Leftist blog calls on Obama to bring gun control back to the campaign trail

By Chad D. Baus

Even while former Joyce Foundation board member Barack Obama seeks to cover up his anti-gun past with empty platitudes about an individual right to bear arms that can be "common-sense" limited into oblivion, and while his supporters attempted to make the case that the Supreme Court's ruling on D.C. v. Heller made “Guns a Non-Issue” in the Presidential campaign, there is at least one leftist blog - the Huffington Post - that wants Obama to "Bring the Assault Weapons Ban Back Into Presidential Politics."

Let me go on record and say that I agree with them. Obama should do this.

I suppose I should admit my advice is given with ulterior motives. I want Obama talking assault weapons on the campaign trail because I know it would prove to be yet another in a growing string of miscalculations that are moving his White House dreams farther and farther away from reality.

From the story:

Tonight, Barack Obama is attending a fundraiser in Newark, New Jersey. I truly hope he uses this opportunity to speak about Bukhari Washington and the tragic lunacy of allowing civilians to possess assault weapons legally.

...On August 14, Bukhari Washington was killed as he lay in bed. A bullet shot accidentally from a semiautomatic assault rifle in the apartment below him went up through his pillow and ended his life. The 19 year-old neighbor who shot him had no prior criminal record; it appears to have been a horrible accident.

In 2004, George W. Bush and the NRA-influenced Republican congress allowed the federal ban on assault weapons to expire. While the RNC proved that the Republican are looking to identity politics to determine the election, Barack Obama appears admirably set on winning on the issues, and legally restricting assault rifles is an issue on which Democrats have the high ground.

If the Democrats believe they have the high ground on this issue, I welcome them to keep standing on it, for it is the very same ground that cost them control of Congress in 1994, and cost them control of the White House in 2000 and again in 2004.

Later in the HuffPo story, writer Dan Brown opines that "it's not liberal or conservative to listen to Bukhari Washington speak from beyond his early grave, and then to think about ways that responsible leadership in government could have prevented his death."

But a quick Google search reveals that with or without the types of gun control proposals this leftist blogger wants Obama to add to his stump speeches, Terrance Perry would still have been able to obtain this rifle, because he acquired it illegally.

According to the Associated Press, Washington was killed because "19-year-old Terrance Perry was handling a stolen rifle he had acquired for protection in a neighborhood where teens recall stabbings or fights the way suburban kids recite baseball scores." (emphasis added)

Dan Brown wants Obama to channel Bukhari Washington, and then to "think about ways that responsible leadership in government could have prevented his death." But since gun control laws already in place failed to prevent this tragedy, it is easier to imagine Bukhari Washington's ghost encouraging someone to take the time to educate the Terrance Perrys of the world on safe gun handling (i.e. keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, don't load a firearm until ready to shoot, keep your finger off the trigger until ready to shoot - you know - advice that, if followed, would have kept Washington alive) instead of calling for more useless gun control laws, the types of which did nothing to prevent Terrance Perry from obtaining and misusing the firearm that lead to Washington's death.

Chad D. Baus is the Buckeye Firearms Association Vice Chairman.