by Chad D. Baus
In his second debate with Governor Mitt Romney on Tuesday Oct. 16, President Barack Obama pledged to renew his push to ban certain semi-automatic sporting rifles, should he win a second term.
The discussion on the two candidates' positions on the Second Amendment followed for several minutes, and Mitt Romney raised the issue of the Obama Justice Department's "Fast & Furious" operation, which allowed thousands of guns to be "walked" across the border and into the hands of murderous Mexican drug lords.
Indeed, the Brady bunch know that Obama wants to pass gun control, since just last year Sarah Brady told The Washington Post that Obama confided to her: "I just want you to know that we are working on it. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar."
Obama also hinted at an effort to ban inexpensive handguns, often purchased by less fortunate people who wish to exercise their self-defense rights.
From Reuters:
"What I'm trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally. Part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced. But part of it is also looking at other sources of the violence. Because frankly, in my hometown of Chicago, there's an awful lot of violence and they're not using AK-47s. They're using cheap handguns."
Thoughout his first term, the Obama administration has sought to keep its efforts to enact gun control "under the radar." As noted in The Wall Street Journal today, when Attorney General Eric Holder mentioned the administration's support for the ban in 2009, Mr. Obama's then chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, promptly told him to "shut the f@#$ up" about guns.
However, Obama's pledge to renew the push to ban these rifles, which are owned by millions of Americans, including hunters and sportsmen, and his hint at "cheap handguns" as a "source of violence," deflated a narrative started earlier this week in an Associated Press article that gun owners have nothing to fear from an Obama second term.
Last night, Romney told the audience "I'm not in favor of new pieces of legislation on guns and taking guns away or making certain guns illegal."
Romney also pointed out the hypocrisy of Obama's diatribe about reducing violence in light of the ATF's "Fast & Furious" scandal. Like the scandal itself, the media have largely ignored Romney's challenge of Obama on this issue in coverage of last night's debate.
As noted on Townhall.com, after Romney briefly described the scandal, "moderator Candy Crowley cut him off and shifted the subject. President Obama refused to comment on Operation Fast and Furious and blamed the National Rifle Association for Romney's stance on gun control."
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