By Ned Farquhar
Of the Journal
"Guns."
That was how Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer responded last week when asked why he thought neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama could win Montana in this year's presidential election.
At nearly the same time, Barack Obama was at a private San Francisco fundraiser talking about how some rural Americans "cling" to guns and religion because they are bitter about the nation's economic and social circumstances.
Within a few days, when news of Obama's comment emerged, Clinton was positioning herself as a great ally of gun owners— in Obama's words, "Annie Oakley." The GOP nominee-to-be, Sen. John McCain, could sit back and enjoy the spectacle.
Westerners don't all love their guns anymore than everyone in San Francisco or New York eats tofu three times every day. But Schweitzer is right. As an indicator of whether or not a Democrat can win the south, the West, or most Midwestern states, the gun issue is telling.
Why? Basically because figuring out how to deal with guns requires a candidate to think about people who don't live on the coasts in the big cities. There is no room in this country for a one-size-fits-all policy that prohibits all handguns, nor one that would say concealed carry should be allowed everywhere, including all universities and national parks.
People who feel like they are already overlooked by the elites on the coasts don't appreciate being lumped together as toothless, scraggly, inarticulate bumpkins. When upscale politicians take the attitude that they know better how to manage the nation's guns than the gun owners themselves do, they are picking an unnecessary fight.
Guns are part of American life. Many Americans grow up with guns. They generally agree with the growing consensus that the constitutional right to bear arms is about an individual right, not about a militia or the national guard. It's a right that can be conditioned, but it's still a right.
Gun laws can't stop gun crime. Nor can gun advocacy assure total freedom for any person to own any type of gun. There's a balance that isn't acceptable to extremes on either side. Concealed carry laws are being adopted in more places. Some of the research indicates that they have been effective in deterring or containing crime. Laws enacted in the late 1990s, aimed at limiting access to automatic and semi-automatic weapons, have likely had some beneficial effect. Almost no one has objected, in the aftermath of last year's Virginia Tech massacre a year ago, to laws that would increase screening and licensing for mentally disturbed potential gun buyers.
A candidate who walks a middle line on guns is more likely to be heard on topical issues such as health care and the economy. Should the future of American involvement in Iraq hinge on whether the Democratic presidential candidate voices a sensible, centrist gun policy? Maybe that seems ridiculous. But it's the kind of thing people consider when they vote.
Single-issue voters look for purity on guns, abortion, the environment, taxes, and military affairs. Candidates need to be sensible on all these issues. The gun issue isn't difficult to understand and manage politically.
It's a truth, especially in a high-crime city like Albuquerque, that law-abiders need and deserve access to guns, not just for hunting or recreation, but for self-defense.
You have to live in a gated community (of the mind, at least) not to recognize how important guns can be in our daily lives. Sometimes they're abused, and yes, any policy on guns will have problems. But a candidate who supports gun rights, vocally and politically, is likely to be a lot more acceptable to swing voters in swing states in swing regions.
Some gun rights advocates would never vote for a Democrat anyway. They aren't the target for a Democratic candidate. The real target is people who recoil at shallow, off-the-shelf rhetoric about guns just as they recoil at know-it-all D.C. rhetoric on other issues from welfare to national security.
Gov. Schweitzer isn't right about Obama— at least not yet. Obama can recover by voicing a balanced, fair gun policy around the country. It's a perfect example of how he needs to craft policy away from Washington, away from the grasp of long-time policy hands who wouldn't know a gun if their fingers were wrapped around it.
In that sense, gun policy is a test of whether or not he'd be a good president.
Ned Farquhar is a former senior policy adviser to Gov. Bill Richardson. The views expressed are his own. Email: inthewest@comcast.net
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