SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) --

Dear Editor,

I was excited to see the U.S. Supreme Court affirm for the first time that the Second Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms was and is an individual right as intended by our Founding Fathers. 

Sen. John McCain understands this and he immediately praised the Court?s decision. Sen. Barack Obama still can?t figure out how he feels about it. 

Barack Obama has made many statements over the years that lead me to believe he would be the most anti-gun president ever elected to the White House and also leads me to believe that he doesn?t understand our Second Amendment right.



Obama said in the 1998 Illinois State Legislative National Political Awareness Test that he favored a ban on the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.

The semi-automatic firearms Barack Obama would like to see banned include rifles and shotguns commonly used for defense, hunting and many forms of target shooting.  

When most people hear ?semi-automatic weapon,? they picture a machine gun pouring out hundreds of rounds per minute, killing untold thousands of children, elderly and puppies.

But the phrase ?semi-automatic? simply means ?one round fired for every one trigger pull.?

An example of Obama?s lack of knowledge when it comes to the Second Amendment (from the January 2008 Democratic debate): Tim Russert: ?Senator Obama, when you were in the state senate, you talked about licensing and registering gun owners. Would you do that as president??  

Obama: ?But here?s the broader context that I think is important for us to remember. We essentially have two realities, when it comes to guns, in this country. You?ve got the tradition of lawful gun ownership, that all of us saw, as we travel around rural parts of the country. And it is very important for many Americans to be able to hunt, fish, take their kids out, teach them how to shoot. And then you?ve got the reality of 34 Chicago public school students who get shot down on the streets of Chicago.?  

Let?s review the actual text of the Second Amendment: ?A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.?  

No, Obama, the authors of the Second Amendment were concerned about being able to live in a free state, the legal citizens being de facto members of a volunteer militia, in a bloody struggle against Great Britain.

Further, the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a part of the Bill of Rights that protects the pre-existing individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.

Codification of the right to keep and bear arms into the Bill of Rights was influenced by a fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia, since history had shown the way tyrants eliminated resistance to suppression of political opponents was to simply take away the people?s arms and make it an offense to keep them.

They were not concerned with bringing down a deer or being able to plink a tin can off a fence post. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting.  

Citizens would be wise to vote against Barack Obama and his back-and-forth support of the Second Amendment.  

Anita Hand

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