Jon Wayne Taylor, Tavor (courtesy thetruthaboutguns.com)

“For Democrats to keep their red-state senators — and reclaim purple-state governorships — in 2018, they would need to over-perform in rural America, where NRA members disproportionately live,” Eric Levitz writes at nymag.com under the banner Why the GOP Might Finally Pay a Price for Its Pro-NRA Extremism. “So why start a losing fight on guns, the logic goes, when you could keep the focus on health care and Donald Trump’s myriad affronts to common decency? Why indeed . . .

Yada yada yada forget rural voters. It’s suburban women voters who’ll rule the day. Moms who demand [gun control related] action and all that.

Democrats still face some risks in elevating the salience of gun policy, especially in a few of the Senate’s key battlegrounds. But all things considered, Team Blue has rarely had more to gain — and less to lose — by bringing progressive values to a gun fight.

True story? Or is the left’s lashing out at “assault rifles” and companies daring to do business with the NRA motivating the pro-gun rights base?

Who’s winning this latest battle in the war to defend and extend Americans’ natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

85 COMMENTS

    • Right answer. It’ll come down to how the screaming match ends up energizing each side. So far, the shock of Trump’s win in 2016 and his persona has kept the left up in arms. But if they go all in on gun control, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and opposition to the tax cuts, they could very well activate the center/center right/right against them. Certainly if they decide to go all out for an assault weapons ban, that will make life hard for red state Democrats.

    • I disagree. More is being done for gun control at moment then protecting civil rights.
      There not even focusing on the core of the problem.
      If they pass national reciprocity with the nix fix it will be close to an even fight.

    • :Nobody” is close to the whole truth. But if the general public is in favor of anything but Bloomberg/Soros gun control, we certainly will not hear, see, or read about it in the MSM!

      The liberal media is in full court press to “ban and confiscate” and will not allow any other options to get a hearing. Average people only know the President has suggested arming teachers because of his twitter feed. The left cannot stop themselves from repeating and ridiculing Trump’s tweets.

  2. Given the latest poll numbers the “blue tsunami” is looking more and more like a leaky faucet. The Demokkkrats in Illinois are even stupid enough to bring several gun control votes (that have no hope of passing) to the house floor right before an election. I expect the commiecrats to take a pounding like they’ve made a date with the health inspector.

    • It seems both Dems and Republicans are trying to find ways to drive away voters.

      Meanwhile, in a week when the NRA should surely be focused on defending gun rights, they instead take public stances against net neutrality and socialism.

      With the elimination of net neutrality requirements, do not be surprised to find some service providers blocking NRA-TV. I have already seen calls for that on social media.

      Socialism? I am from the generation for which socialism = communism. Millennials hear socialism and think Scandinavia and it sounds pretty good to them.

      I am not here to argue for net neutrality, and certainly not socialism, but I am frustrated to see the NRA’s loss of focus. NRA tarnishes their brand with many in the middle, just to support issues that are at best peripheral to gun rights. That is not what I send them money for.

      • You do realize Net Neutrality has almost nothing to do with protecting any form of content with service providers right? Calls by activists to providers to dump NRAtv would have occurred either way.

    • (From the link): “…where a teacher is now in custody after barricading themself inside a classroom.”

      “Themself.” Wow.

      “Me am gud jurnalest. Kan reed nooz on teevee, AN rite nooz on de innernet!”

      Holy. Sh!t.

    • “Frazier says at about 11:30 a.m., social studies teacher Randal Davidson told the students to leave the classroom and he locked them out. The students alerted the principal, who then tried to get inside the classroom. Frazier says the principal then heard at least one gunshot.”

      It’s not actually a school shooting but it will likely be touted as such.

    • Is this an anti-gun zealot taking one for the team to prove that teachers are unstable and shouldn’t be armed (but still be trusted instilling knowledge and values into children)?

      If so, I’m legitimately impressed. It would be the first time I saw one of them actually put something of their own on the table.

      Or, y’know, it could just be a crazy being crazy.

  4. wrong

    we are:

    “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of American Adults believe the failure of government agencies to respond to numerous warning signs from the prospective killer is more to blame for the mass shooting. Thirty-three percent (33%) attribute the deaths more to a lack of adequate gun control. Eleven percent (11%) opt for something else.”

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/gun_control/americans_blame_government_more_than_guns_for_florida_massacre

      • wrong

        some scott rasmussen quotes:

        “I spoke today about how the American people were skeptical about politicians—well, I’m more skeptical. I really do see the core issue as the political class versus mainstream voters. I think that is a much bigger gap than Republican, Democrat, conservative, or liberal.”

        “Americans don’t want to be governed from the left, the right, or the center. They want to govern themselves.”

        “America’s “historic commitment to self-governance is under assault by a governing clique revolving around Washington, D.C. and Wall Street”

        “America’s Political Class Wants to govern like it’s 1775, a time when kings were kings and consent of the governed didn’t matter.”

        additionally “Rasmussen was a weekly columnist for conservative news web site World Net Daily in 2000 and 2001.[58] In some of these columns, as well as in a 2001 book titled “A Better Deal! Social Security Choice” and a presentation at the Cato Institute, Rasmussen advocated privatization of the Social Security program.”

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Rasmussen

        • So if they report 54% for a non-progressive view, it’s probably 34% due to polling sample bias?

          Not that I’m saying it really is…just that it’s impossible to know how much credibility we should give any particular poll by any particular outfit. Especially after the ignominious failure of all the pollsters in the presidential election.

          It is interesting, though, when something like this — which presumably was designed to elicit scientifically accurate responses — so completely contradicts the legacy-media narrative. Anybody want to bet this poll never sees the light of day in “mainstream” news?

        • Yeah, now there’s an idea 💡! Let’s drop all the senior citizens SSI into the hands of another DipSh!T financier…Maybe run another Ponzi scheme with Americas retirement benefits….

          • “Maybe run another Ponzi scheme with Americas retirement benefits” You mean like social security? Because that is what social security is.

      • Interesting how democrats support gay marriage but not heterosexual marriage. And the public housing projects were single mothers live are all “gun free zones”, by democrat party order.

  5. “Only after a week of demonizing law-abiding gun owners around the country and the NRA as child-killers for a crime to which they had no connection, Democrats have begun to worry that they may have gone too far, according to The Hill:

    The party is galvanized behind the idea that Congress should take action on gun control, but faces warnings from some Democrats that reaching too far could drive away voters in the swing districts they’ll need to retake the Speaker’s gavel.”

    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/02/27/dems-worry-overplaying-gun-control-hand/

  6. Liberals have to hide what they are to keep from getting rejected wholly. They attempt to “hide” behind the mantel of “Conservatism” even while such aholes rail against its bulwarks. Pushing Gun control has always been a negative in the U.S. and we hope it costs the evil POS (D) plenty, even while we attempt to replace our own rino MFs that have also attempted to hide behind Conservatism. F em all.

    Progressivism is newborn Communism before the afterbirth dries. Liberalism doesn’t “sell” except to liberals. And we all know what communism’s promise is:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5443599/White-South-African-farmers-removed-land.html

  8. Great way to energize a lackadaisical* base who were forgetting what the alternative to all the RINOs is. If they kept there mouths shut, we would probably be mad enough to stay home and not vote for the wishy washy jerks. Now, we are reminded of the alternative.

    *The lethargic and listless definition, not the one meaning lazy.

        • I know my comments sound / are inflammatory, but I always attempt to jump to (addressing the) end-state of the argument, and U.S. and World history have plenty of examples.

          • To me, your comments sound like the truth wrapped in insanity. Like a rainbow colored AR. It looks weird, but it’s still an AR. I don’t actually disagree with you most of the time, but think say things in just about the worst possible way. I’M NOT READING ALL THAT STUFF IN ALL CAPS.

        • I have actually come to appreciate Joe R for the magical Unicorn he is in the world of punctuation and syntax.

          Keep doing you Joe R.

        • @ TX_Law

          “I’M NOT READING ALL THAT STUFF IN ALL CAPS” Yes, sadly, you actually are. Ask any brain doctor, or anyone in ‘marketing’.

          If you scanned it enough to notice that it was IN ALL CAPS, then part of your brain read and recorded it. That part of your brain thinks I did it a solid by putting it in ALL CAPS, and is grateful that I helped it to determine what the most important information was in my post(s), and is, again sadly, MORE OPEN TO AND FRIENDLIER TO THE POSITION POSTED IN ALL CAPS. “Small caps” is also very popular to your cranium contents.

          I am at least very open about this. Please only assume that I am doing or hoping to do you harm (as it is the only ‘safe’ posture), but I foreswear here that I absolutely mean you none.

          • We’re cool Joe. I just scroll past a block of text that is all caps. I don’t mind it for emphasizing this word or that word, but entire paragraphs are too much for me. I do not enjoy “actively” reading it, so I don’t. If my brain is reading it, but not telling my mind, then I guess I don’t have any control over that. I don’t believe that, but I’m not going to argue over it.

        • @Joe R., For me personally, if a post has more than five words in all caps, I skip it, science or no science.

          IT’S JUST BECAUSE IT’S HARD TO TAKE SERIOUSLY SOMEONE WHO CAN’T STOP YELLING THEIR OPINION, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING? LIKE, IN REAL LIFE, NO ONE LIKES SOMEONE WHO’S ALWAYS YELLING. THINKING THEY’RE DOING THEIR POINTS A “SOLID” BY YELLING IS THE KIND OF THING THAT NUTCASES OR LEFTISTS DO. Also, it’s hard to read.

  9. FL hatched a series of turds, the extent of which is undetermined at this time. Then they came after the rest of us.

    People creating the problem don’t get to define the problem or demand compliance with their offered solutions.

    Conservatives and conservatism wins, and will always win. If not we can do civil war / armageddon and the rest of ya can watch your asses.

  10. The anti gunners:
    Bump stock ban looks like it’s going to pass
    Raising the age to buy long guns to 21
    Enhanced BG check (whatever the FK that means) screw HIPAA, right?

    What have POTG gotten? Noting substantive:
    National reciprocity – NO
    Hearing protection act (suppressors) – NO
    lifting ban on GFZ’s- NO
    Being able to keep rate increasing devices- NO
    Opening The Automatic firearm registry- NO

      • We rarely get any positive movement toward Rights granted, But are always losing
        “Ice Cubes” Off the Ice burg that is the Second Amendment.
        Eventually all we’ll have to stand on ARE the Ice Cubes as we wonder what the hell happened to our ground.

        How does Australian Gun control fit for ya?

  11. More important question:
    When is IWI going to get off their ass and actually get that friggin awesome .308 Tavor I’m holding in that pic on the shelves?
    Thing recoils like an ar15, handles like an sbr.

    • I’ve always wanted an AR-10, and I’ve wanted to like bullpups. That sounds like a seriously epic rifle. Do you think you’ll get a review of it soon, or have you already done one?

      • I’ve been on them like a boar after a sow in heat for one. They say late March.
        I would have bought the one I shot at SHOT show if they’d have sold it to me.
        Still wondering how I found the one group of Jews that wouldn’t take my money.

        • L’chaim !

          Hahahah JWT. Yes. I’m not totally sold on plastic weapons (although I may have some flambe’ boat-wreck) Kel-Tecs (God rest their souls).

          Are they really that good? (Would you take one to war?)

        • Joe, I’ve never been huge on them before. But this one, this one I really liked. Very surprised with how I could stay on target standing in fast fire. It needs a proper review first.

        • Ok, will hope for / look for a more complete review. I was CSE in Iraq, and like the idea of a bull-pup weapon for getting out of vehicles and into harms way, do you think IWI will ever do a grenade launcher for it (that civilians can own)? Can you do a review of one with a GL 40S mounted?

        • Never even heard of a Class 10, wow, but GREAT, set up a go-fund me account and I will donate so that you can reload the casings.

          Really like Spike’s ‘flare launcher’, can afford an actual M203, but they are getting really crazy regulating even the practice rounds so the price is $$$$$$$$$. It’s dead weight, mostly, but comforting dead weight.

          Would like to see you launch a grenade along with your next review. I don’t know anyone needing to have any ‘tested’ but I think Texas Machine Gun and Ordinance has the rounds.

  12. “As reported at Rasmussen, the latest Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 50 percent of Likely US voters approve of President Trump’s job performance, while 48 percent disapprove.

    At this point in time, President Obama held a 43 percent approval rating, placing him 7 points back of the much-maligned Trump.”

    https://yesimright.com/trumps-approval-rating-7-higher-obamas/

  13. “But all things considered, Team Blue has rarely had more to gain — and less to lose — by bringing progressive values to a gun fight.”

    ‘progressive values’ is an oxymoron like jackass smart

  14. The anti gunners:
    Bump stock ban looks like it’s going to pass
    Raising the age to buy long guns to 21
    Enhanced BG check (whatever the FK that means) screw HIPAA, right?

    What have POTG gotten? Noting substantive:
    National reciprocity – NO
    Hearing protection act (suppressors) – NO
    lifting ban on GFZ’s- NO
    Being able to keep rate increasing devices- NO
    Opening The Automatic firearm registry- NO

    EMPHASIS ADDED FOR EFFECT: don’t get upset, my point is valid and urgent we need to stop being complacent!……………

    THE NRA IS REALLY GOOD AT GAS LIGHTING US POTG.
    WHAT MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT HAVE THEY GOTTEN US, I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT SOME INTANGIBLE POOP BUTT CONSOLATION PRIZE.
    WHAT HAVE THEY DONE FOR CALIFORNIANS, NEW JERSEYANS, NEW YORKERS
    NOT A G*D-D****D THING!
    JUST CONCEDING OUR RIGHTS AWAY FOR COMMON SENSE (BUMP STOCK BAN, RAISING THE AGE TO BUY A LONG GUN, ENHANCED BG CHECKS.

      • Debunked? Which of these things has occurred then? I don’t pay too much attention to the media, so maybe I missed it. Which one of these things, priorities only a year ago, have happened?

        National reciprocity
        Hearing protection act
        ban on GFZ’s
        Being able to keep rate increasing devices
        Opening The Automatic firearm registry

        • Trump could open the registry to all new machineguns by EO, and require bumpstocks to be added, for a $5 each fee as if they were AOWs.

    • That’s the problem with conservatism: it only retrenches and never advances.

      The Republican party is like McClellan in the Civil War. They’re so fixated on the conjectured strength of the enemy and unwilling to risk a loss that they preemptively lose every contest before it starts.

      The leftists who took over the Democratic party have given radicals a bad name, but every cause needs a strong radical vanguard if it’s going to win ground in the political battlefield. The leftists who took over the Democratic party have given radicals and activists a bad name, but every cause needs a strong radical vanguard if it’s going to win ground in the political battlefield.

      If we’re going to be branded as extremists simply for publicly standing for the freedoms guaranteed by the first and second amendments, then we might as well embrace it. Ditch conservativism. Be radical. The Founding Fathers were radical in exactly the same way; what better company could we be in?

      • Amen.

        Moderates are good for nothing besides shooting at their own side. Either be an extremist or protect your extremists at all costs. They are the only ones willing to take the fight to the enemy.

  15. Unfortunately the anti-gun crowd gains ground every time there is this type of tragedy. As long as they can use the emotional approach and the under current is “must do something” even if it does not solve the problem on the idea that it solves some small part of it. “Even if it saves ONE LIFE” approach. The problem is these people are all too willing to give up freedoms to say they did SOMETHING. This is why it’s good to let the emotion of the even pass and examine all the facts. In the vast majority of these mass shootings, the criminal was KNOWN to people to mentally ill. NO ONE reported these killers to authorities. We need to do a better job of defining what mental illnesses cause a threat and put these people on the NO BUY list. There must also be a way to challenge the NO BUY list in a court to regain rights so that we don’t have people calling in to state that ALL their friends and neighbors and co-workers are insane.

    • Any deprivation of rights must be done through the courts first. I don’t care what the right is. Any system in which one must prove they should have a right is so backwards that the right has become a privilege that must be won.

  16. The Democrats are doing their level best to push us to the brink of war on many fronts — black vs. white, US vs. Russia, city vs. rural, women vs. men, elite vs. “mundane.”

    If they push too far, they will regret it.

  17. Well, it’s not the crooked cop Sheriff of Broward County and his deplorable deputies who should all be tried for corruption and treason and hanged by firing squad injection and the bodies publicly mutilated as a warning to all potential crooked cops.

    As time distances itself from Parkland, as with all shootings, it’s the side of freedom and the constitution.

    Who the big losers really are is gov’t because they have shown their hand and will take any right away from the people to “protect them.” My question is: how does the gov’t protect us from itself? Who watches the watchers? Robert Mueller? That guy is has the face of an oven stuffer in Auschwitz. Donald Trump? That guy can’t separate facts from emotion… Donald Trump, for as incorruptible as he is, runs on pure masculinity and empathy and a man who runs on those two things cannot be trusted to protect us.

    At least with Trump, he’s not an outright hostile like the Beast’s Harlot Hilary.

  18. Generally speaking, there’s an important cultural disconnect between paid pundits, most of whom reside on the coasts and do media-work in the mega-cities and those of us in “flyover country”. Life there tends to produce the kind of distorted—personally, i think, deformed—worldview that informs these kinds of comments. We also see this a lot in the Texas urban areas like Austin where people Not From Here tend to congregate. Talking to them about things like gun-control usually reveals a stunning combination of ignorance (most have no experience at all with guns) and arrogance (despite not knowing much if anything, they still feel empowered to lecture others). Basically, they truly believe that their insight in America’s body-politic is nonetheless always morally superior the the opinions of those of us Who Are From Here. This leads to the kind of supreme over-confidence that caused them to believe in Hillary Clinton’s ultimate election . . . until she lost. This doesn’t mean, however, that they aren’t a potent political force. But, it also meas that they are pathetically predictable.

  19. In illinois the anti movement has filed witness slips at a greater than three to 1 rate of citizens trying to protect their civil rights. Seems like they are winning here

  20. As long as gun owners contact their representatives at state and federal level. Thing will be ok. The battle for gun civil rights will never end. You will never be able to take a rest. The L’s, Libertarians Liberals and the Left, will not be there to support you.

    But the three L’s do support legal pot.

    http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/local/chicago-congressional-candidate-smokes-pot-in-new-campaign-ad

    The three L’s, especially in Chicago, see guns and pot as “equal civil-rights”. So they will put getting legal pot first before getting legal guns in Chicago.

  21. With supposed friends such as the president,congress and Negotiating Rights Away since 1934,who needs enemas.

  22. Beats the hell out of me who’s “winning”. As mentioned Illinois is trying to f##k us. I can manage OK but woe to those unprepared. I see a bleak future for my shite state😡😡😡😡

  24. Nobody ever wins when government considers violating unalienable individual rights. The fact that anyone in government would even be giving lip service to violating the Second Amendment indicates that liberty and the nation is in serious trouble. What is the Constitution but a document that protects individual rights and specifies the exact privileges afforded government. Without the Constitution, our government is invalid. Once government exceeds those boundaries, there are grave present and future consequences. Our government violates the Constitution in so many ways today that it can clearly be considered in breach of its charter document, therefore, invalid.

  25. I think that Jeff Sessions will have a problem with his recent press release in which he believes that they can legislate away devices like bump-stocks “which turn a semi-automatic firearm into a full auto firearm”. If we still have the NFA and the ’68 GCA then the definition of a fully automatic weapon will be his legislations downfall. And in case you don’t remember… Google Jeff Sessions and see when he had hair and played in a rock band and smoked weed. I could care less about those things but isn’t he the same guy who is so anti-weed??
    Trump could have Executive Ordered bump-stocks away but he punted it over to Sessions who must know that there will be problems with a suggestion to ban pieces of plastic that have already been approved and letters sent about 12 times. And there will certainly be debate on the nature of what a machine gun really means, according to law. A bump-stock is neither a NFA machine gun or a device that makes a semi-auto a full auto.
    Maybe they all know this and know it is doomed to fail upon challenge. But I don’t understand why send the memo to Sessions when we have yet to hear from the ATF/NFA on their review of the whole bump stock issue…? Think about it…how the f can the ATF/NFA go backwards on the 12 or more determination letters sent to bump stock manufactures and purchasers over the past 10+ years? And the at least 6+ determination letters sent to manufacturers and buyers of binary triggers over the years..?
    And if somehow there is a ruling against bump-stocks how in hell would it work? Open the NFA registry for unserialnumbered pieces of plastic and metal? Allow customers who bought them legally to keep or register them?? Ban them completely and demand everyone who has one mail them in? Fat chance of that. The last time the Registry was opened I believe was when ATF/NFA ruled that the Street Sweeper and the Stryker rotating barrel 12 gauge shotguns were not shotguns or firearms but instead “Destructive Devices” and allowed some individuals to register their already owned things they thought were guns. Dealers were not permitted to sell what they had after an effective date although I’m sure many transferred them to themselves or sold them before the effective date.
    It’s all f’ed up…

    • Destructive device registration has never been cut off — only machine guns. The reclassification of the Striker and Street Sweeper came because they are over .50 caliber. Most 12 gauges have aren’t destructive devices because they get a “sporting” exception. Because “sporting” is arbitrary, Clinton’s Treasury Secretary Bentsen (before ATF moved to Justice) declared they had no sporting purpose. Owners had to file the NFA forms and pay the taxes or give them up. NFA dealers could still sell them, but they couldn’t be sold as shotguns by normal dealers.
      What makes declaring bump fires stocks machine guns an interesting case is that the 1986 Hughes ammendment says you can’t pay the $200 tax. If they are declared as machine guns, either an amnesty needs to take place, or the government has to pay to take them away from owners. If there’s an amnesty that’s limited to only bump stocks, I could register the receiver of my bump stock gun since bump stocks don’t have serial numbers. This is consistent with the treatment of sears — register the sear and put it in any gun, or register the receiver and the sear can’t be put on another receiver unless it’s also already a machine gun. I can put a short barrel on a registered receiver or receiver equipped with a registered sear. I could remove the bump stock and use another method to do full auto and keep it unattached or even destroy it (I couldn’t put it on another gun). There’s nothing to prove I ever had a bump stock, so I could register anything and then put another full auto method on it. Commercial bump stocks are available for many types of guns, and people could come up with their own bump stocks. A bump stock ban could backfire and turn into a defacto general Hughes amnesty that multiplies the number of tranferrable (or ownable) machine guns. If they aren’t transferrable, what happens when the owner passes away? Of course, if a trust or corporation own the gun, selling the trust or corporation effective transfers it.

  26. The IL House passed a bump stock/trigger crank ban and a bill to raise the age to own semiauto long guns to 21. Currently debating a gunstore licensing scheme that rather transparently is intended to raise costs for small businesses. I think they’re also going to consider LVPOs and capacity limits today. Word is the governor is looking to split the baby on these but we don’t know which bills are on which side of his line.

  27. The NRA will gain members, the GOP will gain votes from gun owners who are worried about the latest gun control bullshit, the Dems will do the same and especially gain funding, CNN will get to run more bullshit “infographics” about scary ARs

    But gun owners will lose in terms of some new laws\regulations and not one life will be saved.

  28. I can’t even believe this is a question… we, as POTG, are so obviously losing the battle for gun right preservation. I have contacted my representatives (as a FL resident) numerous times via different methods but they are absolutely not interested in hearing from freedom-loving voters who are trying to preserve our natural rights. I don’t really see how anyone could argue that we’re winning the battle to be honest…. what evidence is there to suggest that we’re even maintaining our rights versus rapidly losing them?

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