Guns and Politics

Obama's "bitter" comments where he equated gun ownership and religion with racism, xenophobia, and being anti-trade will cost him. He had been courting the religious vote and this will not help his case with them. The gun lobby is another group that should not be angered. Obama has forgotten the lessons of the Clinton years.

Gun control was a big part of the early Clinton years. Some centerpiece legislation included a three-day waiting period for gun ownership (which was replaced with instant background checks). The Clinton administration also tried to severely reduce the number of gun dealers and gun shows. Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, was seen as being very hostile to gun ownership. During his administration, Bill made several comments that proved that gun control was something that he believed in, not a position he adopted out of expediency.

This cost the Democrats. In 1994 the Republicans gained control of Congress for the first time in a generation. The two big issues that helped the Republicans were Clinton's gas tax increase and his attempts at gun control. The NRA doubled its membership and raised significant lobbying funds during this period as gun owners looked for protection.

The gun legislation that did pass made it through the Senate on a 50-50 vote with Al Gore casting the deciding vote. The Clinton administration praised him at the time as their "magic bullet" for getting legislation passed. Gore's anti-gun votes ended up costing him the presidency.

In 2000, Gore would have won the election if he had won one more state - any state. One state that he lost was his home state of Tennessee. Exit polls showed that the number of single-issue pro gun voters was greater than Bush's victory margin. If gun owners hadn't voted against Gore then he probably would have won Tennessee and the presidency.

This was not lost on the Democrats in 2004. Gun control was officially given a low priority in the party platform. Howard Dean ran as a pro-gun Democrat. John Kerry made a show of going duck hunting. This didn't actually help him much since the tags were still on his brand-new hunting outfit and he was the only member of his group to return without a duck. Kerry was every bit as good at hunting as Obama is at bowling. Regardless, Kerry tried to assure voters that gun control was off the table (at least for hunters).

Hillary learned this lesson. Over the weekend she ran from Bill's record on gun-control by telling about her grandfather in Pennsylvania teaching her to shoot when she was young. Whatever her private views on gun control and gun ownership (and they are probably close to Bill's views) you will not catch her denigrating gun owners.

This will cost Obama. All that Republicans need to do to appeal to gun owners is remind them that Obama thinks that they are bitter racists.