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Something Isn’t Working as It Should
In a few short months, gun owners have gone from counting votes in the Senate to get CCW reciprocity passed nationwide to fighting for our Second Amendment lives.
Gun owners are in a culture war and we’re losing. The forces of civilian disarmament are using the techniques of the anti-smoking movement against the private ownership of guns and they’ve had more success curbing civilian gun ownership with this tactic than they’ve had fighting a political war over the previous 10 years.
This has to change. If gun owners think that relying on the pro-2A messengers and messaging of the past is somehow suddenly going to turn things around for us and make guns cool again, we are delusional and deserve to lose. We can (and have) won political battles, but now that we’re losing a cultural battle, things have to change.
We need allies, we need them fighting for us, and no talk about “Freedom’s Clenched Fist” isn’t going to bring people running to our aide.
What will win this war for us is when people begin to understand that we’re all in this together, that the fight isn’t gun owners versus gun control, it’s really freedom versus totalitarianism. This sort of thing works, NRA. Do this more often, please.
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Published in Guns
I have a different take/comment: am I the only pro-gun far-rightist that’s actually against nation-wide reciprocity for CCW?
If our states are 50 separate “experiments in democracy,” then why should we be for a federal mandate for anything, even if it’s something we’d personally enjoy & appreciate?
States, in my view, should have their own reciprocity laws on the books, as they do now; I’m in favor of more states joining the majority in recognizing and ever greater number of other states’ licensing, but from a federal point of view, I can’t advocate for a nationwide fiat law, regardless of the end result.
The ends very rarely justify the means, outside law and the will of the people. Lets leave the federal dictates to the other (wrong) side.
Kevin,
Beautiful spot. Tell the truth. No government that can exercise the kind of control the left imagines to be a good thing will not be a threat in itself. During the last century we went down that road and it was a disaster.
America is right. The American Constitution is right. The 2nd Amendment is right.
Regards,
Jim
I figure that semi automatics (assault weapons) will be banned before Trump’s first term is over. It may be part of a compromise to keep him in office and out of jail.
Because of the success of these experiments, it is time to carry it to the next level, which is national reciprocity.
One casveat . . . travelers need to be shielded from the whims of an anti-gun DA, especially if they have to use deadly force away from home.
I apologize, and I must be daft, but I’m afraid I’m not following you logic…..?
I thought the NRA had given up on this line, which is why I have despaired of the NRA as a supporter of 2A.
Yes, we need more of this. And broader and deeper.
Because personal protection from baddies is just not gonna win the day.
I think part of our problem is (going to be) that arguments that can appeal to the political center-left are not arguments that appeal to us. We don’t propagandize well. An effective political tactic might be to harp on racist implications of gun control. If black lives matter, do they matter enough to defend themselves? In an environment where offended ‘persons of color’ are hunting/ambushing police, this argument is repugnant (yes, to me, too) but it might create a gun-rights constituency among the Democrat base. The Left, not really having principles independent of power and never feeling any commitment to their … ‘commitments’ … has less compunction. We fight with a permanent disadvantage, which, perhaps, is why we believe that the 2A is that important. If you can’t prevail politically, there is a last resort.
Would you apply the same logic to a drivers license? Say Oregon, which borders my home state, doesn’t think my state provides a sufficient level of scrutiny when giving someone a license. So they pass a law that says they do not recognize the licenses issued by Washington. Would you support such a law, in principle? In practice?
It is really no different for a CPL/CWP.
They handed us the argument in Obergefell.
Regardless of federalism or anything else (which I normally favor), let them eat their arguments and celebrations for forcing many states to observe something against their will.
And really, we are only asking states that already issue CPLs to recognize CPLs issues by other states. We aren’t asking states, or municipalities on other states, to change their laws nor apply our laws. If NYC says you can’t carry concealed, then you can’t. But if Oregon has a provision allowing for a CPL, then they should recognize the CPL from Washington. And it is still up to the CPL holder to know the laws of those other states. And most CPL holders I know spend a good deal of time researching the laws, discussing them among themselves, because they value their CPL and don’t want it revoked because they made a mistake.
Well, NYC does have a permit system for concealed carry. So reciprocity would allow visitors with permits to carry there. Wherever local permit-holders may carry. As it should be. The fact that NYC’s permits are subject to a corrupt and capricious may-issue system shouldn’t be held against the residents of states with shall-issue systems.
I was a making a “fer instance”…
The point is, we aren’t asking one state to enforce another state’s laws.
Some thoughts:
It seemed we were on the ropes in late 2012 too.
Well this time we have a blue wave that is going to flip congress. A deep state bureaucracy that is feeling its oats. A MSM that is no longer even pretending to be fair. Social Media doing a hard press. All against a Trump that can care less about guns and most likely agrees with them. The gun issue is on its last legs. They will ram the laws through like they did abortion, gay marriage, Obamacare, etc and maybe even repeal the 2nd for bumps and giggles. Soon you will not even be hirable if you have a gun link on you Facebook account. A CCW will be the kiss of death.
I think if you want to win the cultural war over gun ownership, going with the 2nd Amendment as the defense of freedom argument is really that good, because the view is very niche. It may serve to intensify support among current supporters but it does not make the message broader.
The problem is that the issue is now completely partisan. I don’t have any good ideas for you I’m sorry to say. But, I don’t think this will work in the long term to make guns more popular culturally.
I’m not telling you to be optimistic, but do keep in mind that abortion and fake marriage were pushed through by the Supreme Court, and even Obamacare only survived, because the court waffled on it. The Republicans will likely have the White House and Senate for the next couple of years, and perhaps another 4 years after that. The point being, we don’t need to lose hope in a favorable SCOTUS.
You’re definitely not the only one that’s skeptical of reciprocity.
My skepticism is based on being very wary of the Feds taking over carry laws, so that we all end up with one, not-so-free system.
On the other hand, the Feds already overrule the states on other constitutional rights issue, like religious liberty, and voting rights, so reciprocity would at least mean the 2nd amendment was actually being taken seriously as a right that must be observed, like our other rights.
There is no compromise on the left. There is no correlation of these two disparate outcomes and issues. You can not appease the left with banning any type of gun, nor with more restrictions of guns. If you allowed that to happen in the hopes they will somehow be more accepting of Trump, you are gravely, and naively mistaken. This reminds me of Chamberlin’s approach during WWII.
He didn’t say Trump should take the deal. He’s saying that Trump would throw our guns under the bus, to save himself.
The messages from gun owners are all over the map. President Trump’s executive order that is coming banning bump stocks will be issued fairly soon. It’s in the final stages of sorting out the legal issues at the DOJ.
There will be gun owners that will be outraged, but defending bump stocks is a bit dicey for gun owners. You Tube videos of rapid fire potential with a bump stock may impress gun geeks, but they also can be used by anti-gun geeks to impress the public with shock and awe in a negative way. The anti-2nd Amendment crowd not only focuses on the bump stock, they also focus on the weapon that is attached to the bump stock.
There are a lot of private citizens in the United States that own firearms in the United States, and they include both Democrats, and Republicans. The NRA should craft a message that includes both parties.
Concentrating the message on the mental health aspect has disappeared, as has the under-reporting by courts of felony convictions, as well domestic violence convictions to the FBI database that is used in the NCIC & NCIS for firearms purchases background checks. The other problem is the lack of prosecutions for felons in possession of a firearm. Emphasis on these problems might resonate with the public.
Selfies of you and your bro carrying AR-15’s at Starbucks is probably not going to help the public perception of firearms ownership.
A good point. I don’t know whether other states’ drivers’ licenses being recognized in any other/all states is a federal mandate or that each state has a set of statutes on the books recognizing each others’.
As a fan of federalism, I’d have to allow that states do/would have the freedom to not recognize other states’ drivers licenses – and then allow them to reap the commercial/economic negative goodwill that comes with it.
If that is Fake J/J’s point, then Trump would have to be gravely and naively mistaken. I do not believe Trump is naïve.
The NRA is not as partisan as some may think. They endorse the most pro-gun candidate, regardless of party. In the 2016 Missouri Governor’s race, they endorsed the Democrat. (Well, they were both Democrats, but that’s another thread.)
IIRC, there were at least 2-3 Democrats who spoke at the 2009 Annual Meeting in Phoenix. Heck, back then, Harry Reid had an A rating from the NRA.
No Democrats spoke at the 2017 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, and Harry Reid was retired after pushing for gun control in 2015.
To borrow from Reagan, I didn’t change, it was the Democrats who changed.
Hee hee! That’s funny. The NRA has no interest in winning this struggle. They thrive on its continuing.
It’s high time the NRA changes or people smarten up .
Experiments in the separate “laboratories of democracy” are for states to find out what works for them. When these experiments converge on common ground, that sets the stage for a debate on whether or not the experiment should be performed on the national level.
It is a federal mandate. It began as an interstate compact, but was codified federally for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to the introduction of Commercial Drivers’ Licenses.
See The Constitution, Article IV, Section #1. The federal codification of driver’s license reciprocity is precisely the kind of thing our founders might have anticipated with its second sentence. I would argue that plain meaning of the first sentence compels reciprocity in the absence of federal action, but that isn’t something that has been put to the test. (But IANAL, yada yada.)
Anyways, there are lots of people around here who have a concept of federalism that is at odds with our constitution in very basic ways. Federalism may give states local control over most issues doesn’t mean a state can discriminate against other states’ citizens.
They do. I get a flyer before every election that rates the candidates from A to F. There are a good number of Democrats who get either the same or a higher rating than the Republican. I will says that over the last few years, that numbers has dwindled.
One thing pops up that shows firearms ownership registers with voters of both parties. More and more Dems are getting a rating of “Did not respond to survey.” In other words, they hide their true beliefs about gun ownership and support for the Second Amendment because they know how damaging an anti-gun position is in most parts of the country.
Maybe I listen too much to my friends and the MSM but it seem that the Senate, and House are gone after this election cycle and that the POTUS will be impeached shortly thereafter. As for SCOTUS from my point of view they tend to vote against conservatives more than not. They will go the way the world law goes.
The inestimable Frank J. Fleming wrote a piece awhile back on how to win a culture war, and we could learn a lot from his wisdom.
1. Consume Culture. You can’t fight a war if you don’t know what the other side is up to.
2. Make Something. Get in the battle.
3. Don’t propagandize. Be yourself. Be fun. Nobody likes a street preacher.
4. Abandon your favorite words. No one, and I mean NO ONE outside of gun culture understands what “Molon Labe” means.
5. Forget politics. It’s not about signing up people to vote for their gun rights, it’s about getting people out the range.