Factcheck..org: NRA Targets Obama | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008

NRA Targets Obama

It falsely claims in mailers and TV ads that Obama plans to ban handguns, hunting ammo and use of a gun for home defense.

By D'Angelo Gore and Brooks Jackson | factcheck.org

Sep 22, 2008 | Updated: 3:48 p.m. ET Sep 29, 2008

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Summary
A National Rifle Associationadvertising campaign distorts Obama's position on gun control beyond recognition.

The NRA is circulating printed material and running TV ads making unsubstantiated claims that Obama plans to ban use of firearms for home defense, ban possession and manufacture of handguns, close 90 percent of gun shops and ban hunting ammunition.

Much of what the NRA passes off as Obama's "10 Point Plan to 'Change' the Second Amendment" is actually contrary to what he has said throughout his campaign: that he "respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms" and "will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns."

The NRA, however, simply dismisses Obama's stated position as "rhetoric" and substitutes its own interpretation of his record as a secret "plan." Said an NRA spokesman: "We believe our facts."

Perhaps so, but believing something doesn't make it so. And we find the NRA has cherry-picked, twisted and misrepresented Obama's record to come up with a bogus "plan."

Update, Sept. 29: The Obama campaign asked broadcasters to take down ads from the NRA, citing this article and a separate Washington Post article that called the ads misleading. The NRA attacked us on its Web site, claiming that we are neither impartial nor independent. We respond in the Analysis section.

Analysis
The NRA announced it will spend $40 million during this year's elections, including $15 million to portray Sen. Barack Obama as a threat to gun rights. The NRA has been circulating fliers and mailers that claim to be "Barack Obama's 10-Point Plan to 'Change' the Second Amendment." And on Sept. 22 reports surfaced that the NRA had launched TV ads in several key states, also attacking Obama. They are false portrayals.

The flier looks almost as though it comes from the Obama campaign. It uses the same color and font scheme as well as the campaign's sunrise logo. And on some points it is right; Obama has called for national legislation against carrying concealed firearms, and he would revive and make permanent the expired ban on semi-automatic "assault weapons," for example. On other points it exaggerates. Obama has spoken in favor of government registration of handguns, for example, but has not called for registration of all "firearms" including hunting rifles and shotguns. But the TV spots and fliers also make claims that are directly contrary to what Obama actually says about guns.

What Obama Says
Obama lays out his basic stance on guns in a "Sportsmen" fact sheet and also in an "Urban Policy" paper on reducing gun violence. The NRA's claims find little support here.

Jim Johnson, you're an idiot.
Are you still reading your anti-communism propaganda? Beware the Reds.
"(National Socialism)"?! That doesn't even makes sense! The Nazis were fascists. Most countries in Europe exhibit some form of your dreaded socialism, in the form of nationalized healthcare and education. I thought it amounted to common decency, ethics and morals. If one cannot feed himself, you help him. If one cannot afford medicine, you help him, and so on.

And I like your point about the virtuous capitalists. Thank god for the good fat cats on wall street in all their virtue. Definitely no vice in their greed that lead to this crisis. Because "business ethics" is not an oxymoron.

Learn something before you post again please.

Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.

Member Comments

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Posted By: Braes @ 11/12/2008 11:34:08 PM

I tend to believe this. I also think that the 2nd Amendment flaming is a way to keep us Southerners completely freaked out about the agenda for 70+ days. I got push-polled on this and abortion even after the election. Someone is paying for this stuff.
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Posted By: Billysson @ 10/16/2008 9:05:40 PM

Jim Johnson, you're an idiot.
Are you still reading your anti-communism propaganda? Beware the Reds.
"(National Socialism)"?! That doesn't even makes sense! The Nazis were fascists. Most countries in Europe exhibit some form of your dreaded socialism, in the form of nationalized healthcare and education. I thought it amounted to common decency, ethics and morals. If one cannot feed himself, you help him. If one cannot afford medicine, you help him, and so on.

And I like your point about the virtuous capitalists. Thank god for the good fat cats on wall street in all their virtue. Definitely no vice in their greed that lead to this crisis. Because "business ethics" is not an oxymoron.

Learn something before you post again please.
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Jim Johnson @ 10/16/2008 1:18:18 PM

Obama's view of the future of America - Socialism which is the next step to Communism!!

Under socialism a ruling class of intellectuals, bureaucrats and social planners decide what people want or what is good for society and then use the coercive power of the State to regulate, tax, and redistribute the wealth of those who work for a living. In other words, socialism is a form of legalized theft.

The morality of socialism can be summed-up in two words: envy and self-sacrifice. Envy is the desire to not only possess another's wealth but also the desire to see another's wealth lowered to the level of one's own. Socialism's teaching on self-sacrifice was nicely summarized by two of its greatest defenders, Hermann Goering and Bennito Mussolini. The highest principle of Nazism (National Socialism), said Goering, is: "Common good comes before private good." Fascism, said
Mussolini, is "a life in which the individual, through the sacrifice of his own private interests??realizes that completely spiritual existence in which his value as a man lies."

Socialism is the social system which institutionalizes envy and self-sacrifice: It is the social system which uses compulsion and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from the producer class for its redistribution to the parasitical class.

Despite the intellectuals' psychotic hatred of capitalism, it is the only moral and just social system.

Capitalism is the only moral system because it requires human beings to deal with one another as traders--that is, as free moral agents trading and selling goods and services on the basis of mutual consent.

Capitalism is the only just system because the sole criterion that determines the value of thing exchanged is the free, voluntary, universal judgement of the consumer. Coercion and fraud are anathema to the free-market system.

It is both moral and just because the degree to which man rises or falls in society is determined by the degree to which he uses his mind. Capitalism is the only social system that rewards merit, ability and achievement, regardless of one's birth or station in life.

Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. The winners are those who are honest, industrious, thoughtful, prudent, frugal, responsible, disciplined, and efficient. The losers are those who are shiftless, lazy, imprudent, extravagant, negligent, impractical, and inefficient. [What about the role of luckbeing in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time? R. R. Pope}

Capitalism is the only social system that rewards virtue and punishes vice. This applies to both the business executive and the carpenter, the lawyer and the factory worker.