There is a puzzling phenomenon taking place in Baton Rouge. The Daily Reveille reported Thursday that gun sales have increased in the wake of President-elect Barack Obama’s Nov. 4 victory. In fact, newspapers from Florida to Missouri to Ohio to Washington have reported similar increases in gun sales.   Fueling this drive for firearms is the fear that “we are not going to be able to buy them in the future,” Jim Brown, buying director for Bowie Outfitters, told The Daily Reveille. Indeed, since Obama’s now-infamous remark that small-town Pennsylvanian residents “cling to guns or religion,” there has been a persistent myth that Obama literally has plans to abolish the Second Amendment and take everyone’s guns away.  Paranoia and misinformation might be the best and clearest explanations for people’s misconception that Obama plans to remove one of the 10 amendments from the Bill of Rights.  Obama’s campaign made clear his position on the Second Amendment on his Web site: “Obama and Biden also favor common sense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.”Yes, some of these measures amount to gun control — a term describing a broad set of policies mainstream Democrats have subscribed to for decades — but nothing remotely close to a total elimination of the Second Amendment.  He has simply never proposed for an elimination of all guns.  In addition to never having said, implied or hinted at any desire to take all guns away from private citizens in this country, such a policy wouldn’t even be in Obama’s best political interest — which most of us can agree is a top priority for politicians.If Obama ever hopes to win re-election in 2012, he will need the same broad coalition of voters to support him. Voters in the industrial Northeast, including the highly prized swing state of Ohio, and various places all across the country, wouldn’t react kindly to a ban on firearms.It wouldn’t make political sense for him.  Please, Baton Rouge, just relax.     —-Contact the Editorial Board at [email protected]