There’s a close race for the U.S. Senate down in Georgia, and Republican incumbent Sonny Perdue is accusing his opponent of lying his, uh, Ossoff in terms of supporting the Second Amendment. Democrat Jon Ossoff has backed all kinds of gun control laws over the past few years as he’s sought election to federal office; from universal background checks to a ban on semi-automatic rifles and “high capacity” magazines. As we get closer to Election Day, however, Ossoff is now cutting campaign ads where he promises to “defend the Second Amendment”, according to Fox News.
Ossoff “thinks he can get away with telling metro Atlanta one thing while telling the rest of the state the exact opposite,” Sen. David Perdue told Fox News exclusively. “This just proves he’ll do or say anything to hide his radical socialist agenda from the people of Georgia.”
An Ossoff spokesperson said the ad is “airing in the places where Senator Perdue’s inflammatory, fear-mongering ad is running to correct the record.”
Perdue’s ad said Ossoff would confiscate guns, defund the police and close Georgia’s military bases.
Ossoff, who in his own ad says he will “defend” the Second Amendment, told MSNBC last September that he was unsure if he supported mandatory gun buybacks. He did, however, back strict licenses for all semi-automatic weapons, universal background checks and argued that the general public shouldn’t have access to assault weapons.
Ossoff’s Second Amendment ad isn’t on his campaign’s YouTube page, and I’ve not been able to view it for myself. Based on the language of his campaign website, however, every gun owner in Georgia should be asking Ossoff exactly how he plans to defend the Second Amendment when he’s calling for multiple restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.
I support the Second Amendment and I respect the overwhelming majority of gun owners who recognize that guns aren’t toys; they are lethal and dangerous tools.
Firearms possession comes with great responsibilities for safe ownership, storage, and use.
The shocking level of gun violence in America today makes plain the need for gun safety reforms, which will not preclude any responsible and qualified American from owning firearms for home defense, hunting, marksmanship, collection, or recreation.
I support universal criminal history checks for gun purchases, red flag laws to protect family members and domestic partners concerned about the mental health of their loved ones, and closing the gun show loophole.
I support a ban on the sale of semi-automatic rifles (“assault weapons”) and high-capacity magazines to the general public.
Americans who would purchase high-powered weapons derived from modern military technology should be required to demonstrate high qualification and compelling specific needs.
Most gun owners are responsible, qualified, and own weapons in good faith. However, the only objective of the firearms industry lobbyists is to drive up gun sales and enrich shareholders — even at the expense of public safety and common sense.
I’m not taking a dime from the gun lobby, and I’ll fight to end their corrupt influence in Washington.
I see absolutely nothing in Ossoff’s campaign platform that indicates he supports the right of the people to keep and bear arms, but there’s plenty in there that makes me believe the Democrat views the Second Amendment as a privilege to be doled out to a favored few by government officials, bureaucrats, and law enforcement.
Ossoff’s agenda would criminalize friends or family members selling firearms to one another without first going through a federal background check, strip legal gun owners of their firearms without due process protections, prohibit the sales of some of the most commonly owned rifles and ammunition magazines in the country, and (if I’m reading his website correctly), require Americans to demonstrate a specific “need” to exercise their constitutionally protected rights.
If this is what Ossoff thinks supporting the Second Amendment looks like, I’d hate to see what he thinks opposing the right to keep and bear arms entails.
There’s an additional irony to the fact that, while Ossoff wants to put all kinds of new gun laws on the books, he also says on his campaign website that “deep race and class disparities persist in policing, prosecution, and sentencing.” Why does Ossoff seem to think that his gun control laws would magically be free of those race and class disparities? He doesn’t say.
Ossoff also wants to “end incarceration for nonviolent drug offenses,” while at the same time he wants to start incarcerating people for the “crime” of nonviolently possessing a 20-round magazine or an AR-15. For someone who says he’s opposed to mass incarceration, Jon Ossoff sure is backing a lot of ideas that would put an awful lot of people in prison.
Jon Ossoff doesn’t strike me as a cartoonishly villainous anti-gun activist, but more of an empty suit who doesn’t have much to say beyond parroting the talking points of the various interest groups that comprise the modern Democratic Party. Twenty years ago Ossoff probably would have run as a blue dog, pro-gun Democrat in Georgia, but today’s Democratic Party brooks no opposition to their anti-gun platform, so Ossoff’s running on gun control while offering up what has sadly become the most meaningless phrase in American politics today: “I support the Second Amendment.”
