Our opponents have been speaking of a groundswell of support coming to their side since the two mass shootings, and getting uppity that our day in the sun will soon be at and end, and that they will proceed to destroy our precious right. That’s a lot of nonsense, but that’s not to say things are all coming up roses. As long as the Democratic Party had to protect its blue dog flank, speaking about gun control, even for deep blue state politicians, was going to be problematic.
The Blue Dog flank was all but destroyed in the 2010 midterms, and the base of support Democrats often enjoy among Independents is looking weak. The Democrats can’t honestly afford to have an unenthusiastic base, so they are circling the wagons and trying to defend what they have. Governor Quinn is now enthusiastically supporting another Assault Weapons Ban in Illinois, and facing off against the NRA, ISRA, and downstate gun makers. Andrew Cuomo, once a staunch supporter of gun control and architect of the strategy in the 90s for HUD to sue gun makers, eventually settling with Smith & Wesson, has been timid about supporting gun control as Governor so far. That no longer appears to be the case.
Democrats in blue states are re-embracing gun control. Cuomo’s plan would appear to be an attempt to snatch the number one Brady spot from California, and California is obviously advancing more draconian gun bans of its own. Some folks might suggest that this is bad news only for the states whose gun laws already suck, but a prevailing Democratic culture of gun control is going to screw us over the long term here in Pennsylvania. Everyone in this state should be particularly concerned that we lost Tim Holden, a solid pro-gun Democrat, to a far left radical anti-gunner in a primary:
Democrat Matt Cartwright, a Scranton lawyer, said he does support an assault weapons ban, saying Americans don’t need such weapons in their homes. He would also support “reasonable” ammunition purchase limits, according to a statement released by his campaign.
Cartwright said he is strongly in favor of Americans’ right to bear arms.
This isn’t a Philadelphia Democrat, folks, this is Schuylkill County! I’ve long believed Pennsylvania is a hair’s breath from becoming strongly anti-gun, just like New York and New Jersey. Why? The western part of Pennsylvania has traditionally been our bulwark against gun control in this state, and the western part of Pennsylvania is rapidly depopulating. In addition, both Northeastern Pennsylvania and Southeastern Pennsylvania are taking a lot of transplants from New Jersey and New York. The Philadelphia suburbs are growing and becoming more left-leaning and Democratic. Even Philadelphia has stopped losing population. Pennsylvania as a whole is getting less purple, and more blue, and given that Democratic political culture is starting to swing anti-gun, our gooses may end up cooked. The political center of the fight for gun rights in Pennsylvania is going to swing from the West to the East, and while there are plenty of gun owners in the suburbs here, I’ve never gotten the impression very many of them will stand up and fight, or quite honestly lift a finger to help promote a healthy shooting community. We are poorly equipped for the fight that’s coming, and we’ll be able to depend on our western brethren less and less as changing demographics keep reshaping this commonwealth.
What you see happening in PA has been happening for a while here in North Carolina. While in-migration has moved NC into the top 10 in population, it has also moved it much further to the left. Also, like PA, many of our in-migrants have come from NY and NJ.
In 1960, only 20% of North Carolinans were born outside the state. The last number I saw put it at approximately 52%. This in-migration is especially seen in the Piedmont and the mountain city of Asheville.
Frankly, I don’t know the answer as to how to prevent in-migrants from diluting our 2A rights other than to take them shooting and work on them one-on-one.
I wouldn’t worry too much about North Carolina. NC has a reputation for being a Democratic stronghold for so long only because the Dems gerrymandered the heck out of the place to keep their seats. The Republicans have reversed that with a vengeance. All we need to do now is inject some spine into our Senate leaders. We’ll be Constitutional Carry in no time flat.
All Gov. Cuomo did was make some vague, noncommittal statements without actually endorsing anything the antis have put forth. There’s no new support for gun control, the whole thing is a dog-and-pony show hyped by the media.
Remember a year ago when you and bitter would trash anyone who questioned your We are winning posts. Most of us have seen this fight before, a few key events swing those swing voters. Then you have OC idiots running around with their antics, now grabbing more negative media attention. The storm clouds are forming. The fight is coming. Oh you also have the Ron Paul faction trying to divide a vote by encouraging people to sit home and not vote. This vote in Nov is going to the one that decides if America follows a “collective” path blazed by Europe or the American dream lives on and thrives.
There ya go, good job. Let’s further divide gun owners.
People used to freak out when halogen headlights showed up on cars, when cell phones were being carried, etc. etc. Now it’s commonplace and no one is screaming to “ban halogen headlights because they’re dangerous and will kill people because they’re blinded by them” (anymore).. People weren’t always afraid of handguns being carried openly..
Where’s the division? Show me. Oh wait, you see all the actions of the idiots in the OC crowd, that militant crowd that is more about in your face shock shit armed activism.
Hey, I have an idea. Lets OC a shotgun into the library then go sit down in the kids section and see how many people we can education. This OC need to think twice, act once. You pick a fight you can win. You don’t pick fights that you know you’re going to loose in two courts (the legal system, and public opinion). Sad part is these misguided mental midgets can’t figure out which fights are the ones they’re going to lose.
There is nothing wrong with OC’ing, and in fact a lot of good. Its showing people just how normal gun owners are, and how they aren’t going to hurt anybody.
So yeah, you are dividing people by calling OC’ers idiots.
Remember a year ago when you and bitter would trash anyone who questioned your We are winning posts.
No, I don’t.
I don’t either … and there’s a difference between saying “we’re winning” and “we’ve won”. I don’t remember any gun activist saying the latter, although I might go so far as to say “we may have largely won for a generation”. We’ll see, but it certainly sucks if your state is going from Purple to Blue.
Me, I’m happy because if anything Missouri is going from Purple to Red, and, hey, we won’t have any elected Carnahans to kick around after this year. The very loathsome Russ Carnahan, who took over the seat of Dick Gephardt only 8 years ago, lost his primary against a much more generic liberal black named Clay. The St. Louis region lost so many people their districts were smashed together in post 2010 census based redistricting, Missouri lost a seat.
We’re in tall cotton over here, maybe you should consider moving away from the “TB wards” or whatever you’d like to call them of adjacent NE liberal and gun grabbing states. You can already plot the trends of infection and it’s likely to only get worse.
Selective memory.
If you can’t use Google site:pagunblog.com [insert suitable search words here] to find some proof of you assertion, you’ll forgive me if I ignore it.
I’m not trying to be a smartass… I really don’t remember. I would say that we’re winning, but I’ve been pretty consistent in my opinion that Pennsylvania isn’t all that pro-gun over the long term.
Here’s the thing. The Dems have lost most of their centrist members and are about to lose ALL the rest of them in November. The ones that remain are looking at the Good Ship Democrat and are saying to themselves,
“Well, no mast, no engine, the rudder’s broke, and the radio is out. I know, let’s punch a great big hole in the hull.”
I say let them. We should never get in the way of an enemy when he’s making a mistake. In fact, we should egg them on as much as possible. We should do everything in our power to cause them to come out of the woodwork so we can squash them like the cockroaches they are.
Right now, at the national level, they have something to lose by reverting to type. I don’t see how it helps us to remove more reasons to (pretend) to be pro-RKBA. For one thing, it would allow the Republicans, 99.9+% who don’t care about us to say, who else will you vote for (well, someone else in a primary, but we won’t know when that lesson sinks in, or even if it will, and will that result in real change?).
The loss wouldn’t be total, perhaps, depending on Senators and their ambitions for returning to the Oval Office.
What I am actually seeing in both parties is a Cincinnati Rebellion not only about guns but the whole enchilada. I think most Dems are waking up to the fact their party is communist red than Kennedy Blue and that is not what they go for. And the Wooly Mammoths at the Republican leadership are unaware that Tea Party hunters are slowly circling.
I think most Dems are waking up to the fact their party is communist red than Kennedy Blue and that is not what they go for.
I gather that’s your impression; can you provide some evidence for it?
I see or rather hear that’s happening with a new set of “Reagan Democrats”, a superset of the old one, since Team Obama and far too much of the party at the national level has written them off, the white working class who didn’t go to or finish college. The bitter clingers and all that who voted for Hillary!, but not before she’d fatally screwed up her primary campaign.
Kennedy Blue, though, I’ll note, whether you’re talking JFK or the nearly red Teddy, is an unsustainable system, one that’s just about run out of other people’s money to spend.
As for those Woolly Mammoths, some like Hatch woke up at least for the duration of his primary … the others, if they don’t wake up, they’ll go extinct like Luger in time. Although I wonder if before we hit a fiscal brick wall.
First I’ll be a pollyanna and suggest that “liberals” moving into pro-gun states might over time become more favorable to gun rights, through osmosis from the prevailing culture. (A guy can dream, can’t he?) Maybe the trick is to win them over faster than they can out-vote you.
But then I’ll be a pessimist and say, watch that you don’t get surprised by who the Neo-Gun-Banners turn out to be in some vague future. Every statist-of-the-right loves our votes for getting themselves into seats of power; but no power-worshipper likes a population with a viable means to say “no” to them, once they have power. Left and right are both authoritarians and power-seekers.
First I’ll be a pollyanna and suggest that “liberals†moving into pro-gun states might over time become more favorable to gun rights, through osmosis from the prevailing culture.
I suspect that’s a game of numbers and proportions. I.e. to take extreme counterexamples, the Massachusetts residents who moved into southern New Hampshire but who commute back down to the state they fled. Or the blacks who fled the insanity of D.C. and moved into Prince George’s county in Maryland, forming what’s called D.C.’s 9th Ward. In each case there were so many of them I think they overwhelmed the local culture, not that there was that much difference between D.C. and suburban Maryland (this probably holds for flight from NYC as well), but in the case of New Hampshire it decisively changed the state’s politics, to the point it has lost its predictive power in its presidential primary.
Better studies would come from the flight from California: adjacent states are too far to commute to the coastal population centers and the refugees are more dispersed. I haven’t watched it closely, but I get the impression they’ve moved their local politics to the left, but not so decisively, and some did indeed “go native”.
So, reading between the lines, it seems to me that you’re saying that Pennsylvania is once again the Keystone State….