GUN CONTROL
Are more federal regulations on guns and ammunition needed?
Why is gun control an issue?
Gun control is a issue beacuse of many reasons. One reason why its an issue is because people have used guns for homicides, suicides, and serious injuries. Another reason is because children use guns to kill or injure people that there mad at.
Mitt Romeny's response:
"When it comes to protecting the Second Amendment, I do not support any new gun laws including any new ban on semi-automatic firearms. As President, I will follow President Bush's precedent of opposing any laws that go beyond the restrictions in place when I take office. The laws I do and will support include decades-old restrictions on weapons of unusual lethality like grenades, rocket launchers, fully automatic firearms and what are legally known as destructive devices and would include similar restrictions on new and exotic weapons of similar or even greater lethality. I am proud of my record of defending life and the Second Amendment."Dec. 30, 2007 Mitt Romney
Barack Obama response:
"Because I think we have two conflicting traditions in this country. I think it's important for us to recognize that we've got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of people - law-abiding citizens use if for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families. We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage. And so I think there is nothing wrong with a community saying we are going to take those illegal handguns off the streets, we are going to trace more effectively, how these guns are ending up on the streets, to unscrupulous gun dealers, who often times are selling to straw purchasers. And cracking down on the various loopholes that exist in terms of background checks for children, the mentally ill. Those are all approaches that I think the average gun owner would actually support. The problem is, that we've got a position, often times by the NRA [National Rifle Association] that says any regulation whatsoever is the camel's nose under the tent. And that, I think, is not where the American people are at. We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measure that I think respect the Second Amendment and people's traditions."Feb. 12, 2008 Barack Obama