You can listen to an NRA leaflet with no sources whatsoever, or you can actually ASK THE GUY.
Q&A on guns with Barack:
Q: Is the D.C. law prohibiting ownership of handguns consistent with an individual's right to bear arms?
A:
As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an
individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual
right
does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the
exercise of that right, in the same way that we have a right to private
property but local governments can establish zoning ordinances that
determine how you can use it.
Q: But do you still favor the registration & licensing of guns?
A:
I think we can provide common-sense approaches to the issue of illegal
guns that are ending up on the streets. We can make sure that criminals
don't have guns in their hands.
We can make certain that those who are mentally deranged are not
getting a hold of handguns. We can trace guns that have been used in
crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers that may be selling to straw
purchasers and dumping them on the streets.
Q: You said recently, "I have no intention of taking away folks' guns."
But you support the D.C. handgun ban, and you've said that it's
constitutional. How do you reconcile those two positions?
A:
Because I think we have two conflicting traditions
in this country. I think it's important for us to recognize that we've
got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a
lot of law-abiding citizens use it for hunting, for sportsmanship, and
for protecting their families.
We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal
handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community
saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets.
And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of
background checks for children, the mentally ill. We can have
reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the
Second Amendment and people's traditions.
Q: When you were in the state senate, you talked about licensing and registering gun owners. Would you do that as president?
A:
I don't think that we can get that done. But what we can do is to
provide just some common-sense enforcement. The efforts
by law enforcement to obtain the information required to trace back
guns that have been used in crimes to unscrupulous gun dealers. As
president, I intend to make it happen. We essentially have two
realities, when it comes to guns, in this country.
You've got the tradition of lawful gun ownership. It is very important
for many Americans to be able to hunt, fish, take their kids out, teach
them how to shoot. Then you've got the reality of 34 Chicago public
school students who get shot down on the
streets of Chicago. We can reconcile those two realities by making sure
the Second Amendment is respected and that people are able to lawfully
own guns, but that we also start cracking down on the kinds of abuses
of firearms that we see on the streets.
