President Obama is a great communicator and strategist, but he is not a great negotiator. His handling of the fiscal cliff is a case in point.
With respect to gun control, again, unfortunately, President Obama, a man I respect and admire, has set himself up for a suboptimal outcome. He needs to re-watch the movie Lincoln to get a sense of how hard you have to push to change something as big as the American Constitution.
When Mr. Obama says that ‘there must be some room between the Second Amendment and the nation’s need to protect its kids that Congress can get done", he is engaging in wishful thinking. Without the repeal of the Second Amendment nothing meaningful can be achieved.
Repealing the Second Amendment will be as hard as passing the Thirteenth Amendment. It is going to take every trick in the book and a lot of arm twisting in the backroom (if not some covert job offers and untoward promises).
I am hoping that Mayor Bloomberg, who has the cash to fight the NRA, will get this one right and push for a repeal of the Second Amendment. As long as the Second Amendment is in place meaningful gun control will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. This is due to the simple fact that the judiciary has to uphold the law and the Second Amendment (in combination with its judicial interpretations since the beginning of the Republic) clearly protects the right to ‘bear arms’. That means that the Constitution protects my rights to own and carry a gun, pistol, rifle, semi-automatic assault weapon, knife, sword, pike, bazooka, Sherman tank, nuclear submarine, aircraft carrier etc.
In turns out that American citizens can own Sherman Tanks, for example, they just can’t drive them on public roads.
Repealing the Second Amendment does not mean that guns will be outlawed. But it will set the stage for the legislative branch to decide how ‘arms’ should be regulated, just like it regulates drugs, speed limits, auto emissions, weights and measures, and just about everything else.
Only when gun control is back in the legislative branch and out of the judiciary through the repeal of the Second Amendement can the will of the people be expressed and our children kept safe from lunatics with guns.
Please vist the White House web site and sign this petition.