Gun rights popular with Americans; more evidence “guns” are distraction from America’s real problems

America has real problems.

In fact, one could say America is in the Second Great Depression if you would factor out the U.S. federal deficit spending into the economy (add in the state and local governments’ deficit spending and we are well past a 10% decline in the GDP, which is the definition of an economic depression or a recession lasting longer than two years and we’re there as well.)

Don’t take our word for it.  The Wall Street Journal admitted it.  Karl Denninger has studied it.

Study: Almost Half of Americans on Financial Brink

(Breitbart) – How many Americans are on the brink economically? Almost 44% of Americans will wind up in poverty if they lose their incomes because they don’t own enough assets or have savings that could be their safety net.

The nonprofit Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), which reported the figure, had more bad news: almost 33% of Americans don’t even have a savings account.

The worst figures came from Southern states.  The area bounded by North Carolina to the north, Florida to the south, and Arkansas to the west was rated “liquid asset poor,” which was the bottom category.

And while the unemployment rate in the U.S. is at 7.9% “officially”, this rate has been so messaged by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to be virtually unreliable.   Today’s true unemployment rate is 14.7% and if you count all of the “discouraged” workers who aren’t even looking for work (and who are not working), the number creeps close to 25% of the workforce, according to Forbes Magazine.

The economy is in the toilet, unemployment is through the roof and the Obama administration and the Democrat controlled Congress (and the Republicans in the House) keep operating the federal government without a budget since 2009, racking up well-over trillion dollar deficits each year.

With all these problems, what are our leaders doing about them?

They are enacting an unpopular attack on Americans’ Constitutional rights to distract Americans from the real problems in our economic and cultural way of life and banning candy at schools.

Fortunately for the much-maligned supporters of the Constitution, a good majority of Americans feel the same way, despite the name-calling and demagoguery from the leadership of the Democratic Party, both nationally and in many states.

Poll: Majority of Young Americans Against Banning ‘[Personal Defense] Weapons’

(Breitbart) – You know President Obama and his allies are losing the gun argument when his greatest supporters are against him: Reason/Rupe released a scientific poll which found the majority of Americans–particularly young Americans–support the right of people to own so-called “[personal defense] weapons.”

Of the 1,000 adults surveyed, 51 percent of respondents support the private ownership of “[personal defense] weapons,” while 44 percent were opposed. It may come as a shock to the public that the strongest advocates for private ownership are young Americans, the same age demographic that overwhelmingly supported the President in his reelection.

The poll found that 70 percent of young Americans ages 18-24 agree that Americans “should be allowed” to own “[personal defense] weapons,” while only 27 percent believe they should be prohibited. A recent study conducted by American University also showed that 60 percent of young Americans either already plan to or are considering purchasing a firearm for their home in the future.

That poll is not an anomaly.  Here’s another about how Americans see government as the problem, not guns.

Pew Poll: Majority of Americans See Government as Threat to Freedom

(Breitbart) – According to a new Pew Research Center poll, the majority of Americans say the federal government threatens their personal rights.

The poll, conducted from Jan. 9th-13th among 1,500 adults, found that 53% of those surveyed think the federal government threatens their own personal rights and freedoms, the highest level found since Pew began polling on this subject in 1995. This outcome also represents the first time since Pew began polling that a majority of Americans saw the government as a threat. In March of 2010, 47% of those polled said that they viewed government as a threat to freedom.

The latest Pew survey also included questions about gun laws. Not surprisingly, given the current national controversy about gun control and Second Amendment rights, 62% of gun owners believe that the federal government poses a fundamental threat to their constitutional rights and freedom.

In addition, the survey found that, over the past two years, the percentage of conservative Republicans who view the government as a threat to freedom has jumped from 62% to 76%. 54% of conservatives consider government to be a “major threat” to their constitutional rights.

And what do right-thinking Americans think about all this?

The NRA suggests we place armed good guys in schools to protect our precious innocent children.

The Obama administration blasts that as wrong-headed, despite the hypocrisy of armed guards at Obama’s children’s school.

Newtown, Connecticut isn’t waiting to discuss it.  They are moving ahead with plans for armed good guys in their town’s schools following the massacre by an evil madman at Sandy Hook.

Newtown Sides with NRA: Votes for Armed Guards In Schools

Alternate headline: “Piers Morgan Hit Hardest.”

(Breitbart) – When the rubber hits the road, when the stark and very real choice is either empty political posturing with useless gun control laws or doing something practical to protect your children, the only people laughing at the NRA are a media determined to protect anything and everything involving Barack Obama. Today the Newtown Board of Education made the only choice any parent can:  It voted to put armed guards in its schools:

The vote, for now, only represents a request — it still needs to clear budget and logistical boundaries since the guards would come from the town’s police resources as opposed to the school board itself. But the plan ‘would put two eyes and ears — one armed, one unarmed — at each Newtown school,’ reports Bronxville Patch’s Davis Dunavin. The guards, officially called school resource officers (SROs), were already a fixture at all Newtown schools in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, but until this vote they were budgeted only to be a presence at middle and high Schools, according to NBC Connecticut.

Even among hard-core Democrats who were a part of Obama’s presidential campaigns, when Obama and company went to them to urge them to flood Congress with a torrent of angry messages demanding gun bans, nothing happened.

Whoops!

That was embarrassing to Obama and his leftist, anti-freedom allies pushing bans on America’s favorite rifle and thousands of similar guns Americans use everyday to defend themselves and their families from violent attack.

Obama Campaign Alert on Guns Has Zero Impact

(Breitbart) – Last Friday, the Obama campaign fired up its vaunted voter machine and urged supporters to call Congress in support of gun control. The email alert to Obama’s list of more than 20 million supporters was intended to flood Congress with calls in support of the President’s gun control proposals. After a week, it is clear the effort fizzled.

The Obama campaign’s action alert last week tickled lefty journalists like BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith. The White House stenographer took to twitter to boast about the mobilization.

So Messina unleashed the kraken on the congressional switchboard today
— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) January 25, 2013

Yeah, not so much.

Breitbart News talked with a dozen Congressional offices, in both the Senate and the House. None reported any increase in calls as a result of Obama’s action alert. One Senate office said that, in the week since the alert went out, they had received around 20 calls in support of gun control and around 150 in support of gun rights.

Without a doubt, Obama has built an impressive turnout machine for elections. His campaign has vowed to use this to mobilize on issues important to the White House. This initial failure, however, suggests it will be difficult to translate voter’s personal support of the President to specific issues.