I do think we can do is to provide just some common-sense enforcement. One good example -- this is consistently blocked -- the efforts by law enforcement to obtain the information required to trace back guns that have been used in crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers. That’s not something that the NRA has allowed to get through Congress. And, as president, I intend to make it happen.
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See, here's the thing. It ALREADY HAPPENS. About 2-5 times a year, we get a call from the ATF Tracing Center in Atlanta, GA. They ask for information pertaining to a certain gun. We look it up in our records and call them back. This happens when a gun falls into the hands of Law Enforcement for some reason (we never know why) and some LEO someplace is trying to figure out where the gun went, or came from. Everything needed to trace guns already exists, more's the pity. What he's talking about, the Tiehart Amendment, is a law that prevents local LEOs from going on fishing expeditions in federal firearms records. The gun-grabbers want this revoked, thankfully they've so far been unsuccessful. I'd rather not have my shop used as a blackmail/gossip factory by our idiot Depputies, thanks.
Quote:
True: In 2004, while running for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat he now holds, Obama indeed called for "national legislation" to prevent anyone but law enforcers from carrying concealed firearms. The Chicago Tribune, which queried the candidates on several issues, reported:
Chicago Tribune (Feb. 20 2004): Obama ... backed federal legislation that would ban citizens from carrying weapons, except for law enforcement. He cited Texas as an example of a place where a law allowing people to carry weapons has "malfunctioned" because hundreds of people granted licenses had prior convictions.
"National legislation will prevent other states' flawed concealed-weapons laws from threatening the safety of Illinois residents," Obama said.
More recently, Obama was quoted by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in an article on April 2, 2008, saying "I am not in favor of concealed weapons. ... I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations."
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Well, that says it all right there. I'm not going to debate the virtues of concealed carry here, though.
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Partly true: The NRA refers here to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which was put in place during former President Bill Clinton's administration. Title XI of the legislation spoke directly to regulations on assault weapons. The law outlawed the semi-automatic versions of 19 kinds of military-style assault weapons, but it expired in 2004. The "assault weapon ban" was always a misnomer, however. Fully automatic weapons – like the military assault rifle carried on battlefields – had always been illegal to own without a very hard-to-obtain federal license, under legislation going back to the days of Al Capone. They remain so today.
Nevertheless, Obama called the ban a "common sense gun law" and favors bringing it back on a permanent basis. Obama's "Urban Policy" fact sheet says he "supports making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets."
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The "renewal" of the AWB that he's referencing here is HR1022, the oft-mentiond and never-to-be-sufficiantly-damned horror mentioned above. It radically expands the AWBs scope to include a whole lot more Scary Black Guns (which are rarely used in crime), banning virtually every semi-auto of any description. Nice bit of wordplay, factcheck, but try checking your facts next time.
Quote:
his claim is based on an article that appeared in the Chicago Defender on Dec. 13, 1999, when Obama was in the Illinois state Senate. According to the Defender, at an anti-gun rally, Obama "outlined his anti-gun plan," which, among other things, sought to "increase the federal taxes by 500 percent on the sale of firearm, ammunition [sic] -- weapons he says are most commonly used in firearm deaths." As a U.S. senator, however, Obama has not pushed for any such tax on ammunition.
We asked the Obama campaign about his position on an ammunition tax but have received no response.
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Well, did he say it or didn't he? And isn't "no comment" universally understood to be PolSpeak for "Yes I did it, but I'm not gonna admit it"?
Quote:
This claim also is based on the1999 Defender article. It reported Obama was pushing "all federally licensed gun dealers sell firearms in a storefront and not from their homes while banning their business from being within five miles of a school or a park." The NRA states that the 5-mile limit would have resulted in the closing of 90 percent of gun shops in the country. But as a U.S. senator Obama hasn't pushed for a 5-mile limit and isn't proposing one as part of his presidential campaign.
We asked the Obama campaign about his current position on imposing a five-mile limit on gun shops but have received no response.
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See above.
Factcheck seems to be awfully short of facts, and not very inclined to check things either. And I can unequivocally state that if even half of this passed or became a nationwide trend, we would be out of business. So would 90% of the FFLs in this country.