I am a gun owner. I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual’s right to own a firearm. However, I do not believe that this in an unfettered right — I see no problem with a convicted felon being forbidden to own a firearm, and I see no problem with requiring gun purchasers to take training courses to familiarize themselves with the laws of their state regarding carry laws and their own legal responsibilities towards firearms. I believe CCW permits should be issued in every state, and the District, to law abiding American citizens (how do you define that? How do you determine that? I leave that up to those smarter than I).

Sometimes, though, I think gun owners are fucking insane. Or at least, they’re not paying attention.

Weapons dealers in much of the United States are reporting sharply higher sales since Barack Obama won the presidency a week ago. Buyers and sellers attribute the surge to worries that Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress will move to restrict firearm ownership, despite the insistence of campaign aides that the president-elect supports gun rights and considers the issue a low priority.

Let’s talk about that Democratic controlled Congress, shall we? Y’know, Congress doesn’t just stamp “Approved” on whatever the President does: they’ve actually got a role to, y’know, disagree. But let’s assume Obama came out with some stringent new gun control laws (at the worst, the very worst, I think you’d be looking at the ’94 Clinton ban), it’s not like the Congress would sign off on it. Considering how many Democrats in Congress actually tend to be fairly conservative, the Blue Dogs, Obama would probably find the fight against the bill being led by members of his own party.

Second, as a political issue, gun control is a loser. Most Democrats, especially those who didn’t live in overwhelmingly super-liberal areas, don’t want anything to do with gun control if it’s something that even the most strident 2nd Amendment supporter would go for: and I don’t think there are many people who would actually stand up in support of a mentally-retarded individual with a penchant for throwing old ladies off the bridge having the right to instead gun them down (although being shot to death would probably be preferable to being thrown from said bridge).

Where I think you find individuals and politicians in favor of restrictions on the Second Amendment are in urban environments — like, say, Baltimore — where the root problem is not firearms, but rather, the War on Drugs (which is completely ineffectual and needs to be done away with in favor of, well, just about anything else). The “gun problem” is symptomatic of the larger problem, and it is a very real problem. But unless you’ve got politicians and citizens willing to talk about a new approach to drugs on the street, and an approach more in depth then locking up players in the drug scene, efforts aimed at firearms are nothing more than a pleasing sounding placebo. As these politicians — and you do find Republicans from urban areas, say Mike Bloomberg and I think even Rudy Giuliani — have a secure voting base with a pro-gun control standpoint (and that’s why they’re pro-gun control, because being anti-War on Drugs is a bad political move).

But, back to my point: you’re not likely to find a lot of Democratic support for such a bill, assuming Obama was pushing one. Also, you’re probably not likely to find Obama supporting a gun control bill that comes through Congress: why? Because after all his talk of uniting the country — and I do think it was more than just talk, of course, but we won’t know for sure for quite some time — I don’t think he’d ever push such a divisive issue.

I bought my first handgun not long after September 11th. It’s a big Smith & Wesson .357. It makes a nice powerful ka-boom when fired. I’m probably not the only person to identify myself as a liberal and own guns, but I don’t think I’ve met any others. I didn’t, as some might think, buy firearms to protect myself from an overly aggressive Federal government: I think the chances are more likely that said firearm might be handy in a natural disaster of some sort where police or military protection might be some time away: having read the second-hand accounts of what people went through in New Orleans post-Katrina, it would at the very least be reassuring to be able to place my hand on a handgun loaded with nine hollow-point rounds.

The article doesn’t state it, but I am curious how many of these purchases were of people buying a first gun, and how many were people buying additional guns.

Talking about this at work, a colleague joked, “It could be a good thing … if they started shooting politicians.” He was semi-joking, but the first thought that went through my mind when I read that article was, “Gun sales are going up because there’s going to be a black man in the White House!”

Which is a horrible thought, but I’ve always been a pretty cynical fucker: see, I may, in fact, be a liberal (I often describe myself as a left-leaning moderate), but I distrust both the Government and Big Business.