By KIRK SWAUGER
SOMERSET — Raised in Wyoming, David Freudenthal grew up around guns.
Now the governor of that state, Freudenthal met with sportsmen Tuesday in Somerset to counter claims Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will take guns out of the hands of hunters and collectors.
“It was a big deal when my dad gave me a single-shot .22 and let me go hunting,” Freudenthal said to a crowd of about two dozen gathered in the home of Somerset lawyer Michael Smith and his wife, Dr. Ann Smith.
“First and foremost, (Obama) has a fundamental understanding that it’s an individual right.”
Freudenthal stopped in Somerset for about an hour on a tour of four small towns in western Pennsylvania sponsored by the Obama campaign.
The National Rifle Association has said Obama would impose strict gun control measures – a contention Obama denies.
“I believe in the Second Amendment, and if you are a law-abiding gun owner, you have nothing to fear from the Obama administration,” Obama said during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania in early September.
“The bottom line is this: If you’re got a rifle, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not going to take it away.”
Obama added he will support the rights and traditions of sportsmen and is against confiscating firearms.
Joe Alaimo, 55, of Johnstown said he is not concerned that Obama will infringe on his right to hunt.
“Barack Obama will not take your guns,” Alaimo said. “I’ve never had a gun taken from me with any Democrat.”
Though Obama “was not somebody who had grown up hunting, he is somebody who understands the Constitution,” Freudenthal added.
Freudenthal said he believes Republican presidential candidate John McCain is using the gun-control issue to take attention away from the troubled economy.
“If you’re an extension of the administration that presided over the greatest economic downfall in this country’s history, with the exception of the Great Depression, wouldn’t you want to talk about guns?” said Freudenthal, a Democratic governor in a highly Republican state.
“When I look around, this country is significantly at risk. Do you want to take the behavior that put us at risk and extend it for another eight years?”
