Obama to thank for gun-sales boom
Gun sales are surging around the country. The FBI processed 78,998 requests for gun sale-related background checks in December in Georgia, up from just 37,586 such requests in October. Alabama saw an even sharper rise to 80,576 from 32,850 for the same period, part of what The Associated Press has described as a huge increase in gun sales.
What’s driving the sudden rise? Clearly, the well-placed fear that President Barack Obama and Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate will try to impose dramatic restrictions in gun ownership rights. The curtailment of such rights has long been part of the liberal/progressive agenda. They prefer a model along the lines of Great Britain, where it is nearly impossible to purchase a handgun and ownership of hunting weapons is severely restricted.
Obama’s push comes in the wake of last year’s movie theater massacre in Colorado that left 12 people dead and the school shooting in Connecticut that took the lives of 26 victims. Obama ally Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., already has announced plans to try and renew the Clinton-era federal ban on the manufacture of certain semi-automatic firearms (aka “assault weapons”), which expired in 2004 and which, studies showed, had no impact on gun violence. Critics also note that most of the weapons affected by the ban needed only minor cosmetic changes to get around the ban.
Obama has appointed Vice President Joe Biden to head a task force that is expected to make recommendations to the president soon.
It is highly probable those recommendations will include not just an attempt to ban assault-type weapons, but also a push to limit the sale and ownership of high-capacity magazines for such weapons. It’s possible that even some conservatives might go along with banning such magazines.
It’s obvious that more must be done to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally unstable... And it’s equally obvious that there is a clear need for such people to be off the streets and in treatment facilities, too many of which were closed in the 1980s and ‘90s. ...
So a balancing act is just ahead: How to make our streets and schools safer without infringing on the rights of the law-abiding? After all, it is not your hunters or your “solid citizens” who own guns for self-defense who are going on shooting rampages. However, it is precisely those gun owners who feel they are now in Obama’s figurative sights — and they are the ones now flocking to gun stores and gun shows.

— Online: mdjonline.com