Friday, October 26, 2012

Politics and Guns

I find the presidential endorsement of the NRA in the upcoming election to be totally confusing.  Mitt Romney campaigned in 1994-when running for the Mass senate seat-on what would appear to be a gun-control platform.  He backed two laws the NRA opposed; one on the Brady Law that would impose a five day waiting period on gun sales (wow, that's radical) and another on a ban on certain types of assault weapons.  While governor he signed the "first ban on assault weapons" in the nation and "steeply increased fees on gun owners by 400 %.  Even thou he stated in Nov 2008 that he was a hunter "pretty much all his life", he later admitted he never had a hunting license.

Barack Obama has presided over a gun industry that has "thrived" during his administration.  The NRA has more money on hand than at any time in the past few years.  During the first three and half years of the Bush II admin the FBI conducted 28 million background checks.  During the same period of the Obama term the FBI conducted 50 million such checks.  The assault weapons ban expired under Bush II and Obama has done nothing to re-instate it.  

So who does the NRA endorse for president in 2012?  Romney.  Now does that make any sense?  Not to me it doesn't.
(Source:  "US gun industry is thriving during Obama's term" by Eileen Sullivan and Jack Gillum of the AP.  In The Virginian Pilot on 10/20/12)

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