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Tucson Urban League
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Charles E. Gillman Company
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Jorgensen Brooks Group
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Everready Glass
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RANCHO RESORT
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Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic

In some ways these are alarming times. But in some ways they emphatically are not. One overblown fear is that a new Obama administration is champing at the bit, eager to take away your guns and eviscerate your Second Amendment rights.

Gun sales in Tucson and nationwide have been spiking in recent weeks, the Star's Dan Sullivan and Alexis Huicochea reported last week.

Buyers are afraid that once he is in office, Barack Obama will impose strict gun laws, reinstate the federal assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004 and increase ammunition taxes, gun-shop owners told the Star.

In a StarNet poll that asked whether readers believe the new president or Democratic-led Congress will try to restrict Second Amendment rights, 63 percent said "yes" as of Monday morning.

Gun buyers' fears evidently encompass more than assault weapons. Items in high demand include ammunition, high-capacity shotguns and magazine-fed rifles, Sullivan and Huicochea reported. Shops were having a problem meeting demand.

We are more than a little dazed by all this. Guns are not the answer; in fact, we believe guns are not even the question.

We have an orderly change of government under way, as the voters instructed, which is good. But change can be unnerving.

And there are genuine problems we all should be worried about: A continuing credit crunch, stock-market declines, growing numbers of business failures, 1.2 million lost jobs so far this year and nearly as many homeowners expected to endure foreclosure.

So what's going on with gun sales? We've investigated Obama's gun agenda. It is not a whacko left-wing attack on Second Amendment rights. It is a safety agenda, pure and simple.

At change.gov, the Obama transition team's Web site, this policy statement is posted addressing violence in cities:

"Obama and (Vice President-elect Joe) Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun-trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor common-sense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun-show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent."

The so-called "gun-show loophole" allows private individuals to sell guns at shows without making background checks that dealers must make. As for childproofing requirements, the NRA says they're not needed and are too expensive.

We're on the record supporting a federal assault-weapons ban. As we said when arguing for the ban's extension in 2004, "It is important to note what the law will and won't do: An 'assault weapon,' subject to the ban, does not refer to the way it works. Instead, it describes any semi-automatic pistol, rifle or shotgun originally designed for police or military use that carries a lot of ammunition. They have no business in civilian hands." We stand by that.

As for the Democrat-led Congress's agenda, it may not be as monolithic as gun buyers fear. For example, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Tucson Democrat and a gun owner, has said she's concerned that the proposed assault-weapon ban may impose "overly broad restrictions."

There's no reason to believe the new president or Congress will make gun laws a priority over the major problems we now face, including two wars, or that they will all merrily agree and act in concert.

"The Congress is going to be focused on the economy for the next year at least," Natalie Luna, an aide to U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva predicted to us on Monday.

Good. That's what they should be doing. Economic issues are the question, and Congress should be looking for the answers.