In the imaginations and fever dreams of right-wing Republicans, President Obama is a signature away from confiscating the nation's guns, and delivering them to his personal Sharia-law task force. But as Ryan Reilly reports for Talking Points Memo, the truth is that Obama has done very little to advance anything approaching gun control, and in fact, has even signed legislation allowing guns in national parks and Amtrak trains:
"The notion that 'Obama is coming after your guns' is pretty laughable at this point," Ramsey said. His group has issued a report card flunking Obama on seven of its important issues, though he noted that it's not just the Obama administration at fault:
Congress has "made it clear that they don't want to deal with anything on guns," he said.
Even gun rights groups can't point to concrete actions taken by the Obama administration against gun rights.
"Let's be honest, the Democrats have shied away from the gun issue for a number of years," Dave Workman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms told TPMMuckraker.
It's actually astounding to see the extent to which Democrats have completely given up on gun control. Twenty years ago, gun control was a key part of the Democratic platform; Bill Clinton campaigned on a promise to take assault weapons off the streets, and one of his first major accomplishments in office was the Brady Bill, which instituted federal background checks on firearm purchasers. Today, the opposite is true; Obama shows zero interest in regulating guns, and more important, the Democratic base doesn't see gun control as especially important. And this is to say nothing of Supreme Court rulings that favor the rights of gun owners over federal, state, and local government efforts to regulate the gun market.
For what it's worth, I don't have much of an opinion on gun control, though it does strike me as something that should be the prerogative of states and localities. That said, this fight is over. As I've said before, Republicans have won the fight over gun control, despite having never received the memo on their victory. Hell, insofar that the issue even has salience, it's because unscrupulous conservatives are trying make a quick buck by exploiting right-wing paranoia about the black president with an African name.
-- Jamelle Bouie