Obama's Defend D.C. Gun Ban Before Supreme Court Ruling

Politico reports:

The Obama campaign, getting ready for an expected Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.'s gun control legislation, reverses a statement it put out last year that the ban was constitutional.

(The campaign now describes the statement as "inartful," but it wasn't ambiguous: "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.")

In elements of Obama's record, he seems always to have had an eye on the national stage, avoiding the default positions of a politician who represented a city district where liberal positions are a default. On guns, he's been struggling to maintain that he's had sympathy for gun rights all along, and his campaign has insisted -- as in this case -- that it's not Obama whose moved, it's that past statements pro-gun control statments have been the fault of his staff, as in a pair of questionnaires from 1996 in which he favored firm gun control measures.

That's the Chicago Democratic Party Machine stand on gun control.