A 'Nuanced' Stance on Guns

When Barack Obama was dinged not only by John McCain but by his Democratic primary opponents over his desire to meet with rogue leaders and terrorists 'with no preconditions,' he claimed the entire matter was a misunderstanding of his 'nuanced' stance on foreign policy issues.

We can 'take him at his word,' after all. Such things are 'no big deal' because he told us so. We can 'trust him.'

Would this be like John McCain could trust Obama when he told McCain in private, and in public at a news conference, that he would accept public funding for his campaign if McCain would, only to 'change his mind' once it was clear his campaign contributions would fall far outside the limits imposed on campaigns once they accept public funds?

The only problem was that McCain had gone ahead and accepted the limitations of public funding, believing in good faith that Obama would 'keep his word.'

I knew that the 'bait and switch' tactic was as old as the hills, but I never remember thinking of it as 'nuanced.'

And then there is the time that Obama stated before a Jewish audience that he believes there should be 'a united Jerusalem under Israeli control.'

In less that a week he was telling a different audience that he supported the goals of a Palestinian state, which of course, includes that little issue of dividing Jerusalem.

It is no small matter that since the campaign ended Obama has sharpened his rhetoric to indicate he would support rolling back Israel's borders to the pre-1968 lines.

More 'nuance,' of course.

Is it any wonder, then, that the nation's gunowners, which are estimated to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 million citizens, are not comforted by Obama's words on gun rights when he says, 'I think that people can take me at my word'?

So what, then, did he say about guns? He said that he supports an individual right to own guns but that states and local entities can place restrictions on those rights.

This nuance business is starting to give me a headache.

So, let's break it down. Obama's actions, not his words, are to be trusted. That is, we can trust him to be rather consistent with his past behavior as a Senator and as an Illinois legislator.

And his record on gun rights is dismal. We all know the gist of it by now: his opposition to allow homeowners to use non-registered firearms to defend their lives and property in a home invasion, his push for gun bans as a legislator and as a Senator, his long-held belief that all handguns should be banned, etc., etc.

Thus, Obama at some nebulous, undefinable level in his own mind may actually support gun rights, but in practice he has consistently come down on the side of restriction, control, limits to access, and confiscation.

And there is absolutely no 'nuance' about that.

Read more on this subject at The American Thinker.