So Far, Obama Era Has Been Good for Gun Owners

(June 29) -- Monday's Supreme Court decision upholding individual gun rights is the latest development to challenge the notion that the Second Amendment is a target for the Obama administration. In fact, one commentator says, the last couple of years have been a "gun rights renaissance."

Even before he was elected, some opponents warned that Barack Obama would be the "most anti-gun president in American history." Conservative blogs and talk shows stoked fears that he intended to disarm law-abiding citizens. When a woman at a 2008 Obama appearance in Pennsylvania asked him about the rumors, the candidate assured her, "If you've got a gun in your house, I'm not taking it. ... I'm not going to take away your guns."

The summer before the election, the Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban. Obama praised the ruling as "the first clear statement on this issue in 127 years" and said it provided "much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions."

"I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne," he continued, calling for "common-sense laws" that "protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe."

Monday's decision was an extension of that 2008 ruling. In a case challenging Chicago's handgun ban, the justices said the Second Amendment could be used to block state and local gun laws.

The president has not issued a statement on the high court's latest decision, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was pleased.

"With today's ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has helped ensure that the Second Amendment rights of Americans will be protected in all corners of our country," said Reid, who's in a tough re-election fight in pro-gun Nevada.

Sen. Pat Leahy -- a Vermont liberal who's likely to win another term this fall -- also said he supports the ruling.

"Combined with the Court's 2008 decision to overturn Washington D.C.'s handgun ban, the fact that 48 states now have some form of concealed carry permitting, and the current Democratic Congress' vote to allow guns in federal parks -- which was signed into law by President Obama last year -- Americans are living through a gun rights renaissance," John Avlon wrote in Tuesday's Daily Beast.

But National Rifle Association membership is up -- as are sales of weapons and ammunition -- because of a nagging fear that Obama will impose new restrictions on guns. In a Gallup poll last fall, 55 percent of gun owners and 41 percent of all Americans surveyed said they believed Obama would try to ban the sale of guns.

"If someone believes that the government is coming to seize their guns, news of Supreme Court cases seem distant and intellectual compared to emotional appeals by their favorite opinion-anchor," Avlon noted.

"Their fears are clearly misplaced," said AlterNet's Joshua Holland, who recalled that just a little more than a decade ago, the Clinton administration was enacting bans on assault rifles. "The fight over guns has moved to the margins, with state legislatures grappling with issues like whether people can carry concealed firearms into airports, whether to ban concealed weapons in bars and even whether a person should be able to get drunk if they are allowed to pack heat at their favorite pub."

Indeed, the NRA is now taking aim not at Obama but at local officials such as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who said his city will rewrite its gun ban because of the Supreme Court's decision. NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre said he's worried that "defiant city councils and cynical politicians" will try to nullify the ruling by imposing "a byzantine labyrinth of regulations and restrictions."

Even though the court has once again sided with gun rights advocates, Holland predicted they won't stop the Obama-wants-to-take-your guns talk. "Guns are too critical to the culture wars -- they represent what Karl Rove called an 'anger point' that stokes the passions of the conservative base."

One variation of the claim is contained in an e-mail that's been making its way around the Web for months. It claims Obama plans to use a United Nations treaty on small arms to circumvent the Second Amendment.

The viral message reads:

On Wednesday the Obama administration took its first major step in a plan to ban all firearms in the United States. The Obama administration intends to force gun control and a complete ban on all weapons for U.S. citizens through the signing of international treaties with foreign nations. By signing international treaties on gun control, the Obama administration can use the U.S. State Department to bypass the normal legislative process in Congress. Once the U.S. Government signs these international treaties, all U.S. citizens will be subject to those gun laws created by foreign governments. These are laws that have been developed and promoted by organizations such as the United Nations and individuals such as George Soros and Michael Bloomberg. The laws are designed and intended to lead to the complete ban and confiscation of all firearms.

The e-mail references a Reuters article from November 2009 that said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a reversal of Bush administration policy, had announced the U.S. would support starting talks on a treaty to tighten international regulations on the import, export and transfer of conventional weapons to keep them off the black market.

The e-mail has been recycled on blogs since last year. It picked up a new opening sentence last month to make it appear more current: "While you were watching the oil spill, the New York failed terrorist bombing and other critical crises, Hillary Clinton signed the small arms treaty with the U.N."

"This international agreement poses real risks for freedom both in the United States and around the world by making it more difficult -- if not outright illegal -- for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms," a May 27 Washington Times editorial warned. "The U.N. Small Arms Treaty opens a back door for the Obama administration to force through gun control regulations."

Several fact-checking sites have shot down the story -- noting that the e-mail is riddled with misinformation and that such a treaty would not affect domestic gun rights. Even the NRA joined in debunking the myth.

"Contrary to this widely circulated e-mail, Hillary Clinton has not signed any small arms treaty. She could not have done so, in fact, because no such treaty has yet been negotiated," explained the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. "As we noted in an update from last November, the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty will be drafted between now and 2012, and even if signed, would not take effect in the U.S. until it was ratified by the Senate."

And if the Senate somehow ratified a pact that threatened Americans' gun rights, the Constitution would still trump the treaty, under a 1957 Supreme Court decision.

Dennis Henigan of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence told AOL News on Monday that the Supreme Court's conservative majority might have done his cause a favor with this latest ruling -- by forcing gun rights advocates to abandon the argument that handgun bans were the first step toward government confiscation. Although the court expanded the reach of the Second Amendment, it also said the ruling "does not imperil every law regulating firearms."

Beneath all the "overheated partisan rhetoric," Avlon suggested, "something more constructive may be happening in the long-running culture war over gun rights."

"The reality is that fighting gun crime aggressively does not have to be inconsistent with the individual right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Even the National Rifle Association strongly supports increased mandatory sentencing for gun crimes. And even New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg now acknowledges that licensed guns are rarely used by their owners to commit crimes," he wrote. "We can protect the right of legal gun owners while dramatically ramping up prosecution and penalties for illegal gun trafficking, possession and any crimes committed with a gun. The common goal should be long-term crime control, not perpetuating paranoid fantasies for short-term political gain."