Publicola is blogging again, after a long hiatus. His blog predates this one by a good bit. I agree with his analysis about what’s going on in Colorado. What they are trying to do is swing the pendulum back in the other direction. No new major gun control has passed in this country since the 1990s, really at either the state or federal level. That’s largely because of the drubbing we gave them at the ballot box after the smoke cleared. Well, it’s twenty years later and Obama and the far-left Democrats are betting that the gun vote is built into the Republican count, and that the gun issue can no longer deliver swing voters. They are throwing down, and betting they can slap us around with impunity, and there’s nothing we can do about it. This is what that looks like in New Jersey, as Democrats tell gun owners they won’t get to have a say before the voting:
We already saw a devastating loss in New York, and New Jersey and California aren’t far behind. This is certainly not good, but in the big picture gun owners have been punching bags for politicians in those states for years, and we all know it. It’s like showing how tough you are by beating up the fat kid after lunch. Colorado is different, because it is a state that has typical western attitudes when it comes to civilian gun ownership. New gun restrictions there, even modest ones, is a much bigger deal than in the states anti-gun forces have already largely won. Any victory there will provide a template that will be repeated in other traditionally pro-gun swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, you name it. Once the dominoes start to fall, it’s going to be extremely difficult to stop. This is why they cannot be allowed to score any wins at all. This isn’t about reasonableness. This isn’t about people coming together to solve problems. Politics is not either of those things: it is about power, and nothing else, and the side that is more effective at wielding power is the one that goes home victorious, and the other beaten up and bloodied in ways that couldn’t have been imagined when you went in thinking they were going to be reasonable. There is no reasonableness in the political process, there is only victory and defeat.
If they beat us in Colorado, we have to punish those responsible in the next election cycle. If Colorado passes gun control, and no one loses their seats, it’s going to be over for gun rights in Colorado, and possibly other states. Once politicians learn you can’t threaten their seats, your state will be New Jersey and California very very fast. Political elites don’t like civilian gun ownership. They don’t really like you either. We’re going to need all hands on deck to try to stop this, and failing that, to deliver the punishment that is necessary at election time. The progressive-left is calling what they think is a bluff. We have to show them it’s no bluff, and that we still hold a winning hand.
