Bellwethers to Watch for in the States

Silencing is Not a Crime

There’s a lot of gun stuff happening in the states, but much of it is friendly states getting more friendly, and the bad states getting worse. But there are some states to keep an eye on, and sadly we probably have more states going from friendly to hostile than we do the other way around.

Illinois is considering legalizing suppressors. Illinois has been one gun unfriendly state that’s been improving. We can thank the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals for a lot of that, and we can also thank the people who have been working hard to press those advantages in the legislature.

Nevada is considering banning guns in public libraries. Nevada is a bluing state, where Democrats are increasingly asserting control. Along with Washington and Oregon, Nevada is a state to keep an eye on. It is at risk of falling into Bloomberg’s orbit. The same is true of New Mexico. At this point, any state controlled by Democrats is in serious danger of entering Bloomberg’s orbit and never coming back.

People look around and see a world full of win for gun rights. I see a real risk that another half-dozen states start moving more toward California-style gun control. What’s going to happen when blue model failed states start driving more and more people to leave? What happens when they come to your state? You can see why I believe we need some base protections for gun rights that apply everywhere.

19 thoughts on “Bellwethers to Watch for in the States”

  1. The answer is obviously in the Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments to the Constitution for those “educated” in public skools) and the 14th amendment. Basic rights exist in all 50 states. Speech, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to abortion (yah, bring it, bible thumpers), etc. Otherwise I want to keep non-property owners from voting in Texas. I see the biggest problem as the non-education of the young by communist teachers in the teacher union heavy school districts.

  2. Taking a broader (and therefore more handwaving) view, here is what I fear: For decades now the gun rights movement has fallen all over itself to put all their eggs in a single political basket. At first that basket was Reaganesque “conservatism,” but, however you chose to define that, over time the basket became more and more identified with and dominated by social conservatives; and as time went on social conservatism began to gain more and more of the flavor of what is now called “alt-right,” and that as represented by Trumpism. And here we are in the Trump basket, whether we like it or not.

    I’ve made no bones but that I don’t like it.

    If something — the past year has demonstrated we cannot possible guess what — happens that causes a massive societal backlash against the Trump/alt-right basket, an awful lot of babies are going to get thrown out with the bathwater, to mix metaphors. And in the worst case, one of those babies is likely to be our gun rights, including all of the minor gains that may have been made in the interim.

    Having a legal suppressor will not have much point if you can’t get a gun to put it on. Ditto for the right to constitutionally or nationally carry a handgun that you can no longer own.

    Yup, I’m pessimist, but there will never be an “end of history,” and I’ve seen overnight reversals before.

    1. So you fear: WHAT? A government takeover by Hillary? Trump impeached and hordes of socialists going door to door picking up gunz? An invasion of Norks after they ROW their rowboats across 5000 miles of pacific ocean?

      Get a grip.

      1. ” A government takeover by Hillary?”

        Pssst. The election’s over. Hillary is no longer a factor.

        But even if she were, her evil would not make Trumpakov good. Today, he and the milieu his presence has created is our problem.

      2. He fears that the election of Trump and his merry band of retards is going to poison the well for respectable liberty-oriented conservatism, and by extension gun rights, forever.

        Given your increasingly insane contributions over here, that’s not an unreasonable fear.

        1. Yah, Republican control of the House of Representatives, Senate, Supreme Court, a majority of governors and control of 34 state legislatures. OH MY GAWD! We could be OUT OF POWER BY TOMORROW! Let’s compromise and give them what they want and then they will LOVE, LOVE, LOVE us and our gunz. And you, nevertrumper luser can fuck off also.

    2. It is not like the NRA hasn’t tried to engage Democrats in civil rights. It is like the Democrats are on the other side so what hell is the NRA supposed to do.

      1. “It is not like the NRA hasn’t tried to engage Democrats in civil rights.”

        Have they? I know they say they have. But just how real were those efforts?

        But, eff a bunch of NRA — have you or I (the people who were supposed to be the real backbone of the gun rights movement) really tried? Or did we go with NRA’s unofficial memes and always run to kiss Republican ass, whether they were really doing anything for us or not?

        I know about 20-odd years ago, Libertarian Party members raised enough hell about being to the right of the Republicans on gun rights, yet being ignored by the NRA, that the NRA briefly “supported” Libertarians by acknowledging their presence on earth, and tabulating them as candidates. But support never translated into anything material in the way of campaign support. (If anyone knows differently, please feel free to correct me.) Meanwhile, the NRA would pull out every stop to personally attack and subvert anyone who resisted their gun-grabbing Republican darlings, like Tom Ridge in Pennsylvania in 1994. (The governor who while in congress had supported the Clinton AWB, and then as PA governor in 1995 would insist that a gun control package be the keystone of his “Special Session on Crime.)

        But anyway, if the NRA was having no parts of people who could have schooled them on gun rights, I have serious difficulty in believing they put any real effort into wooing people who needed a bit of persuasion on the topic. I am inclined to believe any effort to build a broader base was just enough to make a plausible show.

        1. Oh. A diehard Nevertrumper. OK. So what flavor is your fantasy? Anarchy? “L”ibertarian? Well, whatever subgroup of LUSER you are, be happy. You are irrelevant and will remain so. So unless you are being paid by the word by bloomy, fuck off.

          1. It’s almost as if you’re trying to confirm every stereotype of a Trumptard.

        2. To be fair, the NRA likes to support candidates that they expect to have a good chance to win. As much as I’d like Libertarian candidates to have a good chance to win, the truth is, it’s very hard for them to get into a position where they can be in a good chance to win, without pulling away support from someone that wouldn’t be as good as the libertarian, but be worse than the anti-libertarian candidate of the race….

          As much as I’d like the Libertarian party to have a much greater role in our political system, it’s also a party that has the two-party system stacked against it.

    3. The Democrats chose to put gun bans in their political platform. The NRA didn’t do that for them. The Republican Party didn’t do that for them.

      The Democratic Party is extremely hostile to gun rights because that is the ideology of the Democratic Party. That is who they are.

      1. We would do well to remember that the Republican Party isn’t all that happy to support gun rights, either: it seems that pretty much *everyone* in *power* is uncomfortable with gun rights.

        But Democrats, for whatever reason, has historically more than happy to crank up their opposition to gun rights up to 11, while the Republicans, for whatever reason, have embraced gun rights to at least the degree of passing gun legislation.

  3. Remember only a year ago when liberal pundits were predicting that the Republican party, from years of riding social conservatism combined with nominating Trump, was going to relegate itself to a fringe, regional party?

    Fast forward a year and it’s looking like the Democrats that have been relegated, in their case to the coasts and a handful of states in between. The fact is they jumped the gun too early, thinking they reached the demographic paradigm shift where they can keep relying on the black vote while pulling in enough Hispanics and women through identity politics that would result in perpetual victory on the federal level. Turns out Trump’s brand of populism fired up enough of the white working class that Democrats have been throwing under the bus for decades to secure his victory.

    Instead of self-reflection, Democrats have doubled-down on their failed strategy by accusing half of the country of being Hitler and desperately trying to link anyone they can as Russian puppets. Remember the Congressman from OH that wanted to unseat Pelosi and focus the party’s efforts on bringing the working class back into the fold? I can’t even remember his name, which goes to show how long that lasted.

    Part of that failed strategy involves being vehemently anti-gun. State and local level politics are a different beast , but at least federally Democrats are almost universally on board with being anti-gun. They made their bed.

  4. The suicidal nihilism of the political left requires that people be defenseless in public libraries to enable mass murderers.

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