An Issue Tailor-Made for a Second Term President

Barack Obama can't lose on gun control.   The Newtown massacre has coalesced support for a crackdown on America's free-for-all gun trade.  Even the NRA is now lurking in the shadows, afraid to show its face.

What America needs most is a ban on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines that often go with them.

I have become a gun owner, again, fairly recently.  Just an ordinary, lever-action rifle, a plain Jane hunting rifle.  I bought it for predator protection on my motorcycle excursions into the forests up fire roads and logging roads.  It's easy to have an accident or breakdown that could leave you stuck for a day or two before you can get out.  That's a day or two you could expect to have to contend with bears, wolves or, worst of all, a cougar.  As they say, up there, you're definitely not the top of the food chain.

This process exposed me to today's civilian gun market and has it changed since I gave up hunting almost forty years ago.  Especially in the States the rifle of choice appears to be one of several variants of the Viet Nam war era, M-16.   The rifle wielded in Newtown was  a Bushmaster, probably a lot like this one:

Yeah, pretty scary.  I would not want this guy living next door to me.

It's the Republicans that stand to lose big this time.  It's time Democrats showed that, they too, can stand their ground.