Democrats have been scrambling to push through as much of their agenda as possible over the past few months and here’s why: They expect to lose Capitol Hill in 2022 and they must get finished with as much as possible this year because in January, the campaign season starts.
Nobody is going to want to ruffle feathers in an election year. Democrats tried in 1994 with the Clinton Crime Bill which included the 10-year ban on so-called “assault weapons.” They passed the bill in September. Two months later the November election turned into a political bloodbath. Congress changed hands for the first time in years and stayed through the remainder of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
It pains people in the gun rights community to pick on a single political party, but Democrats under Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Chuck Schumer have made themselves the target. They stopped being the “Party of Gun Control” a couple of years ago to become the “Party of Gun Prohibition.”
Who is vulnerable? All of them, theoretically; those from deep blue states will likely escape next year’s purge, those in swing states won’t but it’s up to you to make that happen.
Target for replacement:
• Any candidate who talks about “common sense gun reform.”
• Candidates who use the term “gun violence.” There’s no such thing as “gun violence.” There’s just violence. Someone murdered with a knife, club or brick is just as dead as someone who is murdered with a firearm. Never let a politician get away with this lie.
• Anybody identified as a “gun safety candidate” by some local or national gun control organization. These people are in the pockets of wealthy gun prohibition lobbying groups and will do as told.
• Incumbents who voted for the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021” (H.R. 8) or the “Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021” (H.R. 1446); eight House Republicans voted for H.R. 8 and two of them also voted for the other measure.
While it may become a painful exercise, start reading your local newspaper and watch for political columns to start name-dropping as the campaign season opens. Write down those names. Find out about them. Be clever, not combative. Let them talk while you just listen. There will be plenty of time later to either help get someone elected or derail their campaign.
Remember what happened in 1994, the first mid-term election under Bill Clinton — it was a disaster for Democrats largely because they voted for the Brady Law in 1993 and the Clinton Crime bill in September 1994, apparently expecting the voters to forget. Instead, passing those two measures brought gun owners out of the proverbial woodwork. Because House Democrats rammed through the two background check measures back in March, they’re scrambling to pass as much of their agenda as possible because they fear a repeat of November 1994 in 2022. They won’t admit it publicly, of course.
Start working on this right now! Next year at this time will be too late because the primaries will have already happened and you might be stuck with candidates you don’t like. Find someone you do like and get them on the November 2022 ballot. Groom them. Educate them.
Many people want to roll back anti-gun laws and restore what existed before the current administration took office. That will only happen by voting out of office the people who created the current mess. Impatience is the enemy of success, and “perfect” always becomes the enemy of “good.”
A candidate may not agree with you all the time, but if he/she concurs 80% of the time, helping put this person in office is far preferable to having someone in office who disagrees with you 100% of the time. Educate such people rather than declare them as “traitors” or “Fudds.”
