Philadelphia Democrats Want Obama and Clinton to Support Stricter Gun Laws

 Democrats in Philadelphia, who are concerned with violence in the city, want either Obama or Clinton, whoever wins the nomination, to support stricter gun laws. Instead of going after criminals, and enforcing the criminal laws of the state, Democrats want to go after law abiding citizens who chose to protect themselves from the very people that are allowed to walk the streets because of ill enforced criminal laws.

Philadelphia’s Democratic leaders say they’ll press Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama to back stricter gun laws, despite the risk of angering voters throughout the rest of Pennsylvania and possibly damaging the party’s nominee in the general election.
Gun violence in Philadelphia — 331 homicides from gunfire in 2007 — thrust firearms laws to the top of the agenda for city voters, and they don’t care about the potential political pitfalls for the presidential candidates, said Carol Campbell, a Democratic ward leader in the city.

 Perhaps if Philadelphia took a page out of New Hampshire’s playbook, the city would become as safe to live in as New Hampshire, which was recently ruled the safest state in the nation.

 According to this article, both Obama and Clinton get an ‘F’ when it comes to second amendment rights.

Mrs. Clinton’s and Mr. Obama’s voting records, which includes support of a federal assault-weapons ban, get an “F” grade from National Rifle Association (NRA), which has about 4 million members.

“They will do everything they can to run away from the past, run away from their record and camouflage their position on gun control,” said Chris Cox, the NRA’s chief Washington lobbyist.

 While Philly residents want stricter gun laws, this may not play well with the rest of the state because Pennsylvania has one of the highest per capita NRA membership in the country.

 This could turn into a hot button issue in the general election as the supreme court is in the middle of deciding if the Washington D.C. handgun ban is constitutional. The court appears to have decided that an individual does have the right to keep and bear arms, but with some reasonable restrictions. It will be interesting to see what restrictions the court says is reasonable, and how this will affect Democrats in the election.

 It seems to me that this will not play well with southern voters or with mid-westerners who, I think, would be opposed to any stricter gun laws.