Word on the street is that Barack Obama is out stumping for a national ban on carrying concealed weapons. Each of those words links to an article by someone else who said what I would have said. So instead of simply adding a “This,” let’s jump into the wayback machine and try to understand his reasoning (or lack thereof) for this..
Back on February 20, 2004, the Chicago Tribune published an article about Obama and gun control. The article is now locked away inside a subscription-only section of their site, but it was covered here and here. At any rate, when asked about taking the Illinois ban nationwide, he had this to say:
National legislation will prevent other states’ flawed concealed-weapons law from threatening the safety of Illinois residents.
Think about that for a second.
As it stands, Illinois is one of just two States which does not allow anyone other than law enforcement to carry a concealed handgun under any circumstances. They issue no permits whatsoever. And being that they do not recognize any other States’ permits, nobody from any other State is allowed to carry concealed handguns into Illinois. Full stop.
So, yea, how exactly would a national ban protect Illinois residents? Does he mean to protect them when they travel to other States? And if so, who is he protecting them from? Or, more precisely, which residents is he claiming to protect?
The only way some other States’ concealed weapons laws would be “threatening the safety of Illinois residents” is if said residents threatened death or grievous bodily harm upon someone in another State who has a concealed weapon. Otherwise, there would be no reason to shoot them. Ergo, the only Illinois residents he would be keeping safe are those who would travel to other States to commit violent crimes. I guess you could almost think of it as offering job security and industrial growth to criminals.
And I suppose it would also be much easier for his homicidal anti-gun buddies to have their way with us if we can’t defend ourselves..