Pelosi I can’t figure out though. There is no way in hell she is against an AWB, so I’m not sure what her game is, but I am sure she has one. San Francisco is her Home Town, and it is the most hostile city for law abiding gun owners in a state that is one of the most hostile as well. She didn’t just find some new respect for our freedom to bear arms. Maybe she’s waiting for another Columbine when it will be more popular to voice support, I dunno.

I didn’t vote for Obama, guns being one of my prime reasons. I never had any trust for him on this topic, and his history in Illinois did not paint a good picture. But I do hold some hope that the political climate is too hostile to bother burning that political capital to push this agenda. There really are bigger concerns right now, but things can change fast politically, and it would be naive to stake your bets on it.

I truly hope that Dems have taken Bill Clinton’s comments to heart, that the Assault Weapon Ban cost them control of congress in ‘94, and don’t bother with it again. But should the decide to go for it, there will always be plenty of media outlets willing to run pieces calling Machine Guns Assault Weapons, and showing repeat felons who have committed gun crimes, while calling ammunition bullets. The predictability is kinda depressing, in an Orwellian sort of way.

I don’t think Reid had spoken on it when I posted that. He, too, deserves some credit. A lot more credit than I would have suspected he was capable of earning.

I’m praying that they are serious and not just holding out to gather favors.

Montjoie: You’re also correct. Unless it’s a Constitutional amendment, it can just be repealed. And even amendments can be undone by another amendment, as we’ve seen in our history.

But once something’s passed it takes political capital and a movement to undo it. That’s different than renewing something with a sunset. When the 1994 law was about to expire, the onus was on the crowd who wanted to renew to muster the support. If a non-sunset version passes, the onus passes to those who would repeal it.

Today those who would take away freedom have to gather votes. If it passes, it will be those who want to restore freedom who have to do the hardest work.

Look at all of the “Mexican drug runners and LA gang bangers have easy access to automatic weapons” talk today. Multiply that by 100 and add in “the NRA wants to arm criminals with machine guns” if someone starts a campaign to repeal a permanent AWB.

Before this election, although I wasn’t anti-gun and Second Amendment, I was pretty ambivalent to 2nd Amendment issues and felt that gun ownership was something that was of no interest to me. After studying this election and all the issues concerning the upcoming presidency I came to the conclusion that the 2nd Amendment had meaning to a free society. I began to understand what our Founders Fathers and all the way to Blackstone understood about the right to self-protection.

After discovering this web site, as well as many other fine 2nd Amendment sites (Alpheca, Guns and the Law, Vohlkov (sp), Instapundit, et al) I realized that the infringement of our natural rights by our elected leaders was a very real concern. And if this right could be taken away then others could be also.

Throughout his political career Obama has done nothing but indicate that he believes the right to keep and bare arms is not a natural right and one that can be limited by the powers of the government. Why wouldn’t we believe him despite what he said on the campaign trail. I believe he let slip his true intentions when he stated he wouldn’t reintroduce the AWB not because he believes it is unconstitutional, but because he didn’t have the votes.

So I want to thank President Obama for making me research, for making me understand, and for making me now one of the many Americans who are exercising their right of gun ownership.

You don’t like Pelosi or Reid, fair enough. But tell them that you applaud their stance here. For me, I live in a state that has elected a number of pro-gun Democrats. So I’m going to tell them that I expect them to continue to adhere to that position. This goes on long enough, and an AWB won’t be a problem.

At one point Obama even said that he wouldn’t do it “because he didn’t have the votes” to do it, and this would seem to be in line with what I understand your rationalization to be. But he just flat out did it anyway. THAT is exactly what I’m saying and where I’m coming from.

Some people said he would do this. Others said he wouldn’t and had a long list of reasons why. Then Obama just went and did it anyway, reasons or no reasons. The first AWB had a lot of trouble at first, too. Pelosi and such are saying they’re opposed today, but the need to keep saying that forever. Really. They need to remain opposed forever and ever and ever and ever. Because if for just one day, for some reason, they change there mind?

ZAP! AWB in place.

And then we’ll have all these people going on and on about how they didn’t think the Dems would really do it and they’ll have a long list of reasons why they thought so. But it won’t help anyone.

It appears where we disagree is this statement. Any number of people of my acquaintance voted for Obama with this rationale. “Yeah, Obama says he’d like to do it, and it is in line with what he has done in the past. But every Democrat around me is saying that wouldn’t vote for it, when Clinton did it, the Democrats do it, and it’ll piss off a huge number of people who are voting for Obama who aren’t Democratic base voters.” A certain amount of wishful thinking, but I don’t think this is a “woefully/willfully ignorant” point of view, considering even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are essentially falling in line with it.

Honestly, I think I maybe have less trouble with the liars who lied to me about Obama and got him elected so that he could enact policies contrary to what I think is right than I do with the ignorant types. Those folks are just using dishonorable tactics to achieve their goals.

The people who seem to have been either woefully/willfully ignorant of Obama’s probable course of action or simply wished away the things about Obama that they didn’t like and happily pulled the lever for him are the ones that I think are a much bigger problem.