You may recall the 1966 cult-classic by Napoleon XIV titled, "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa."  The lyrics of that song describe an individual who is out of his mind and who is being taken "to the funny farm" and to "the loony bin" so he can be attended to by "those nice young men in their clean white coats."

The subject of the song is simply considered a danger to society, a menace if you will, crazy, and unable to make rational decisions on his own.  He's unreasonable and refuses to conform to the society around him. 

Enter today's debate over guns.  Obama, Biden, and the rest of the political left are using similar language and characterizations in their description of gun owners.  Theirs is a coordinated effort to paint American gun owners as crazed, government-hating lunatics, whose guns, used for sport, recreation, and defense are somehow a great danger to our society, potential Adam Lanzas or Jared Loughners.

Of course, this should come as no surprise.  Recall Barack Obama's description of middle-class voters and the challenge he faced in getting their votes way back in 2008, "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Today's push by the leftist media has managed to raise the insult level even higher recently.  Take Carol Costello of CNN for example.  On December 27^th, in questioning NRA President David Keene, she shared this comment from her Facebook page, "Why is the NRA crazy?  Why are they, like, out of touch with reality?"

Costello paints a picture of gun owners as out of step with society, yet recent polling is hardly indicative of such.  A Gallup poll conducted earlier this month found that only 38% of Americans are dissatisfied with current gun laws, while 43% are either satisfied or believe the laws should be loosened. 

Other polls have found only a slight majority of Americans believe there should be any increase in gun control legislation.  Yet, we the legal gun owners of America are somehow considered out of touch and crazy?  According to the liberals, legal gun owners who want to sustain their ability to defend themselves against those who wish to do them harm is some type of right-wing, extremist idea...an idea that they lament is found in our Constitution in the Second Amendment.

Oh, but there is plenty more insulting characterizations of legal gun owners from other prominent liberals and the White House.

Take former Pennsylvania Governor, Ed Rendell.  Appearing on that bastion of balanced reporting, MSNBC, Rendell characterized gun owners as "looney, nuts, off their rocker."

Note that Rendell isn't just saying we legal gun owners of America are wrong, but that we're lunatics and far out of the norm of society.  Don't you think if Rendell had the power to somehow confiscate every gun in America he would jump at the chance?

Also, consider President Obama's comments Monday regarding those who oppose the heavy gun control proposals he's to announce Wednesday, "As far as people lining up and purchasing more guns, I think that we've seen for some time now that those who oppose any common sense gun control or gun safety measures have a pretty effective way of ginning up fear on the part of gun owners that somehow, the federal government's about to take all your guns away."

So, it's the 2^nd Amendment crowd, the National Rifle Association, and conservative talkers and writers who are, in the words of Obama, "ginning up fear."  Really?  This is the man, remember, who characterized middle-class voters as people who "cling to their guns." 

Obama also, back in 1996 when he was running for the Illinois Senate, filled out a questionnaire for a community group in Chicago in which he answered "yes" to a question that included whether the State should ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns. 

And yesterday, President Obama took advantage of all the spadework, using his signing session for 23 executive actions to medicalize gun ownership under Obamacare, making it "clear that his health law, known as the Affordable Care Act, allows doctors to ask patients whether they have guns in their homes, and will tell them they are able to report any threats of violence they hear to police"

Indeed, how silly of us, legal gun owners to think that our President would ever seek to take away our guns.  Just ignore the fact that he's from Chicago, which has some of the most stringent gun controls in America, and that he mocks those who cling to their guns, and that he filled out a questionnaire for a liberal community group in which he agreed that guns need to be out of the possession of Illinoisans. 

And, we're the crazy ones?

Chad Stafko is a writer and political consultant living in the Midwest.  He can be reached at stafko@msn.com