With little to separate the men on the top of the Republican and Democratic tickets on gun rights, the No. 2 slots provide a much clearer picture. Republican Paul Ryan has earned an A grade from the NRA; Vice President Joe Biden earned an F in his time as a senator.
Although he has acknowledged owning a gun, Mr. Biden strongly opposed allowing the assault-weapons ban to sunset in 2004 and has voted to close the so-called gun show loophole for arms purchasing.
Biden’s philosophical view of gun rights came through in an April interview about the Trayvon Martin murder case in Florida, which put a focus on so-called "stand your ground" laws that enshrine the legal idea that citizens have no duty to retreat from attacks, but can reasonably defend themselves, even to the point of using deadly force, without fear of prosecution.
Biden told Jim Lehrer of PBS “News Hour” that “it’s important that people be put in a position where their Second Amendment rights are protected, but that they also don’t, as a consequence of the laws, unintendedly put themselves in harm’s way. The idea that there’s this overwhelming additional security in the ownership and carrying [of] concealed and deadly weapons – the premise, not the constitutional right, but the premise that it makes people safer is one that I’m not so sure of.”
By contrast, Congressman Ryan's position on guns helps Romney deflect one of the main “Anyone But Romney” complaints on the primary campaign trail – concern about his gun-rights bona fides.
Ryan hunts deer using both rifles and bow and arrow, and his marriage engagement in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel noted that the he is an avid hunter and fisherman who “does his own skinning and butchering and makes his own Polish sausage and bratwurst.”
More crucially, Ryan voted for a gun-rights bill last year that would have extended concealed carry permits across state lines, a so-called reciprocity concept. In other words, a tourist could legally and without further paperwork carry her personal pistol on a trip to New York City, which has some of the toughest local gun laws in the country. The bill eventually was killed in the Democrat-controlled US Senate.
For a full list of stories about how Romney and Obama differ on the issues, click here.
