John Lott: Obama Said 'I Don't Believe People Should Be Able to Own Guns'

In his newest book, At The Brink, author John Lott tells his readers what he told Breitbart News in mid-January: when he met then-lecturer Obama at the University of Chicago in the 1990s, Obama said, “I don’t believe people should be able to own guns.”

In mid-January, Lott said he believed Obama’s current lip service to the Second Amendment was part of an overarching Democrat strategy set forth by pollster Mark Penn, which instructs Democrats to say they support the Second Amendment in order to get elected and then chip away at it via regulation and legislation once they are in office.

In At The Brink, Lott says his early encounter with Obama was not encouraging: “He did not come across as a moderate who wanted to bring people together.” Rather, he said Obama bemoaned Lott’s pro-gun stand, and when Lott tried to talk to him about gun rights, Obama “grimaced and walked away.”

Since that time, Lott has watched Obama act on his anti-gun beliefs, noting in particular four instances:

1. In a 1998 questionnaire for the Illinois state legislature, Obama said he wanted to “ban the sale or transfer of all sorts of semi-automatic weapons.”

2. From 1998-2001, Obama was on the board of the Joyce Foundation, the “major funder for gun-control research” at that time.

3. Obama opposes concealed carry and always has.

4. Obama only sees two “legitimate” purposes for guns: “hunting and target shooting.” This means using guns for self defense is not legitimate. And this goes a long way in explaining Obama’s past support of laws banning the use of guns for self-defense in Illinois, even in one’s own home.

Lott says that now, the biggest threat gun-owners face from Obama is “his power to reshape the federal courts” while president: “Each appointment to the Supreme Court could determine whether the people are allowed to keep their guns.”