Op-Ed: Obama triangulates on gun control

by Chuck Norris

Loyal readers will recall that I warned last year of the perfect storm approaching on gun control. Now, with the Tucson tragedy as a stepping stone, and with eyes firmly focused on his re-election, the president has finally opened a campaign to appease his base on the polarizing issue of gun control.

Let me completely disclose my position: I am a strong Second Amendment advocate. I believe in protecting our fundamental rights, including our Second Amendment rights, through the political process. To that end, I serve as honorary chairman of the "Trigger the Vote" voter registration campaign.

That campaign is funded by the NRA's Freedom Action Foundation. We work in every election cycle to register gun owners and hunters to vote and add them to the ranks of millions of grassroots voters who have established Second Amendment issues as the new "third rail" of American politics. Those voters, and the newly registered voters we can add to their ranks between now and then, will have the job cut out for them in the 2012 election cycle.

The 2012 re-election now looms large for this administration. Even while the president's top aides are deserting the White House to staff up his campaign office, those left behind seem to be working from a mandate to begin patrolling the divided Democratic base.

Up until now, the Obama White House has given a wide berth to the gun-control debate, abandoning campaign promises to pursue new restrictions on our gun rights. This avoidance does not reflect any shift in position; it is merely recognition of the political reality that most members of his party have no interest in yet another political loser of an issue being crammed down their throats.

At the same time, Obama's liberal base has grown restless and rancorous over the first two years in office, because he hasn't done everything they wanted, at least regarding more restrictions on our Second Amendment rights. They resent the president's avoidance of fulfilling his campaign rhetoric.

Gun-control groups have thrown tantrums for months that Obama wouldn't champion their agenda, with one group resentfully awarding him a grade of "F." And so only now is Obama sticking his toes into the swirling currents of the Second Amendment debate.

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