AFL-CIO Joins The Gun Wars With Targeted Mail Blitz Defending Obama On Gun Rights

[Omaha Steve]

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/afl-cio_joins_the_gun_wars_wit.php

By Greg Sargent - October 14, 2008, 9:27AM

Micro-targeting is the name of the game in this election, and the AFL-CIO is about to unleash one of its most micro-targeted pushes yet -- a blitz of mailers defending Obama on gun rights that's aimed strictly at union households made up of gun owners.

Here is the first mailer, a piece going to some 80,000 gun owners in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It offers a stout defense of Obama on gun rights and ties it directly to an economic message (click on the images to enlarge):

"I want to protect two things: My job and my gun," union member Mike Day says in the mailer. "That's why I'm supporting Barack Obama."





The union's decision to depart from a strictly economic message and to edge into the culture wars is driven in part by a stepped up campaign in the battlegrounds by the National Rifle Association, which has run ads accusing Obama of conspiring to take away people's guns.

The new mail piece is the latest in a broad effort by the AFL-CIO to reach very specific voting blocks in the swing states. Last week the union unleashed a wave of mailings targeting union households with veterans, and union officials promise an intensified -- and targeted -- campaign of mailers, phone calls and door-knocking in the race's final stretch.

[jody]

1. Interesting but Biden says he and Obama support banning assault weapons, a bait and switch scheme to

ban semiautomatic firearms.

Biden also said "there is room for common-sense laws relating to such things as carrying concealed weapons" which can only mean opposing CCW that is legal in some form in 48 states.

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x187962

[Omaha Steve]

2. There is a difference between assault and semi-automatic

Here a good one too: http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=18900§ion=news

American Hunters and Shooters Association founder: Obama will protect gun rights
Brad Swenson Bemidji Pioneer
Published Friday, October 17, 2008

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama won’t take away Americans’ guns, says the head of the American Hunters and Shooters Association.

“We’re a gun rights organization and we are stating Obama’s not going to take away your guns,” Ray Schoenke, who is founder and president of the AHSA, said in an interview Thursday night.

While Schoenke, whose group has endorsed Obama, was pushing the Democrat’s agenda for sportsmen at the Beltrami County DFL’s campaign headquarters Thursday evening, Todd Palin, husband of Sen. John McCain running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was pitching the Republicans’ agenda on northern Minnesota issues.

As it turns out, Schoenke and Palin were on the same flight from Detroit to Minneapolis en route to northern Minnesota. And Schoenke is shadowing Palin’s in Grand Rapids, Bemidji, Thief River Falls and Moorhead.

The issue of who supports the Second Amendment the strongest should be off the table, Schoenke, a former Washington Redskins offensive lineman turned Washington, D.C., lobbyist said.

Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a Washington, D.C., total ban on handguns as unconstitutional. In overturning the ban, Justice Antonin Scalia said that “the individual right is confirmed, that law-abiding citizens have the right to own a gun,” Schoenke said.

FULL story at link.

[jody]

3. Ray Schoenke of AHSA says "We're opposed to reinstating the semi-auto assault weapons ban."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/14/132131/43/273/630261

We're opposed to reinstating the semi-auto assault weapons ban. There's a lot of confusion about this legislation. Most people believe an assault weapon is a full-auto. Those fully automatic guns are already regulated. The best way to deal with this issue is to make sure that criminals don't get guns in the first place.

Bush was wrong for supporting reinstating the ban in 2000 and 2004. McCain was wrong for voting for it back in 2004 (it was an amendment to S. 1805 for which McCain voted yes.) The NRA still endorsed both of them. We don't agree with the call for renewing the ban. Also, the Heller case should have settled this. What's important is that hunters and sportsmen will have a seat at the table when the Obama administration deals with guns.