Would that estimate be based on his previous record? Because if it is, then I believe you're being naive. IF he turns out not to be too bad, it won't be because he is sympathetic to gun rights. Rather, it will be because he knows it would help to cement a loss of the presidency in 2012. He is a political calculator concerned more with getting and holding onto power than he is in defending the 2nd Amendment. (If you don't believe that he is a political calculator, notice how his threat to close GITMO went from "my first day in office," to "my first 100 days in office," to "sometime in 2013." The first was uttered during the campaign. The second became the mantra when he began to campaign more toward the center in the last couple of weeks of the campaign. The third became the mantra when he won the campaign and started getting the same daily intelligence briefing that President Bush gets. He really has no principles - like many politicians - and if he thinks that taking your guns, and mine, will strengthen him politically, he will do it, without any compunctions what so ever.)amber wrote:I think some of you are going to be surprised he's no worse for guns than Bush.
Be that as it may, although the Democrat caucus happens to be led right now by a couple of crazies (Pelosi & Reid), there are a number of Blue Dog democrats whom the NRA supports because of their staunch pro-gun advocacy, and without their support, Reid and Pelosi can't muster enough votes to override a presidential veto (were Obama to run counter to his record and threaten such a veto). Those Blue Dogs are never going to vote for anything like an AWB. If there are enough of them (and I don't really know how may there are, for sure), their votes combined with a probably unified Republican block might be enough to defeat an AWB. So it looks to me like the only way that an AWB can possibly pass is with a simple majority and an Obama signature. In order to get even that simple majority, Reid and Pelosi will have to make some significant concessions to the Blue Dogs, because if they don't and those Blue Dogs vote to pass the AWB, those districts will go Republican in 2010, or 2012 at worst, the dem party will be hosed, and Reid and Pelosi know it.
But don't think for a minute that Obama wouldn't sign even a modified AWB into law if given half a chance. Remember, he believes in "common sense" gun control, which is Democrat code for "further restrictions on the 2nd Amendment" - a concept in which he has publicly announced that he believes. After all, if he believes that D.C.'s illegalizing semi-automatic pistols as "machine guns" is a "reasonable restriction" (his words, not mine), then he surely believes that the outlawing of the sale of AR15s and pistol magazines over 10 rounds are "reasonable restrictions" that will "keep AK47s out of the hands of gang members. Hey, I don't make these things up. He actually said them, and he has said them since he won the election. Just go back and review his record in the Illinois Senate, in which is gun rights record is abysmal.