Breaking Silence Over Gun Control

For the past week since the deal was announced, gun owners have been wondering “What do we get out of this? How is it a compromise if all we’re doing is ceding ground.”

After reading the proposed language, I’m surprised by how much of this looks to me like it’s aimed at Mexican drug cartels. So what you have here is a bunch of Republicans who are probably retiring or will soon announce they are retiring, who love themselves some “law and order,” who are using Uvaldi as an excuse to get a wish list to target the cartels.

There’s also a few cases where they are requiring action from states, which the feds cannot do. The state can literally refuse to pick up the phone and there’s nothing the feds can do about it. This is well-established precedent. So know we know what the GOP worms got out of this: some drug warriorin’. And what flag waving Republican doesn’t love that?

Just go read them trying to define “dating relationship.” Are you kidding me? At least they didn’t apply it retroactively, and limited the prohibition to 5 years, but you know what would have been nice? To do the same thing with all of the Lautenberg Amendment. There would have been a compromise. But no. This just takes. The concessions are only things law and order GOP swamp creatures care about.

This bill is garbage and should be opposed, and any Republican who votes for this needs to be tossed out on their asses in a primary if they aren’t retiring.

The Californication of Colorado is Complete

All that fleeing from California isn’t going to help things. We want them packed and stacked in one very democratic state. Witness Colorado nuking preemption as an example of what happens when Californians flee their state in large numbers and settle elsewhere. This would have been inconceivable when this blog started in 2007. But it’s reality now: we have an anti-gun mountain state.

And Then There Were 19

We’re getting close to half, as Tennessee becomes the 19th state to adopt constitutional carry. From Governor Bill Lee:

Law-abiding Tennesseans will soon be able to carry a handgun in our state without unnecessary permission from the government. Tennessee becomes the 19th state with constitutional carry and it is core to our public safety agenda this year. I firmly believe that penalizing law-abiding Tennesseans is not a solution for reducing crime—we must stiffen penalties on those who break the law. This legislation protects Tennesseans’ rights while significantly increasing penalties on those who steal or unlawfully possess a firearm. I thank the members of the General Assembly for their support and commitment to Second Amendment rights in Tennessee.

It’s a Tactic

A lot of people are pissed at Rob Pincus for this. Maybe they should be. But I’ve done posts here along these lines. The trick is that if your opponent has a popular premise they are using to push their agenda, you can accept that premise, but on terms that your opponent will never or can never accept. By doing so you expose their true intentions, and if they prove successful in the end, at least push them farther away from their original position.

That said, times today are different, and with the current polarization, I’m not really in any mood to play games. It’s looking to me like we have an opportunity to prevail without having to concede points to make things less bad. They didn’t quite get the conditions they needed to support their narrative with the past couple of incidents. But that might not hold. There are plenty of nuts out there.

It’s also a tactic that you don’t make concessions when you don’t have to. Only make concessions when it’s the choice between bad and worse. My issue with Pincus’s piece is he wrote it before it was apparent that kind of thing was going to be necessary. If the Dems don’t have the votes, they don’t have the votes. Let it be.

What Activism Matters Anymore?

I have to admit, I’m done arguing with conspiracy theorists. We don’t have mass shootings for a good while, and then we get two at a moment when it’s most convenient to the gun control crowd; even desperately needed. The pattern is there. I’m not going to waste time talking anyone out of weaving a yard with it.

No, I’m not going all CIA trained killers or crisis actors: I still don’t believe in the big conspiracy (though I do think little ones can happen). I’m just done arguing with that crowd. You do you.

If you ask me, the timing is explained by mass shootings being a media driven phenomena, and these killers are very concerned that their act earn them the notoriety they seek. So they are very tuned to the news cycle, and are probably aware when they are primed to get coverage. That’s not when there are pandemics and riots dominating the news.

I feel like most of the politicians are pretty well polarized into one camp or another at this point, just like everybody else, and there’s not a whole lot we’re going to do other than keep some of the more soft pro-2A folks in line. Does arguing with people on social media work? Probably not. I’ve come to the conclusion social media is useful for sharing cat pictures and pictures of your rugrats for the grandparents, and that’s about it. People who spew politics all day on social media are boors, and who wants to be a boor?

So I go back to keeping local institutions healthy, which, perhaps too conveniently, is what I’m currently involved with. But I didn’t exactly think I was saving the world when this blog was at its height of popularity and activity. The country’s institutions are broken. NRA is horribly broken. Conservative Inc has never worked. If we’re going to rebuild those after the realignment is finished tearing everything up, we’ll need local civil society. Steel those institutions and people, and get them ready to fight, and then help pick up the pieces once we reach a new center.

Well, I’ll be Damned

Apparently the C&R exception to GCA that allowed the surplus boom of the late 90s and early aughts, which I took some advantage of, wasn’t, in fact, in FOPA, despite my claiming that over the years. Of course, Dave Hardy was my source for that, since Dave was involved with FOPA and is the leading authority on it, so I’ll blame Dave. But good find!

Stirrings Within NRA, and Gun Control

Sadly, I think John is probably right about what the NRA’s special meeting will be about, namely retroactively approving the bankruptcy filing. In the mean time, start activating your networks because gun control is coming at a time when the left has NRA over the ropes (ropes that Wayne happily sold them). As I heard it said, once you start losing, it’s hard to stop. It’s like opening a wound. So they might not start with gun bans, but it ain’t going to stop there if they get what they want. You can take that to the bank.

So Far So Good

Looks like a lot of people having fun with it so far. I have a lot of faith in the average gun owner to do the right thing. But provocateurs and clingers on are the big risk, and Northam and other’s rhetoric ahead of the rally seemed to indicate they were planning for and maybe even hoping the shit would hit the fan. The day isn’t over yet, but I’m becoming optimistic that fears of a minority of whakadoodles ruining things for everyone else was misplaced. I’ll update if anything changes.

Next steps? Get gun people in Virginia registered to vote. There are a lot of non-political gun owners who may bitch and moan about things, but don’t vote on the issue. The next move is to teach the Dems that the gun vote isn’t baked into the GOP numbers.

UPDATE: Check out Cam Edwards‘ and Steve Gutowski’s Twitter feeds are a good source of on-the-ground coverage of the rally from people I trust to report fairly.

UPDATE: Let the bullshit flow. Miguel deals with some of it. Worst. Nazi. Rally. Ever. So does Dave Hardy.

UPDATE: Bearing Arms: “Virginia Lobby Day Rally Finishes Up Without Issue” They note that CSGV is dismissing the turnout, saying it was mostly people from out-of-state, and that the gun vote is already baked into the losing side’s numbers. See above. A good strategy is to use this crisis to find and make more gun voters.

UPDATE from the Bee: It does seem that way, doesn’t it. And I’m not sure it was just the media. “Media Offers Thoughts And Prayers That Someone Would Start Some Violence At Gun Rights Rally

UPDATE: Is anyone surprised? “YouTube Removes Livestreams of Richmond Gun-Rights Rally.” The Facebook feeds stayed up.