In other words, he pretty much wanted to ban gun stores. Five miles from a school is pretty much exiling gun stores to the rural hinterlands, outside of most city limits. (I wonder what Obama’s pretend gun-rights group will have to say about this?)

James Taranto (first item) has links to some interesting maps of Cleveland and Phoenix that show the relative density of schools in each, which were drawn to demonstrate the effects of the 1000-foot radius covered by the federal gun-free school zones provision. If you can imagine those circles each being 26 times bigger, you’d get an idea of how big the zone of exclusion for gun stores would be.

This was a proposal Obama made when he was still a state legislator in 1999, but Taranto thinks it shows Obama’s true colors:

…these are positions Obama took as a state legislator. It is unlikely that he would stand by them today, and even unlikelier that Congress would enact them*. But it does lead one to think that Obama’s instinct is to trash, rather than protect, the Constitution.

There’s more here at the Volokh Conspiracy, which sources these positions to a 1999 Chicago Defender article that contains several equally alarming proposals, including banning the sale of guns (other than antique firearms) at gun shows outright. Mind you, not just “closing the loophole” or any of the gungrabbers’ usual soft soap–he wanted to legislate gun shows out of existence by turning them into swap meets for flintlock enthusiasts.

Big question: if he doesn’t stand by these positions today, why not? Someone needs to ask him.

Either Obama is a hollow man who flirts with these radical ideas for political expediency and to ingratiate himself with the brunch-with-Bill-Ayers deep-pocket Hyde Park bobos–or he’s even more deeply, dangerously radical than I thought. No wonder Dan Boren won’t endorse him.

One question, though, which makes me regard this story with a bit of caution. First line from that Defender article:

Sweeping federal gun control legislation proposed by Sen. Barack Obama (D-13th) would increase the penalties on gun runners who are flooding Chicago’s streets with illegal weapons.

Why, as an Illinois State Senator, was Obama proposing Federal legislation? Was he just trying to get attention? If so, I’m happy to give it to him.

*Really? Not all of them, maybe. Not right away.

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{Post by See-Dubya.}

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