For the past several weeks, it’s just been wall-to-wall hysteria in the media about the need for more gun control. If my Google Alerts are any indication, the media is predictably moving on to other topics that generate more eyeballs. Move along. Nothing to see here. At least until the next sensationalist story comes along. I obviously have not covered much of the hysteria. It’s not changing any minds anyway.
I think we may have come to a stability in terms of public opinion on the gun issue, where we’ve pretty much convinced a majority that gun laws are not the solution to social ills. This is a good place to be, but we still need to do more. How? The Second Amendment, that you have some, if perhaps ill-defined in the public mind, right to own a firearm for self-defense, is now greater than an 80% issue. That you have a right to a handgun is approaching an 80% issue. I’d like to get the need for new gun laws to an 80% issue as well, and increases the number of folks who think maybe we ought to repeal a few. But how?
I suspect we’ve reached a stability because we’re not able to penetrate into the cities very effectively. New York and its entire metropolitan area is gun hostile. That’s close to 20 million people right there we can’t effectively reach. There’s another 13 million in the Los Angeles Metro area, and 10 million in the Chicago metro area. That’s 43 million people, the vast majority have no exposure to firearms, shooting, or hunting, and more importantly, 43 million people who are extremely unlikely to even know someone who does these things. If you total up all the hostile metro areas in this country, 5 million in the Boston area, 5 million in the bay area, 5 million in the San Bernardino area, and 3 million in San Diego, you’re starting to talk about a sizable chunk of public opinion.
I’ve always thought the fight in the Courts was important, but now I’m becoming convinced it’s of the utmost importance. If we’ve truly reaching a stability on the gun issue, the only way we’re going to make any further significant strides is to be able to re-establish a healthy shooting culture in these metro areas where it’s been extinguished because the anti-gunners control those legislatures or city councils. I also think it’s going to become more important for Congress to exercise it’s Section 5 powers under the 14th Amendment to eliminate state and local outliers in terms of gun laws. In fact, this is probably safer option than the states. If we can do that, I think you’ll see public opinion on this issue swing quite rapidly in our direction. If we can get most of the basic concepts of gun rights to 80% issues, most politicians won’t dare even speak the word gun control, no matter what the media and our hysterical opponents say.
