I think we might be helping the other side write better legislation. I’m just as guilty of this too, and likely one of the biggest offenders, but I’m hard pressed to not notice that every magazine ban proposed doesn’t have the obvious flaws we pointed out in previous bans. They’ve also learned not to ban this. Previous magazine bans proposed in the Congress and in some State Capitols were so broad they covered things like tube fed .22s and lever action rifles, which commonly hold more than 10 rounds. What’s worse is that we made these arguments on bills that weren’t going to go anywhere, and weren’t going anywhere. All that was accomplished was teaching the other side how to write better legislation so that now, some very effective arguments against the current bills are off the table. It’s making me think.
I will continue to do reporting on bills that have legs, and offer legislative analysis. But for bills that aren’t going anywhere, I’m really going to have to think twice about tearing apart the flaws, because the next bill, one that might start to move, won’t have those flaws, and I scuttled those arguments for no gain. Gun owners today are much harder to divide than they have been in the past, but it definitely helps when you can point out to someone, say, in the cowboy shooting community that it is in fact your guns they are after. People are always going to be more fired up when they are directly affected than when it’s the other guy who’s ox is getting gored, even if they still oppose what’s happening. I will try to think carefully from now on about what I’m saying.
