Thursday, July 31, 2008

Obama and concealed carry

This is a Chicago Sun Times article from April of this year interviewing Senator Obama on a variety of issues, including his position on aspects of gun-control:
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama sat down with Sun-Times Political Reporter Abdon M. Pallasch on Thursday to discuss the rash of gun violence in Chicago that included the killing of five people in one house on Wednesday:

Sun-Times: Have you been following the news of all the gun deaths?

Barack Obama: The news has just been heart-breaking. I've asked my staff to contact the Chicago Police Department. and I'm going to put in a call to the mayor just to find out just what is accounting for this huge uptick.

S-T: Is there anything the federal, state, or local government can do?

B.O.: There's a bunch of things we can do. I've already said as president I want to restore [federal] COPS funding, which will put police on the streets. Additional police improves public safety. New York has seen a huge drop in crime over the last decade, more than even other cities, and part of it is they've got more cops than anybody else per capita. We've got to help local communities put more police on the streets. We want to make sure we provide state and local government with the targeting information they need, the technology they need to make sure police are going to the places most at risk for gun violence. We've got to tighten up our gun laws. I've said before we should have a much tougher background check system, one that's much more effective and make sure there aren't loopholes out there like the gun show loophole. [Or] The Tiahart Amendment [requiring destruction of gun-purchase records.] Here's an example of something common-sense: The ATF [federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms] should be able to share info with local communities about where guns are coming from, tracing guns that are used in criminal activity. It's been blocked consistently in Congress. As president, I'm gong to make sure we know if guns are being sold by unscrupulous gun dealers not abiding by existing laws. We should know about that. [emphasis added]
...
S-T: As a state legislator, you voted against a bill which would let people with orders of protection [against others] carry guns and another that would have barred municipalities from punishing people who kept guns in their homes. Why?

B.O.: I felt that [the first one] was a precedent for conceal-and-carry laws. There has not been any evidence that allowing people to carry a concealed weapon is going to make anybody safer. [The second one] is relevant to the D.C. handgun issue. I wanted to preserve the right of local communities to enforce local ordinances and this would have overturned municipalities being able to enforce their own ordinances. We can argue about whether the ordinances work or not. But I wanted to make sure that local communities were recognized as having a right to regulate firearms. [emphasis added]
Senator Obama is surrounded on a daily basis by Secret Service agents carrying concealed weapons. If he truly believes that there is no "evidence that allowing people to carry a concealed weapon is going to make anybody safer", then shouldn't he order his security detail to carry openly? Or perhaps, not carry at all? Of course, maybe by "people" he doesn't mean political royalty like himself.

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