Holder shows hand too soon

Guns Magazine, July, 2009 by David Codrea

"Obama to seek new assault weapons ban," declared the ABC News headline.

The source of this ominous information was Attorney General Eric Holder.

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," he elaborated.

Campaign followers will also recall Obama promised, per The Wall Street Journal Washington Wire, "If you've got a gun in your house, I'm not taking it. Even if I want to take them away, I don't have the votes in Congress. This can't be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. I'm not going to take away your guns."

"I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne," he'd been quoted in an earlier ABC report.

Some of us were not surprised, pointing out language from his campaign's "Urban Policy," which has since been transferred to the White House Web site.

"Obama and Biden ... also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent," we were promised.

Banning an entire classification of firearms owned by millions of Americans? That's "just a few gun-related changes"? Besides, how does a blanket ban that affects us all distinguish between what works in Chicago and Cheyenne (assuming gun control "works" in Chi-Town)?

And what compelling reasons are given for renewing the ban?

Again, per ABC: "Holder said ... it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border."

"Some recent Mexican army and police confrontations with drug cartels have resembled small-unit combat, with cartels employing automatic weapons and grenades," the report continued, quoting a recent State Department travel warning.

Curiously, just what in blazes full autos and grenades have to do with banning semi-automatics was not asked. This is, after all, ABC News. Still, Holder's disclosures were not left unchallenged, and by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of all people.

"Pelosi throws cold water on weapons ban," read the next day's headline from The Hill. "On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now," she said. Seemingly forgotten is Pelosi's opposition to expiration of the old ban and support for "intelligent legislation to handle guns," both matters of public record.

But also quick to decry the move was the Americans Hunters and Shooters Association's Ray Schoenke (See "Beware of Moles," Jan. 2006).

"This type of legislation will only disillusion the millions of law-abiding gun owners who voted for Barack Obama, believing that he did indeed support their right to own firearms," he wrote in an open letter to Holder.

This, of course, doesn't square with Schoenke's prior assertion, reported by The Columbus Dispatch in 2006, that "No one needs an assault weapon.

We're being manipulated. A ban attempt is coming. It's just a question of when, not if. Holder simply played his cards too soon.

Visit David Codrea's online journal The War on Guns at waronguns.blogspot.com