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Academic

: Essentially Contested America

Who's the Mallard's Choice for President? Obama? Clinton? Think Again?!

By Robert Justin Lipkin

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For those Americans who believe that gun control is an important issue in the presidential race, which candidate should be the candidate of choice?

Consider this piece in Friday's NY Times: "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he sent a questionnaire to all the presidential candidates asking what they would do to help get illegal guns off the street. Only John Edwards and Ron Paul responded. (Maybe Obama was worried the rogue staff member might get his hands on it.) . . . There was a time in this country when we seemed within reach of a sane gun policy that would have included licensing, laws against multiple gun purchases and bans on weapons that were of no use for sports or personal protection, like say, assault rifles. There was vast public support for these ideas, but they were extremely unpopular among critical pockets of voters in swing states. Many people believe Al Gore lost West Virginia--and the 2000 election--because of National Rifle Association attack ads. . . . Since then, we've had the sound of silence. When Tim Russert brought up gun control during a Democratic debate in Nevada, the candidates seemed to stiffen, as if he'd made a tasteless joke. . . . "Well, I am against illegal guns," said Clinton, unnecessarily, before getting to the point: "I am also a political realist, and I understand that the political winds are very powerful against doing enough to get guns off the street, get them out of the hands of young people." For a finale, she retracted her former support for a national licensing registration plan. . . . Even "Obama, the phenomena" is too weak-kneed to take on the violence-enablers. Senator Obama, "as a state kd:

senator, Obama had talked a lot about licensing and registering gun owners, and he asked Obama if he would pursue that goal as president. . . . I don't think that we can get that done," Obama responded. . . . 'Yes We Can't.'"[Emphasis added] How can the fanatical gun lobby have such a unbreakable hold on any reasonable gun control legislation? The Second Amendment can't explain it. (Click on ECA here.) Even the avarice of insanely powerful gun industry can't explain it. Something deep, dark, and unidentifiable within the American psyche--something that sensible people recoil from--is probably the only explanation. How many more senseless deaths are required to bring law-bidding and constitutionally-respecting Americans to their senses?

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Full post as published by Essentially Contested America on February 23, 2008 (boomark / email).