Obama has no hope of uniting sides in gun debate

Washington Times:

Pennsylvania sportsmen aren't "bitter" about their guns and balk at what they call Sen. Barack Obama's double-talk in courting their support.

In a state that boasts one of the country's highest per capita rates of membership in the National Rifle Association (NRA), Mr. Obama's stance that Second Amendment gun rights are compatible with new tough gun laws falls flat.

And it didn't help when he said the state's "bitter" small-town voters hurt by the economy were not supporting him because they "cling" to religion, guns and anti-immigrant views.

"It just tells me he is anti-gun," said Debbie Schultz, owner of Schultz's Sportsmens Stop in Apollo, Pa., about 40 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

"We don't need more gun laws and we don't need tougher gun laws, the ones we've got are pretty stringent," said Mrs. Schultz, 53, who has been selling sporting and target firearms for 39 years. "You can't keep a thug from getting a gun [unless] you try to take all the guns from every gun owner and that will never happen in the United States."

Rocco S. Ali, president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, said the two viewpoints embraced by Mr. Obama are incompatible.

"He's tried to satisfy both sides [but] they don't go together," said Mr. Ali, whose organization represents about 95,000 hunters and outdoorsmen in more than 350 clubs.

He said Mr. Obama's pledge to go after "straw purchasers" who dump guns in crime-plagued urban neighborhoods is a pretext for new restrictions that make it harder for everyone to buy firearms. Existing federal and state laws, he said, authorize law-enforcement agencies to investigate any firearm purchase.

...

The problems in Philadelphia is that young black men are killing each other at an alarming rate and there is little that guns laws could do to stop that. A greater effort needs to be made to change the hearts of these young men. It stems from a failure of black parents and leaders and not from the availability of guns. It also stems from the bad choices these young men are making, instead of taking advantage of the opportunities available in this country.