Guns Along The Potomic

We being gun guys, and this being a gun forum, I assume all of us get bombarded with all the gun e-mail of the moment. Seems to me there is more of it than ever before. "They're coming for your guns!" "New plan of the government to take your guns." "Another assault on the 2nd amendment!" It never seems to end.

?Yet what do you guys think IS the state of our 2nd Amendment rights. ?Are we better off or worse off.

My take is that Barak HAS been THE best gun salesman maybe in our history. Starting with his "clinging to their guns and bibles" smartass comment, and moving on to F&F, nothing much the administration could do after that worked. Meanwhile, CCW broke out as a lifestyle. While few in my neighborhood carry, most of my friends do. 'Course most of my friends are Marines or cops (or both).

I am encouraged by the bills in Illinois to allow suppressors, and in Congress to allow national reciprocity. That Illinois should even consider, much less move to pass, a bill allowing citizens to own suppressors is amazing. And just recently they passed a bill allowing FOID carriers to own and carry automatic knives! Springfield must have had its water tainted.

The national reciprocity of CCW seems somewhat mired at the moment. On the one hand I rather don't like the fact it codifies the government's ability to decide who gets and who doesn't get a CCW. I would have far preferred a court-imposed constitutional carry, seeing as that is what the constitution actually says. Still, something is better than the current hodgepodge of state rules. It's time to make this a lot more like drivers licences.

The other thing I seem to notice is that people in general seem to accept carrying as reasonable, if a little paranoid. My neighbors are a bit lefty, yet recently when we went to a movie, Carol expressed her concern to my wife about the possibility of someone just coming in and shooting up our theatre. My wife told me, and I responded that in our case there would be at least one person shooting back. My wife looked at me and said, "?You had your gun."
"Of course I had my gun." So she rushes off to tell Carol not to worry, I had my gun. NOW Carol asks if I have my gun whenever we go out together. I of course don't respond, but she knows. And she feels better about it.

I taught my daughter to shoot, and have given her a couple guns to have down there in the Wild Wild West (Dallas). She just got engaged and her fiance never learned to shoot, but she's teaching him. And he's good with her having a gun in the nightstand. Smart boy.

So guns are coming back in style. No longer the pariahs of the hippie days, I am wondering when the rioting will break out into shooting for defensive purposes. St. Louis cops seem to have taken a harder line on the rioters than before, but then we have a different administration in DC that seems to believe law & order are important.

I agree with you Dev. Just the notion that we've got a Supreme Court holding that says the right to keep and bear is a personal right, as well as the fact that concealed carry is legal in most states, says quite a bit as to how far we've come.

I don't disagree with the notion that we've got to watch our rights vigilantly. However, remember that we went through a freaking 10 year ban on high capacity magazines that only ended 12 or so years ago.

However, I do believe that there is still something else going on. The people who support gun rights seem to REALLY support gun rights. I have several friends who own AR's, and 10 years ago that would have been unthinkable.

Similarly, the people who are against gun rights are REALLY against gun rights.

Seems to me that what's happening in this country isn't really a split about gun rights, as much as it is a distinct cultural separation. Maybe I'm just getting older, but it seems like it's getting a little tense, more than usual.

Been worried.

Since Heller/ McDonald, there have been few judicial victories: none with the Supremes, and the lower courts have largely been been ignoring the clear language of those rulings. The failure of the Court to take up any further 2nd Amendment cases or slap down the impertinence of the lower courts  is puzzling - and troubling.  I'll point you to Clarence Thomas' excellent written opinion.

There have been some significant legislative victories in the free states - balanced by radical repression in the less-free; my former California being a despicable example. The political victories were hard fought - and easily reversed when Deep State once again takes prominence.  

Time are good - for now. Make hay.

Interesting to revisit this thread. Both CF & TJ make good points. Sort of reminds me of that old joke about the half frozen bird that gets shit upon by a cow. Now nice and warm it starts singing - and along comes a predator and eats it.

Wonder where we’re going next. The rash of Red Flag statutes are very troubling. These are basically seizure without due process. Yet occasionally the sun does shine. More states are now constitutional carry. That trend will eventually force the idiots (California) to conform, even though it may take a while. Rumour has it the Illinois Supremes struck down the FOID law, but I haven’t heard anything else on it, so perhaps that was wishful thinking.

It is all worrisome.

The Progs have decided they are now living in a post-Constitutional America, and the rest of us are going to be marched along, like it or not. They seem tremendously emboldened, given their complete control of the media, communication, internet, education, the bureaucratic state and Soros, Bloomberg, and the nuevo Jillionaire's billion dollar activism. The judiciary is a bright spot, but a faint one. The Supreme's slow drift back to Originalism has been frustrated by Chief Justice Roberts' sudden discovery of his inner elitist. And as the social fabric continues to breakdown, the lower courts feel free to ignore rulings from the higher courts. Most tellingly, the pace of judicial review is glacially slow compared to a California passing a thousands stupid, unConstitutional laws a year.  

Trump is a welcome relief, but for how long? Especially with rampant, unchallenged, institutional vote fraud. Even my adopted Gunshine State is being dragged into the Blue, largely through highly-questionable vote tallies.  

I do know that the life of a unarmed, irremediable despicable, be it in a basket or boxcar, would not be pleasant. There can be no compromise - we're well down the slippery slope.  

That's what's keeping me up some nights...

Is it not interesting that on one side the nasties seem to have all the marbles lined up. But on the other side, Trump and his minions are making real inroads into the bureaucratic state. And the Left does NOT like it. They realize their one saving grace has been a left-leaning judiciary. That is changing, but as you note, glacially. Still, better than not. If the Left is so worried about the Supremes, Trump has to win the next election - and replace RBG with another Scalia.

Amen.

Just got back from our favorite Sushi joint; where we were treated to CNN on the big screen.  Wolf Blitzer started his show with 20 minutes of Trump hate. Distortion, deception, baseless allegations, and just plain lies. Even for the 1 minute or so they spent on the 3.2% GDP, their sweaty "expert" talked only about the voters ignoring the temporarily economic news in light of the Administration's lies, theft and treason.  

I asked the waitress to put on a baseball game. "You no rike CNN?"  "Not while I'm eating..."

Since Mueller the rat published his “report”, I have been listening to a lot of commentary - from both sides. What is striking me is that the was never an investigation; it was always a set-up, an ambush to get rid of a duly elected president. It started with the intelligence services trying to plant an MI6 counter-intelligence guy, Steven Heller, on Trump’s campaign as foreign affairs advisor. Somehow someone didn’t hire the guy, else he would have actually colluded with his Russian buddies and sunk the Trump campaign. But instead the used MI6 to plant a story on Papadapoulous, then collect it with the Australian intelligence type, thereby completing a fake “story”. That and the Steele dossier led to the FISA warrant and spying on the Trump campaign. Mueller started an “investigation” that he most likely knew was fake from the gitgo, or within a couple weeks. ?So what took him $30+ million and 2 years.