By Hugh G. Willett

American adults agree by a 2 to 1 margin that the Second Amendment affirms an individual right to keep and bear arms, a recent Harris poll confirmed.

“With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to define whether the Second Amendment means what it says, this new poll makes it clear that the majority of American adults certainly believe it does,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

The poll -- taken in May 2008 -- involved 2,602 adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive.

Only 49% of those surveyed favor stricter gun controls, down from 52% in a similar study conducted in 2004 and dramatically lower than the 69% who said in 1998 that they favor more restrictions on gun ownership.

The poll showed a greater percentage of Republicans believe the second amendment supports an individual right than do Democrats.

Republicans accept the right to bear arms as an individual right 51% to 9% and 33% believe the second amendment protects both individuals and militias rights to own guns.

Democrats were split 41% to 22% over the issue with 24% believing the amendment protects both individuals and militias.

“This really is an issue that needed to be put to rest,” Gottlieb said. “Most American adults have a clear understanding of what the second amendment says and what it means.”

Gottlieb says it is time to end the myth that the right to keep and bear arms is soley linked to militia service.

“That’s a myth invented by extremist gun control proponents whose long terms goal is to disarm every law abiding citizen in the county.”

Gottlieb said he expects the Supreme Court to affirm gun owners rights in a ruling expected to be handed down soon.

If you pay close attention to the news media coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign, the whole thing seems to come down to two words: double standard.

Each day it seems there’s a new breakdown of who’s leading whom among black voters, Hispanic voters, voters of Asian descent, women voters, white voters, white male voters, female Hispanic voters, etc., etc., etc. There is a different way in how the news media views these approaches by black, white and female candidates.
For example, throughout the campaign there have been multiple headlines concerning Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reporting on Obama courting black voters, Clinton appealing for support from women or Hispanics, or vice versa.

The media accepts this as a natural part of the process. Of course Obama will seek black votes. Of course Clinton wants women to vote for her. Of course they’ll try to attract each other’s supporters.
However, imagine a headline like this about sure-to-be Republican nominee John McCain: “McCain courts white voters.”

Makes you cringe a bit, doesn’t it? Courting white voters. Isn’t there something discriminatory, something non-inclusive, something – dare we say it – possibly racist in such a campaign tactic?
Let’s see the hands of everyone who believes the mainstream media would report or comment on such a McCain move as benignly as it handles the racial and gender strategies of Democratic candidates.

That’s the news coverage double-standard in which our political system operates.
How does this play into southern presidential politics? The South in recent election has been a Republican bastion, even so far as rejecting Democratic tickets with candidates who claimed a southern heritage. Albert Gore, 2000 candidate, would have won the White House if he had carried Tennessee, the state he represented in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate for 16 years.
John Edwards was John Kerry’s running mate in 2004, but that didn’t help the Kerry-Edwards ticket carry North Carolina, the state Edwards represented in the Senate, or even South Carolina, his birthplace.

With respect to the 2008 presidential campaign, southerners saw race erupt as a principal component in the South Carolina primary. Bill Clinton, commenting on Obama’s South Carolina primary victory, seemingly off-handedly referenced Jesse Jackson’s primary victories in the state in the 1980s.

Was this an effort to show that the South Carolina primary winner didn’t necessarily go on to win the party’s nomination, or was it (as many in the media asserted) a deliberate effort to remind white voters across the country that Obama, you know, is black.
That might matter in a Democratic primary, but looking ahead to the general election against John McCain, if Obama is the candidate he’s not going to do much better than the 90 percent of black votes that typically go to the Democratic candidate.
Furthermore, the South is not San Francisco. While the region certainly has its liberal pockets, it tends conservative and has trended Republican.
Florida is a prime example of this changeover. Through nearly the end of the 20th century, Florida was Democrat. Democrat governors, Democrat legislatures. In the 1960s a Republican political maverick named Claude Kirk captured the governor’s mansion, an aberration that shook the state.

Today Florida has a Republican governor, who succeeded a Republican governor. The legislature is Republican-controlled. One of the state’s two U.S. Senators is Republican.
The political nature of the South has changed, the media coverage of which suggests more evidence of a double standard. There has been endless discussion in the media about John McCain’s problems with the conservative base of the Republican Party. He’s earned those problems based on some of his positions.

However, how much coverage has been devoted to exploring, or even asking, what kinds of problems a Clinton or Obama has with the conservative members of the Democratic Party?
Does anyone really believe that conservative Democrats look at Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and say, “Yep, those are my guys; I couldn’t be happier with the way this has turned out?”

It’s almost as if those voters don’t exist. At least not in the view of the national news media.
As you watch the presidential campaign unfold over the next seven months, and see the slant and spin brought to bear in the coverage, remember that the media’s view of what’s fair to cover on one side isn’t necessarily fair to cover on the other.
Watch, and judge for yourself.