The conclusions I come to regarding leopards are these:
President George H W Bush: The ATF, acting under George H W Bush, ordered (no law, no approval by congress, just a dictate form the executive branch) a ban on the importation of semi-automatic rifles with folding and telescoping stocks, separate pistol grips, bipods, ability to attach a bayonet, equipped with grenade launchers, equipped with night sights, and those mounting flash suppressors in 1989. (note the absence of a clear trail to the President's desk: while we recognize that the ATF is under the Attorney General who is under the President, technically, nobody can say, "George did it.")
President Bill Clinton: Signed the "Brady Act" which implemented background checks on gun purchases and also, at first, a waiting period. Also signed the "Assault Weapons Ban" which outlawed semi automatic rifles with so-called "evil features" such as stand alone pistol grips and bayonet mounts, semi automatic pistols with evil features such as weighing more than 50 oz and semi auto versions of fully auto pistols, and shotguns with evil features like detachable magazines and stand alone pistol grips.
President George W Bush: When the Assault Weapons Ban was set to expire in 2004, President George W Bush was locked in a tight election race with Sen John Kerry. Bush indicated that he would sign a renewal of the Assault Weapons Ban if Congress would pass the renewal and it was submitted for his signature. Congressional Republicans (who ran the House of Representatives at the time) refused to carry the President's water, since they were all up for reelection, as well. They suggested that the President request them pass the renewal. The NRA was withholding an endorsement of Bush, and so Bush refused to request the renewal from Congress. The Ban expired and Bush got the NRA's endorsement over Kerry.
Now here, I do so leopards who want to deprive me of my 2nd Amendment gun rights and the RKBA. We know that there are subspecies of leopards, and just so, we have subspecies of RKBA enemies: You can clearly see one subspecies of RKBA enemy comes right at our gun rights and takes them, while the other subspecies of RKBA enemy slinks about in the background and lets others do the dirty work.
You can judge if one kind is worse than the other, but in my mind, I see nothing in these 3 men except enemies of my RKBA and 2nd Amendment rights. Just because some may carry the fig leaf of a Lifetime NRA membership, this doesn't make them a friend of the 2nd Amendment.
Again, let's look at these kinds of leopards, because they exhibit the sorts of tactics of anti-gun leopards everywhere: we can see tactics like dictatorial decrees, attempts at anonymity to cloak the exercise of power, and the naked iron fist of governmental power crushing our rights.
Now, on the contrary, our current President Obama has, in the wake of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, He has called for more effective implementation of using existing systems to plug the holes that exist, where kooks and criminals are able to obtain guns by circumventing the existing law. He also calls for a discussion on what might be done to prevent people most reasonable people agree shouldn't have guns from getting them. Here, I don't see trying to pass laws that will jam a curtailing of my 2nd Amendment rights down my throat, nor do I see a cowardly skulking about, trying to get others to do the dirty work. Rather, I see the same pattern of trying to get consensus from all interested parties to formulate policies, instead of imposing them from above.
In the USA, there are many shades of political opinion, and an awful lot of the talk boils down to trying to paint others with ill-defined and insulting names. Rather than trying tired old ideological bromides, I think the President is trying to move forward by reason and consensus.
I think it pays for all IFG members to do exactly what's being done in this thread: Look at what is going on in the USA and try to draw valid and valuable conclusions about what is possible in India with regard to RKBA, but without becoming entangled in the caustic and counterproductive mudslinging that is occurring between the right and left wings of the USA's politics. That mudslinging is a waste of time, as all can see, and it will do no good to fall into that trap.
I wonder who voted for Obama.
Well, sir, wonder no more: I voted for Barack Obama, and I'm still proud I did. As for your question, frankly, I find it offensive and without relevance to the purpose of IFG.
