Black Conservatives Critical of Obama Gun Task Force

Following former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s suggestion that one should “never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” President Obama is using the flexibility of being past his last official campaign to come out strongly for new restrictions on gun ownership.

In a response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Obama just announced the formation of an executive branch gun violence task force.

Obviously hoping to capitalize on the high emotions surrounding the murders of so many small children, Obama is pledging that his team is not going to be the usual “Washington commission.”  He claims his task force will have mandates ready to ram down America’s throat as early as January.

Without having to personally face the voters again, Obama seems to now consider the topic of guns as something that can no longer be ignored.

It’s likely Obama will have more such conversions during his coming term.

Project 21 members are worried that Obama’s new zeal to openly lurch to the left on guns is both crass politically and foolhardy in that he seems to believe that new mandates will cure a society that is morally adrift.

P21CouncilNeddFor example, Project 21 member Council Nedd II, an archbishop in the Episcopal Missionary Church, says:

The deaths in Newtown, Connecticut are clearly tragic.  But to call this a gun issue is a political ploy.  It is disingenuous to do so, and it doesn’t address the heart of the matter.

The Newtown shooter suffered from a mental illness.  He decided to prey on those least likely to defend themselves.

For President Obama to pose for holy pictures and demagogue about this issue is dishonest.  Again, this is not a gun problem.  And for the President to appoint Vice President Biden to head a task force to allegedly find ways to curtail gun violence is setting up Biden as a mere scapegoat on an initiative that the America people likely won’t stand for.

We’ve seen this all before — and not too long ago.

Remember the Patriot Act?  We now realize that this measure — meant to fight foreign terrorists — has eroded our privacy here in America.  George W. Bush is criticized by the left and the right for this hastily-enacted piece of legislation.   Now, President Obama — who has full-time, armed-to-the-teeth Secret Service protection — wants to remove our constitutional right to protect ourselves with firearms.

What needs to be recognized is that there are people — many of them close to the President and who have his ear — who would have the American public left as vulnerable as those children were in Newtown on that tragic day.

P21StacySwimpProject 21 member Stacy Swimp additionally suggests that Obama look to the right for ways to make our society more civil and make up for a lack of moral bearing.  This would keep the White House from being at odds with the Constitution.  Stacy says:

President Obama’s gun violence task force isn’t anything special.  It’s not groundbreaking and it’s not going to change anything.  It’s just another prop in his march toward big government control of the American people.

The very notion of finding and trying to mandate a quick fix is disingenuous because we already know there’s no way to legislate against violent human behavior — especially in an America that has lost its moral grounding as a result of a liberal social agenda that Obama heartily embraces.

If Obama were sincere about curtailing arbitrary violence in our society, especially among its youth, he should embrace some conservative ideas:

  • School choice is key to improving our educational system.  Better schools and better teachers will give kids a better intellectual grounding and the ability to realize that violence like what was seen this year in Aurora, Colorado and Newtown, Connecticut is just plain wrong.
  • Barack and Michelle Obama should make themselves and their strong two-parent family an example for others to follow.  Too many children are growing up in broken homes, which are a breeding ground for neglect and the adoption of bad values.
  • As a society, we have little respect for the unborn.  We recoil in horror at mass shootings and similar violence, yet Obama and his supporters consider the murder of the unborn a sacred right.  This is a moral disconnect that must be rectified.
  • How can we fixate on guns and an alleged “gun culture” while not looking at the effects of violent movies, violent video games and violent music.  Our culture glorifies violence, yet the media and the White House have thus far seemed to give these enabling factors a pass while demonizing objects.


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