Has Obama Opened the Gun Control Pandora’s Box?

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In his joint press conference with Mexican President Calderon yesterday, Barack Obama reaffirmed his support for an assault weapons ban. At the same time, he seems to regard it as an essentially unachievable goal:

I have not backed off at all from my belief that the gun — the assault weapons ban made sense. And I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we now know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence — violence in our own country, as well. Now, having said that, I think none of us are under any illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy. And so, what we’ve focused on is how we can improve our enforcement of existing laws, because even under current law, trafficking illegal firearms, sending them across a border, is illegal. That’s something that we can stop.

Like many gun control advocates, Barack Obama wants to make something which is already prohibited even ‘more illegal’. But while most gun control backers avoid revealing this fact, Obama owns up to it — when he acknowledges that while it’s legal to manufacture or own ‘assault weapons,’ it is illegal to ship them across the border. Apparently in Obama’s mind, soldiers in drug cartels that are beheading police officers will be frightened about another weapons charge. Later in the press conference, Obama said that he wants the Senate to approve the OAS treaty against illegal trafficking in firearms:

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