President Obama Will Talk About Gun Control Yet Not Even Democrat Voters Care About The Issue

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For the first time in five years, President Obama is going to give a live address from the Oval Office. There is conflicting information over the focus of his remarks but there is every indication the President will talk about gun control, at least in part. If there has been one issue the President has pushed with more partisan vigor than Obamacare and climate change, it’s gun control. He is still pressing the issue aside from having zero legislative success stories to tell during his entire time in office. The only steps he was able to take were a bunch of relatively worthless executive actions that had little bearing on second amendment rights.

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The problem for President Obama and other Democrats hell bent on making every shooting about a lack of gun laws or using the NRA as a proxy for their ire is nobody really cares about gun control as an issue. This is a similar debate to gay marriage. Gay marriage is now legal, and prior to that Supreme Court decision, conservatives had pretty much lost the political battle. When [mc_name name=’Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’C001098′ ] and Bobby Jindal floated the idea of constitutional amendments allowing gay marriage to be banned, it was met with a collective yawn. The sentiment is similar regarding gun control. Democrats have lost the debate in the courts. The Supreme Court’s Heller decision made clear owning a firearm is an individual — not a collective — right. They have also lost the debate in the court of public opinion. They just don’t realize it or they don’t want to face it.

Popular Opinion Does Not Mean Call To Action

Gun control advocates love to flaunt support in public opinion polls over such measures as universal background checks, magazine size limits and permits. There always seems to be a disconnect however among the gun control crowd as to the difference between agreeing philosophically with a position on an issue and the public support for moving ahead with those ideas. Republicans fall into this trap from time to time, particularly on the issue of taxes. Yes, everybody does generally agree with Republicans that taxes should be lower. But polls show people aren’t really all that interested in seeing Republicans take up that fight. There are other priorities.

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Instead of acknowledging this reality, Democrats continue to attempt to forge ahead as though they have been given a mandate. In a sane world, they’d have recognized, absent any political victories at the ballot box, this is not the way to go. After the horrific shooting in Newtown, Democrats and several Republicans joined together to make a feeble attempt at getting some legislation passed and it failed. Talking heads were certain such inaction would cost Republicans electorally down the road and it didn’t. The GOP “punishment” was to gain 9 seats and take control of the United States Senate.

The Polls Do Not Favor Obama

While pointing out how people agree with his position on gun related issues, Obama ignores the reality about the importance of gun control to Democrat voters. Guess what? It’s not important at all in the scheme of things. The latest Quinnipiac poll, in addition to measuring the state of the Republican and Democrat primaries, also polled people on the issues and their importance. Here are the results for Democrats (Again, this is just the results from Democrats, not all Americans):

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3% say gun policy is the most important issue to them. Does President Obama really believe he is going to get anywhere? Some have said he is going to announce some new executive orders he will implement. If he felt they were so important and he had the authority to do it, he would have done so already.

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He doesn’t have a plan. His speech will be loaded up on hyperbole, and will very short on substance. He’ll do his best being as self-righteous as he possibly can. But in the end, nothing will come of it because he doesn’t even have the people within the Democrat party on his side.

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