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Obama is silent on guns, but still attacked by NRA




Gun enthusiasts across the country seem to fear what President Obama might do to their Second Amendment rights if re-elected, despite the fact that he’s done very little to inhibit their right to bear arms, Darren Samuelsohn of Politico reported in a story published just before the movie-theater shooting near Denver in which 12 people were killed.

Obama hasn’t pushed an assault weapons ban or tried to force background checks on people who buy guns from unlicensed dealers at gun shows. He’s barely mentioned anything about restricting gun use, even after then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot last year in Arizona and has made no such suggestion in the wake of the killings in Aurora, Colo., last week.

Still, the National Rifle Association distrusts the president, Samuelsohn reports. The group has allotted $40 million to help defeat him in the November election, continues to claim he would “gut the Second Amendment” in his second term and rallies its members to keep believing that.

Samuelsohn also reports that gun and ammunition sales are again on the rise, as they were immediately after Obama took offi ce. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun-industry trade group, has said sales are rising because gun owners are afraid weapons won’t be available if Obama is reelected.

The NRA seems to be exploiting the sensibilities of rural people in its attack ads, as Samuelsohn reports: “In 2008, the NRA went after Obama with a $15 million ad campaign aimed at gun enthusiasts in a dozen swing states, plus $25 million more for member communications about the election. A similar plan for the next four months is expected to revive Obama’s 2008 comment at a supposedly private fund-raiser that when Americans in rural and poor parts of the country “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion.”

Source: The University of Kentucky Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.



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