OPINION: Where's Obama on gun rights?

Brilliantly, Democrats have kept the issue of guns out of the presidential campaign. Guns have barely been mentioned, with the exception of Barack Obama's gaffe about rubes clinging to Bibles and guns, his cautious support of the Supreme Court's Heller decision, and pop culture references to GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin killing moose.

Democrats have long been on the losing end of the gun-rights debate, which has cost them countless elections.

Quietly, on Oct. 13, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence - one of the most radical gun control organization in the United States - endorsed Obama. It's an endorsement Obama hasn't flaunted on his campaign stumps, but it's one that should concern Second Amendment defenders.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, said the organization endorsed Obama because he knows the benefits of "strengthening our Brady background check system, getting military-style assault weapons off our streets, and giving law enforcement more tools to stop the trafficking of illegal guns."

In other words, the Brady Campaign has researched the candidates and come to the conclusion that Obama might fight for gun control. They use fancy phrasing, such as ridding the streets of "military-style assault weapons." What they really want, however, is to cause trouble for law-abiding citizens who wish to keep handy the guns they find necessary for hunting and security.

If Obama and Joe Biden will help get assault weapons off our streets, then Obama and Biden support ordinary gun control. We had a so-called assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004, and it was ordinary gun control. The Department of Justice found it did little or nothing to reduce violent crime in this country.

Genuine assault rifles are machine guns, which rapid-fire multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger. That's what gun banners want the general public to visualize when they talk about banning assault rifles. They want us to imagine some monstrous gang leader spraying bullets in all directions at the police and innocent bystanders.

But genuine assault rifles, as in machine guns, were essentially banned by the 1934 National Firearms Act. Possessing one lawfully means buying a license and spending thousands on a firearm. Few people own them, and they are not the subject of the so-called assault weapons ban we already tried, and are considering again.

The modern gun banner has taken to classifying common semi-automatic rifles, such as the civilian models of the AR-15 or the AK-47, as "assault rifles." They are ordinary rifles that shoot one bullet for each pull of the trigger. They are commonly owned by hunters, collectors and people who care about home safety.

Ironically, the ban of these so-called assault weapons in 1994 left far more powerful weapons in play - weapons capable of far greater destruction, such as the common .30-06 hunting rifle. All it did was ban rifles of a certain class simply because they look more dangerous and therefore could be confused with something needlessly menacing to society.

Those who would take our Second Amendment gun rights know that most Americans don't support their agenda. So they seek to get the camel's nose under the tent with small victories won through deception - such as so-called assault weapons bans. They must deceive to achieve.

After the Heller decision, which struck down the District of Columbia's gun ban, Obama issued a benign statement: "I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures." It went on to explain that he favors measures to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists and criminals. Who could argue with that?

His harmless statement couldn't possibly have been enough to please the Brady Campaign. So what does this organization like about Obama?

In his book "The Heller Case: Gun Rights Affirmed," author Alan Korwin documents that Obama swiftly reversed his position on gun rights the moment the high court ruled that gun rights belong to individuals.

"Before the ban was overturned, Mr. Obama supported the position of the Court's dissenters - that gun bans are fine and the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights does not protect people, it protects ‘collective rights' of states," Korwin wrote. The court equated the "collective rights" theory to Alice in Wonderland. The book details how Obama's voting record on gun rights is 100 percent consistent; he favored every gun restriction that came along in the Illinois Senate.

Second Amendment defenders should ask Obama to come clean on his true agenda pertaining to gun rights (he's in Colorado on Sunday). Gun rights advocates should keep in mind that Heller was a 5-4 decision, and Obama would likely appoint one, if not two or three, Supreme Court justices.

Americans are well within their rights to elect a president who would work to ban guns, and erode gun rights. But they shouldn't do so by accident. They should vote only with full knowledge of Obama's position on guns, and to date that remains unclear.