Palin Pick Protects Pistol Power, says Gun Law Expert, and Overshadows Obama Oscillation on Second Amendment Issues

September 1 2008

“When GOP presidential nominee John McCain last Friday picked Alaska’s sharp shooting Gov. Sarah Palin for his vice-presidential running mate, the selection underscored the significance of Americans’ gun rights in the forthcoming national elections and began to galvanize the Second Amendment movement into support for the McCain candidacy,” right to self-defense advocate John M. Snyder stated here today.

“The McCain-Palin ticket,” Snyder added, “contrasts sharply with gun-grabbing records of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Hussein Obama and vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden.

“McCain signed the congressional amicus brief supporting Dick Heller’s challenge to the District of Columbia handgun ban as a violation of the individual Second Amendment civil right to keep and bear arms. Under Palin’s gubernatorial leadership, Alaska joined a multi-state amicus brief supporting Heller. Both Senators Obama and Biden refused to sign the congressional brief. The Supreme Court agreed with McCain and Palin and threw out the D.C. law in its landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision on June 26.”

Snyder said, “While McCain notes that, ‘for more than two decades I’ve opposed efforts to ban guns,’ Obama’s been a gun banner from the get go. He has an extensive anti-gun owner public record despite his occasional euphemistic references to the Second Amendment, including the one last week in his nomination acceptance speech. He even had the cynical gall to state he agreed with the Court decision in the Heller case after his campaign had told the Chicago Tribune last November that ‘Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.’

“When ABC’s local Washington, D.C. affiliate asked Obama: ‘One other issue that’s of great importance here in the district as well is gun control…but you support the D.C. handgun ban?’ Obama: ‘Right.’ When ABC’s Leon Harris continued with, ‘and you’ve said that it’s constitutional,’ Obama said, ‘right.’”

Snyder recalled also that an Illinois candidate questionnaire revealed Obama supported a general state handgun ban in 1996. He later “flatly denied” the handgun ban statement and blamed it on a state senate campaign staffer for incorrectly filling out the questionnaire. However, the publication Politico located a copy of the filled-out questionnaire. Obama’s own notes in his own handwriting showed that he personally checked answers and corrected them.

“Obama is a shifty character and his election to the highest office in the land would be a tragedy for America’s 80 million law-abiding gun owners and also for the entire country,” noted Snyder. “Some people in political life may try to square the circle, to claim they support both gun rights and Obama, but you can’t have it both ways. You cannot serve both freedom and Obama! You cannot honor both truth and Barack!

“Obama has supported a ban on the sale of all semiautomatic firearms. He and Biden support reinstatement of the Clinton Administration era’s ban on the sale and importation of certain semiautomatic firearms, a ban that was allowed to sunset 10 years after it took effect because of its failure as a crime control measure. Biden voted three years ago against a measure to prohibit harassing third party civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers or importers of firearms or ammunition. By contrast, McCain voted for the measure and it became law, known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.”

More here