Election summary – The guns edition
Oh, where to start. Well, may as well get the angry stuff out of the way first. On the pending push for another assault weapons ban:
Some of you are making the assumption that there WILL be a grandfather clause in AW Ban 2.0. I can’t look up sources here at work but I do remember a few of the major gun-grabbing people stating the next AW ban won’t have the loopholes in it the first one did. I believe that one of the top gun grabbers made mention of ” no grandfathering ” any of the guns that were part of the original or any of the ones made after the ban – again, I’m at work and can’t look it up.
To which Kevin opines:
if Joe is right and an AW Ban 2.0 carries a “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in” clause, on the date that bill becomes law, I become an outlaw.
I disagree. I’ll happily turn them in. Ammo first.
Oy. $300 for a lousy SKS… when did that happen?
Counter notes that Chuckles Schumer wasted no time:
To that end, he sketched out an expansive federal agenda: Teaming up with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on gun control, passing new tax incentives for urban job programs, and redirecting federal money to New York in return for the outsize tax collections that the federal government makes here.
Note to Democrats: shut that guy up, or you’ll be out in two years.
They had learned the NRA’s brutal lesson that you can’t be elected running on an anti-gun agenda. So they kept their anti-gun views to themselves throughout the campaign.
Once elected, they turned over control of your gun rights to the Schumers, Kennedys, Feinsteins, Boxers, Pelosis and Conyers of Congress.
That’s why Tuesday will be recorded as the first day of an ominous future for Second Amendment freedom.
And among the things you can expect to see are some really onerous gun-control bills.
Whoa, you say. Haven’t the Democrats learned that backing gun control is bad for political longevity? Why yes, says I, but they don’t care. They have to do it. It’s in their genes.
Is it pledge season or something? The VPC says:
In the wake of the Republican party losing control of the U.S. House and amidst key Senate losses, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has suffered its “biggest election disaster in nearly 15 years” according to the NRA’s own election materials. In its magazines and in member communications leading up to the 2006 midterm elections, the NRA repeatedly warned that its “pro-Second Amendment House of Representatives” was at stake. And in a direct-mail appeal sent out in July 2006, the NRA’s Political Victory Fund declared that “you and I could be headed for our biggest election disaster in nearly 15 years” if democrats were to take control of one or both Houses of Congress.
I think the pro and anti gun lobby both are a bit over excited, when GOA is the voice of reason:
What impact, if any, will the transformational 2006 Congressional Election have on Second Amendment rights?
While election 2006 may have been a referendum on many things (the President, war in Iraq, Jack Abramoff, Mark Foley for example), it does not translate into greater support for gun control at the grass roots level.
If anything, gun control was notable as a non-issue in this election. In compiling the GOA rating, researchers could hardly find a congressional candidate with any stated position on gun control on campaign websites.
That’s not to say many of the newly elected will not support the anti-gun agenda; just that they recognize open support for gun control will cost them at the polls.
Republicans got what they deserved, but did we? Err, no.
Cam notes that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership is giddy:
The Brady Campaign is saying that last night’s results mean Americans are in favor of gun control.
David Kopel looks at the election and the second amendment:
The Second Amendment has emerged from the biggest Democratic victory since 1974 with relatively little damage.
Over at The Gun Blogs:
while our gun rights might not be under fire, we have other issues that could impact us
JR A Keyboard and a .45 says expect a ban on weapons that look like assault weapons and talk of the non-existent gun show loophole.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
I know that before the election I was one of the Cassandras warning of Doom if the Democrats took control of one or both Houses of Congress. And yes, things are much worse for gun owners right now compared to before November 7th, if only because a hard-left San Francisco liberal is now second in line to the US presidency.
But the Democrats are in a delicate situation here. Almost all of the 32 seats they took from Republicans in the House were “red”; ie, the districts voted for Bush in 2004. And in about half of those districts they won by less than 5,000 votes, meaning that in 2008 those Democrat freshmen are going to have an uphill battle getting reelected regardless of what they do during the next two years.
The Senate is roughly the same: I can’t really see newly-elected Senators Tester and Webb enthusiastically supporting an AW Ban. It will take alot of arm-twisting by Majority Leader Reid to get them to go along with it, and Reid himself will be under alot of pressure from Nevada voters to kill the bill.
This means these freshmen are going to have to choose between Pelosi-style liberalism and getting re-elected. The more I look at it the more I think there’s going to be a big, bloody fight for control of the Democrat party during the next two years, and the issue that sparks it will likely be gun control.
Should be very entertaining.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Reid opposes the AWB.
November 9th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised. Supporting gun control in Nevada would be like voting to ban casino gambling (but banning internet gambling would be okay, since that would help Nevada).
This is one of the many conflicts Reid and Pelosi are going to have over the next two years. Reid’s no conservative, but he’s not a wild-eyed loopy leftist, either.
November 9th, 2006 at 2:44 pm
SKSs are still available from many sources for ~$90 for good condition and under $150 for excellent to unissued.
If you don’t have a C&R (Curios & Relics license), get one. Best $30 I’ve ever spent, bar none…
November 10th, 2006 at 9:53 am
Re: a “no loop hole” AW ban,I don’t know about others, but my so-called “assault weapons” are kept in my bedroom gun case. So if some leftist Democrats want to enact a law to “turn them all in”, I thought they were the same ones who SAY they want to protect our civil liberties and want to “keep the government out of our bedrooms”–or does that only apply to sodomy and such and snuffing out innocent unborn lives for any and all resaons?