This morning I listened to a radio report about a campaign appearance by Presidential Candidate Barack Obama in Scranton, Pennsylvania. A voter, who seemed friendly enough by the sound of her voice, asked Obama about rumors about whether he would take away people’s guns if elected.
I just shook my head when I heard this.
One thing I’ve always wanted to know is just how the government could go about taking people’s guns away? Let’s say that by some impossible occurrence, the Second Amendment were repealed. This could not happen for real, but let’s just say for purposes of this blog post that it did happen. Do you think people would just give up their guns?
How about the late Charlton Heston (in the photo above) and the National Rifle Association members he represented? Would they give up their guns just because they were instructed to do so?
Do you think this couple in the picture below would just go to voluntary drop-off point and give up that gun they have on the stove? Or hand it over to federal gun collector who rings the door to collect the guns?
( The picture was taken by Kyle Cassidy for his book Armed Americans–Portraits of Gun Owners In Their Homes.)
Or this guy– Would he quit hunting because a law was passed banning guns?
No. Whatever gun control laws passed with regard to the millions and millions of guns owned in America, none are going to involve going into people’s homes and taking away guns. Do you think Obama is going to be sitting in the Oval Office signing an order to round up people’s guns?
If we reached the point of government forcing everybody who owns a gun to give it up, we would be in a police state of some kind. Gun owners and the rest of us would be over-matched by the huge weapons and tanks that the government has.
Nobody is coming for your gun. People should be worrying about other stuff. If gun issues are stopping you from voting for Obama, you don’t have much to worry about. The NRA has a vested stake in keeping people hyped-up on this issue. Ask the NRA what they are going to do to get you higher wages or to improve the school your kids attend.
