Vander Plaats: Scared of Obama? Buy guns
Republican Bob Vander Plaats sought to play the role of the detached anthropologist this past week when he advanced one of the ugliest and spectacularly irresponsible narratives in America today: People have cause to “fear” President Barack Obama, and arming themselves to the hilt is an understandable reaction.
We didn’t ask the Sioux Citian about guns. Vander Plaats went there himself.
After he analogized his candidacy for governor of Iowa to that of Obama’s 2008 election as president, we asked Vander Plaats about Obama.
Is the president a patriotic man with whom you have profound disagreements, or is he a leader to be feared?
“It’s caused some people some fear,” Vander Plaats said.
He soon added, “I think it’s why you see the increase in gun sales and ammunition. People are concerned about their freedom today.”
What does Vander Plaats think all these frightened Americans are going to have to do with these guns?
“I think what it is is that they’re very concerned that Barack’s moving this government more and more and more in control,” Vander Plaats said. “If you talk to people whether it be at gun shows, who are gun owners, they’re concerned they’re coming after the guns as well and after the ammunition as well.”
Vander Plaats said sales of guns and ammo have “gone through the roof” in Iowa sporting goods stores.
He’s right on the numbers.
Nationally, 2008 saw 12,709,023 requests for FBI background checks for gun permits, up from 11,177,335 in 2007, The Fort Dodge Messenger reports.
In 2009, there were 14,033,824. The biggest 2008 increases were in November and December. The trend continued in 2009 with the greatest increase in the first four months, according to the Messenger.
But Obama is hardly an anti- gun president.
The president knows what happened to the Democratically controlled U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 after it passed an assault-weapons ban, and he saw Al Gore’s 2000 presidential aspirations go down in West Virginia where a confluence of anxieties, more imagined than real, about guns and coal-mining jobs set the stage for the Florida mess and George W. Bush’s eight years in the White House.
Obama is not proposing any new federal restrictions on guns, and in fact, you can now take a firearm into a national park or check one as luggage on Amtrak thanks to laws signed by President Barack Obama.
The Chicago Tribune just reported that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a leading gun-control organization, issued a report card flunking Obama on all seven issues it deems important.
In short, Obama is not coming after anyone’s guns.
He’s done the math. In order to win Senate seats and the presidency the Democratic Party has to third-rail the guns issue. This lack of action may mean more dead black kids on the streets of Newark and Baltimore, but Obama and his party’s princes have long since reconciled themselves to that.
So where are these fears of jack-booted government types ready to raid your homes for its guns rooted?
In nonsense.
But Vander Plaats won’t say that. In fact, he’s attempting to give credibility to this madness for his own political purposes.
We asked this question: Does Vander Plaats find it disturbing that people believe they need to be armed at home against their own government?
“I think it is disturbing in regards to people have that type of fear,” he said.
Are people telling Vander Plaats what they’re going to do with these guns?
“They don’t tell me what they’re going to do,” he said.
Finally, we asked Vander Plaats to bottom-line it for us: Is Obama a socialist?
“I think Barack Obama is a very bright guy,” Vander Plaats said. “I think he knows exactly what he’s doing, and I believe he’s moving this country further and further to big-government principles, big-government dependencies and solutions, which would have definitely socialistic thread.”
Since, as Vander Plaats would have us believe, Obama’s not a socialist, but rather a man with tendencies in said direction, perhaps fearful patriots can cut their ammo orders in half this weekend at Bass Pro Shops.
Or buy a new gun. Obama’s not stopping you. CV
Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa newspaperman who writes for The Carroll Daily Times Herald and offers columns for Cityview.
