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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Clarence Page
As with other mass shootings, the killings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., trigger a familiar chain of reactions: horror, remorse, rage and a call for new restrictions on guns.
And in the recent past, at least, that call for action has been followed by little or no legislative action at all.
For example, after the January 2011 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and 13 others injured, President Barack Obama delivered a moving nationally televised address but a call for new gun laws was conspicuous in its absence.
Instead, in an
Quite the opposite, there are too many votes to be won, money to be raised and news members to be enlisted by tagging Obama as "anti-gun" for the NRA or other gun lobbyists to be deterred by mere facts.
Remember the dramatic surge in gun and ammunition sales that immediately followed Obama's election? They're surging again, according to the
"He's his own stimulus plan for the gun industry," said Arkansas Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, according to Politico.
Fear of what Obama might do is being fed by NRA leaders like Wayne LaPierre, who warned in February that Obama's plan is to "get re-elected and, with no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms freedom."
The organization's 2008 website, gunbanobama.com, is up and running with its headline, "Obama Would Be The Most Anti-Gun President in History" and a link touting, "If Obama Is Pro-Gun, Why Are Leading Anti-Gun and Anti-Hunting Groups Endorsing Him?"
One might just as easily ask, if Obama is so anti-gun, why did one of those endorsers, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, give Obama an "F" for his gun record the following year? The Brady Campaign and other gun control advocates continue to express frustration over actions and inaction by Obama that should bring the NRA delight.
Obama has signed a law that permits
Yet the NRA, which went after Obama with a
In this way, the NRA, which likes to call itself the nation's oldest "oldest continuously operating civil rights organization," exhibits one of the worst attributes that critics often attribute to conventional civil rights organizations: manufactured outrage. If they don't have a real enemy of gun rights in the
But activist gun owners tend to come from the same demographic that gives the least support to Obama: older white men from rural or outer suburban communities. Even unfounded accusations carry convincing weight with people who already are inclined to believe them.
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Gun Lobby Fires Up Obama Fear | Politics
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