courtesy vox.com

“Incrementalism can also work in the other direction. In 2016, for example, Idaho enacted a law that removed permit requirements for concealed carry. If more red, gun-friendly states take similar action, America may not move incrementally toward stricter gun laws so much as move in two different directions at once — where whether a state’s gun laws are stronger than before depends on its broader political leanings.

“Still, weaker gun laws are going to be harder to justify, even in red states, if the American public continues to shift toward supporting more gun control. And if Congress takes its own action at some point, it could set a nationwide standard that states can’t overcome.” – German Lopez in The case for optimism on gun control [via vox.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

65 COMMENTS

    • But up to us to keep the antis at bay.

      Winning small some places while losing small and bug other places is still losing. Not making progress at the federal level (HPA, etc.) is losing … Not to mention backsliding on things like bump stocks.

      This is our fight to lose.

      • You are correct; this is our fight to lose. Our problem is – I think – that we PotG are rugged individualists who won’t close-ranks like the Progressives do.

        I see 2 keys:
        1. – SCOTUS will start making pro-2A decisions, very slowly and very incrementally, as soon as Trump appoints and the Senate confirms the next one or two justices. (Long-live Trump!)
        2. – We need the Senate to stop any new Federal gun-control bills and confirm Federal judges.

        Toward #1, we need to continue to support Trump, and then Pence, notwithstanding that Trump is slow-walking his support for the 2A (and, even, at times, undermining the 2A.) There is no viable alternative to keeping Trump in office for a 2’nd term and then electing Pence for two terms. None. Though it is a bitter pill to swallow, that’s it boys.

        Toward #2, it takes 41 Senators to filibuster most bills and 51 to stop all bills. Stop passage in the Senate and no bill can become law no matter who controls the House or White-House. There are 40+ Right-to-Carry States, each elects 2 senators. We need 41 out of 80 Senators to stop most bills and 51 out of 80 to stop any bill. That’s all.

        A State that is Right-to-Carry is likely to be 40% or more in favor of gun-rights. Just a modest improvement in voter-support for gun-rights in such States would make the 2A a 3’rd-rail issue for every Senate race in these States. Imagine a State that is 40% pro-gun, now add just 11% and it’s 51% pro-gun. If it’s 40% pro-gun, add 21% and it’s 61% pro-gun. That’s feasible. If two neighbors can’t get a 3’rd to see it our way then we aren’t going to succeed in a Won’t-Issue State.

        It’s hard to get traction in NY, NJ, DE MD, MA, RI, CA, HI and the like. If the pro-gun population is 5% these voters are a long-way-away from the 10-fold increase needed to reach 51%.

        The popular vote is likely to pay attention to gun-rights when their interests come face-to-face with a BIG RED wall of gun-rights Senators in Congress. When every bill on the Progressive agenda faces 41 staunch defenders of the 2A (who know the wrath of their gun-owning constituents) then – and only then – will we have a fair hearing on the issues.

        • Give a man a fish, feed him for a day.

          Don’t teach a man to fish, he’s a grown man, and fishing isn’t that hard.
          -R. Swanson

          • Good idea!

            One might find it interesting to re-read my original comment, especially the second sentence.

      • “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.”

        Teach a man to fish, and you pose an existential threat to the government.

        • Build a man a fire and you keep him warm for a day. Set a man on fire and you keep him warm for the rest of his life.

        • You can wish in one hand and crap in the other. See which one fills up first!
          – Burgess Meredith

  2. The NRA failed when it allowed the National Firearms Act of 1934 to stand without offering opposition, the 1968 Gun Control Act, the “instant check” system, the “no new machine gun for civilians” ban in 1986, the so-called “assault weapons ban in 1991, and other infringements on the Second Amendment. Let’s face it. What better way to increase membership than to “allow” infringements to be enacted and then push for a new membership drive. Yes, the NRA has done good, but its spirit of “compromise” will only lead to one thing…confiscation.
    If the NRA is truly the premier “gun rights” organization, it must reject ALL compromise…

  3. If we can just get to a total GD gun ban we can finally get to killing each other over it.

    That’s more optimism than gun-grabbers deserve.

  4. Incrementalism has not and will not work in our favor. The only real incremental victories I have seen lately were regarding carry (on the state level). That is good but there has been so much more incremental infringements with feature bans, waiting periods, mag capacity, etc. also on the state level. It seems like if we keep this pace up we will have most states under laws similar to the 1994 ban but with Constitutional carry. That is not a trade off I want to see.

  5. We have to make this about civil rights. As repulsive as the issue of equality and honoring civil rights are to people like chris mallory and mack bolan we have to take a page from history and drive home the civil rights aspect of the 2a.

    Force the dems to face the reality, in the publics mind, of supporting violating civil rights.

    • Culture>Civics.

      There is a reason that Latin and African countries, and their corresponding American cultural pockets are ripe with corruption and violence.

      Civil Rights are a byproduct of the West. They exist only because of the European and Christian founding of America. As the demographics shift, civil rights go away.

    • its not about that to THEM though. thats the problem. they have this safety utopia bug up their asses and think the way to accomplish that is a ban on anything they don’t like. they could care less about civil rights. and what will end up happening is people will get so tired of these school shootings that they will cave and “trade their liberties for securities to which they will lose both, and deserve neither” too bad we will all be in the same boat.

      the “powers that be” are playing their hand well. they will keep glamorizing these shootings and creating more loop holes for killers so we will all be so afraid we will ask the government to take our own guns away. Or at least thats their plan as i see it. and it’s working for the masses.

      pretty soon we will be an endangered species as gun owners.

      • “its not about that to THEM though. thats the problem.”

        Actually, it is about civil rights for the left: the constitutional right to life and safety is superior to all other civil rights, enumerated or not. No one has a civil right to shoot anyone (except for cops and military and private security for the elites).

        • Sam I Am – And that right to life was defended by individuals with personal weapons stopping more school shootings than the police before the school gun ban zones were established.

          • While your statement is correct, it is irrelevant….to the opposition. Preservation of life (by means of making sure nothing can harm an individual) and securing omni-directional safety is the means of achieving the preservation of life. There is no room in that reasoning for “good guys with guns”. Because “good guys with guns are merely crazies who haven’t “snapped” and started shooting the public.

            It all might seem absurd to pro-gun supporters, but the above is the reasoning behind the installation of anti-knife laws in the UK. Next will be fork and spoon control.

  6. There’s a reason we are a Republic (and not a Democracy). Mob rule sucks and even if a majority doesn’t like/use/realize their own certain rights, doesn’t mean those of us who use/know them are in the wrong for wanting to maintain them.

    Democracy: Three wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.

    • People often mouth the “republic, not democracy” or “democracy is mob-law” tropes, but keep forgetting that directness vs. indirectness of representation and limitation vs. expanse of government mandate are separate concepts.

      • have you actually READ the Constitution? kinda says that in plain english, where as the word democracy NEVER appears.

  7. “Public opinion” had the Hildebeast winning…guns are quite popular where I live. Who gives a sh#t?!?

  8. NRA was into appeasement with the Government, they still are, it’s only about the bottom line for them! put on a dog and pony show about how great they are; then rake in the dough, they recommended the 1934 laws, helped implement the 68, 86,and 94 anti American gun laws, Gun owners of America have done more for the Constitution than the 200+ years of NRA Government appeasement

    • The NRA hasn’t been around for 200 years. I don’t belong to the NRA and I find myself defending them from trolls. How weird is that.

      • The NRA should be heralded for being the only pro-gun civil rights group defending zero tolerance for regulation, restriction or limiting the application of the Second Amendment. NRA daily launches pressure on politicians to stop and/or terminate any legislation that would disturb the absolutism of the RTKBA. NRA is the only group willing to not only lobby congress, but hold rallies declaring, “Not one more inch !”.

        NRA, thank you for whatever service you performed “in the day”. We wouldn’t be where we are without you.

        • Where we are is 2.5 million crimes stopped per year by civilian gun owners and a huge, about 60% drop in gun murder in a generation, as gun control was generally reduced and as gun carry increased 14x.

          The left’s claim that the ACLU or NRA are “terrorists” because they oppose shredding the US bill of rights is nothing but pathetic.

    • I am a life member of both, but I am not sure that I could point to anything with significant results that the GOA has done. Perhaps you could enlighten me? I am a member of the NRA so I can vote there even if I don’t often get what I want.

  9. German Lopez is not familiar with the left’s reliance on sanctuary cities from state and federal immigration enforcement that’s spawned the similar movement on the right for sanctuary cities from gun control at the state level.

  10. …that graph looks fishy. I’m no great statistician, but the blue and orange lines are just mirror images. There should be some discontinuities between them at least.

    And, if my math skills are telling me the truth, 56%+38%+7%=101%. Is the 1% some sort of inherent error in the sampling?

    Confuzed, but not fooled.

    • John Lott has a nearly identical graph he showed in a presentation at an event I attended this past Sunday.

      • Frankly I used to take Lott seriously but not lately. When he laughably claimed the enhanced penalty school zone gun crime law in DC prohibited concealed carry permit holders, when all the actual experienced litigating firearms law attorneys said it doesn’t, I realized he is often a crank. I’d go with more sober researchers like Kleck.

        And if Lott supported that graph without pointing out that the 50, 40, 30,20 and ten year trends show a decrease in support for gun bans and substantive gun control than he is not credible.

        support for gun control can spike up 10 or 20 points over a one or two year period with wall to wall coverage of rare outliers, and always then drops more than it rose, eg up 10, 12 months later down 12, or up 20 and 24 months later down 23, etc

  11. I love Idaho,
    I met my county sherrif while I was open carrying at a political town hall

    • The Mrs. and I are moving to Orofino in September. Looking forward to some firearm freedom.

      • Hope the move is good for you. That’s a real pretty area.
        The Dworshack reservoir is gigantic!

        • …oh, yessir! A very good move for us.

          If I knew how to insert a humongous emoji smiley-face, I would!

          *8)

        • “If I knew how to insert a humongous emoji smiley-face, I would!”

          If you put a : next to a ) you get a 🙂

          If you put a semicolon next to a ) you get a 😉

          It’s best to leave a space before you insert the character…

        • 🙂
          😉

          …well, I’ll be!

          Thanks!

          Anyway I can make them, oh, 50 times bigger?

        • If you stack up a bunch of colons like this : : :: :: : :: : : :: :: : : : : : :: : : : :: :: :: : : :: : : :: : : :

          . . . you get the MFn POS (D)NC.

          a/k/a the “sh_thead emoji”.

  12. At least he didn’t write obnoxiously and posts his email address, even if Vox doesn’t like their pontifications sullied with comment sections.

    • I bet attitudes toward the legitimacy/need of slavery did the exact same thing prior to the Civil War. That’s why you had so many Confederate soldiers who didn’t even own slaves (nor ever would based on their economic position) fought to preserve the right to practice it. The North just kept pushing the issue more & more, correctly seeing emancipation as the key to finally overtaking the South economically & politically (it’s very clear the North bristled at the South’s authority in US governance ever since the founding, and we’ve seen a similar pattern to reign in the South ever since the oil boom). The South pushed back in response more and more, also realizing that slavery was the only way their economy could grant them the political power they enjoyed at that time, until shots were fired.

  14. Yeah, just go to the Venezuelan (with the Nazi name)’s Twatter page and chuckle while reading him defend MS-13 animals… Thats all you need to know about beta-soy’s opinions…

    • I wasn’t speaking for all of his work, of which I am unfamiliar, just this one.
      Do you live in Anchorage and fly a 172M. If so, as you likely know, your pen name is more telling than your actual name.

      • No, but it was my favorite one getting my pilot’s license 20 years ago. I’ve had that inline moniker for almost as long. I hope some azzhole doesn’t harass the current owner thinking its me… But, nowadays; there’s no telling…

        • I am a home builder myself. I sold my last plane and the new owner never changed the registration, flew it under my name for for few years until the registration expired and then flew it unregistered/uninsured until made a smoking hole with it. So, I now recommend checking to make sure people you sell airplanes to make the change. I didn’t much like having news stories about the crash with my name in them. Anyway, I got that number back now and am putting it on my new creation:-)

  16. The NRA is “The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance”, in that they are an easy target for the Socialist thugs to aim their vitriol at, but its the SAF that’s delivering real legal victories for civil rights of Americans; victories the NRA has actively opposed more than once. The NRA does do some good things, but their greatest utility is as a shinny object to distract the dog-brained Leftists, and give those bitches some thing to bark at.

  17. I’d LOVE for someone to do a comparison graph of media coverage for these same events.

    Then chart the time before the next highly-publicized shooting against the time devoted to the previous one.

    The most disgusting part of the chart in this article, is that the anti-gun control camp is not trying to impinge upon the lives or property of the opposition (nor can it be honestly argued is their policy position posing a statistically different risk/impact on the anti-gun folks as in years past; crime, accident, and even mass shooting casualties simply have not changed that much overall over this time span). The spike in opposition to gun control is solely due to the anti-gun camp’s arrogance and abuse of gun owners.

    • they wont put the 50, or 40, or 30 or 20 or 10 year chart because of the simple fact that there are spikes up in support for gun control that may last a few months or even two years, but then decline even more than the rise.

      with the except of background checks support for all remaining new gun ocntorl measures has been falling long term.

      suppport of handgun bans, the prime focus of the gun control lobby for 30 years, was about 70% 30 years ago and has plunged to about 23% today. support for assault rifle bans has fallen in all long term polls

      • They’ve largely given up on bans on hardware simply because they have come to realize it’s pointless (which is where most of the majority-opposition to the bans comes from), and have found a more effective tactic.

        Their idea of banning more of the *owners* of those guns is catching like wildfire, even among gun owners & the NRA. It won’t matter long term if guns themselves are totally unrestricted if only 10% of the population is even allowed to own them. Once that number is small enough, the bans & even confiscation can go down with very little resistance or public opposition.

        At some point we’re going to have to start pointing fingers at these “only the ‘right’ people should own guns” types, because frankly, gun ownership really isn’t that big a deal compared to all the other risky things we consider protected activities for imperfect (or even outright defective) persons. It’s about time we abandon this silly charade of acting like one must be qualified and vetted to own a gun as if it is some kind of significant danger to the public. The only reason the debate tactic of the ‘good/lawful’ gun owner exists is to deflect their claims that no one should have a gun; it’s not an argument in favor of banning guns for all but the most ‘good/lawful’ citizens, though you wouldn’t think so to hear the NRA discuss NICS. Between the ever increasing class of felonies, the ever increasing class of misdemeanors that disqualify gun ownership, the proposition of the idea that gun ownership or masculinity is a symptom of mental illness, the widespread prescription of mental health drugs & therapy, the ‘hate’ groups and gangs, the ‘red flag’ restraining orders based upon baseless accusations, and last but certainly not least the ‘good cause/character’ requirements in may issue states…

        “Cast out the mote from thine own eye; and then thou shalt see clearly to cast it out from thine brother”

        No one is perfect, and no one has ever argued one must be perfect in order to exercise their human rights. The anti-gunners do, because they do not believe gun ownership is a human right…and neither do many gun owners.

  18. Perhaps there should be a vote on whether or not to ban firearms. I would bet that the anti-gun mafia would be in for a big surprise, just like the last time they tried to ban firearms through a public election.

    • The thing is that it isn’t up to a vote either way. What the majority thinks does not in the least determine what is right and what is wrong, what are rights are and what are not. The outcome of this culture war will determine which rights are respected though. Votes will never end that war. Those of us determined to do what is right, have only two ways through.

  19. Consent can be manufactured, and almost always is. Most of what people accept as truth in their daily lives is proof of this. They will get the public’s guns, as for decades the vast majority of 2A supporters have had no idea what they we’re up against.

  22. It’s always weird to me come election season to see my state, NH, come up that ugly shade of blue. Living here you would never know it. Gun laws? What are those? We too have moved to constitutional carry in the past couple years.

    • Well… Its certainly not due to the fucking Massholes that have taken over our Congressional delegations…

Comments are closed.