Another bright star has been added to President Barack Obama’s anti-gun constellation.

By Dave Kopel

Obama’s newly nominated “drug czar” is Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. And just like a real czar, the drug czar, whose formal title is director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, can destroy rights instantly, and he can set the stage for additional harm.

Before the dark days of the Clinton administration, few federal government officials had done more to damage Second Amendment rights than William Bennett, the so-called “drug czar” under President George H.W. Bush. In March 1989, Bennett set off a national panic by pushing the first Bush administration to ban the import of so-called “assault weapons.”

Bennett claimed that “assault weapons” were the firearms of choice for violent drug dealers. The claim, of course, was nonsense. Police gun seizure data showed that the guns were rarely used in any type of crime. Yet Bennett’s massive publicity stunt prohibited dozens of models of high-quality guns. And it set the stage for state-level bans on so-called “assault weapons,” and, in the long run, for the 1994 Clinton gun ban.

Czar Kerlikowske’s first major opportunity to promote gun bans may be based on Mexico.

By Jeff Knox

Where has all the ammo gone? That’s a common refrain these days and not just in a few places, but all across the country. The answer is simple and complicated, but it’s not part of a nefarious plot hatched up by Washington politicians.

Ammo supplies got thrown out of kilter as a result of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan and several former Warsaw Pact nations transitioning to NATO caliber arms. Some sources of military surplus ammo have been drying up under a UN agreement to “de-militarize” (read destroy) surplus ammo rather than let it into the open market. During the same period the costs of metals for components, particularly lead and copper, started climbing due to global demand. Ammunition prices, which have held remarkably low with little increase in decades, started going up. As prices crept up, many high-volume ammo users, such as police training ranges, fearing continuing price escalation and tightening supplies, decided to stock up. This put manufacturers, who were already a little behind the curve, even further into the hole.

At this point there wasn’t really a shortage though, just an imbalance. Industry sources say that the ammo was out there, but it was in the wrong places. Still, the news of these regional shortfalls spread and, even though manufacturers were ramping up their production, demand continued to empty shelves. The perception of a shortage became a self-fulfilling prophecy as consumers tried to beat the shortage by buying all they could find whenever they could find it. Some retailers actually began limiting purchases to no more than 4 or five boxes a day as a way to make sure more of their customers could at least get some.

Enter Barack Obama.