Vote Them Out
You Can Stop The Anti-Gunners
Gun prohibitionists are a relentless lot and in 11 months, you — yeah, you — have a chance to stop them cold.
All you have to do is make sure you are registered to vote at your present address and then make sure you vote. By now, you should know this column doesn’t accept lame excuses. No dog will eat your ballot and no elephant is going to sit on your car on Election Day.
Attention, Please
With state legislatures about to convene again in January or early February, start paying attention to the perennial anti-gunners because they will once again demonstrate their contempt for the Constitution, especially the First and Second amendments. For the past 18 months, they have been proving their contempt for the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, and it is time to give these people the boot from public office. This next year, they will be asking for your vote again. Don’t give it to them.
Congressional Democrats demonstrated this past summer, during a hearing about censorship before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, how they’re no longer just interested in crushing the Second Amendment. They’re coming after the First. Nothing could have better underscored their position when Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) tried to close the hearing in an effort to silence Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a man whose credentials as a Democrat are unquestionable. So extreme are Mr. Kennedy’s critics in his own party they wanted to stifle his testimony, or at least prevent the public from hearing it.
Wasserman Schultz is a perennial gun prohibitionist — now she’s a free speech prohibitionist, too. These people are displaying utter contempt for the Bill of Rights and the reason they’re doing it so openly is because they think they can get away with it. Why is that? Because too many people stay home on Election Day and allow others to vote their future by electing people like Wasserman Schultz.
Look at what has happened in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and a few other states since the Bruen ruling came down. Lawmakers in those states didn’t move to make their laws comply with the high court’s ruling, they doubled down, writing legislation that gun rights advocates say is even worse. As Jim Wallace, executive director of the Massachusetts Gun Owners Action League puts it, “They wrote a law even more unconstitutional than the unconstitutional law they were replacing!”
Media Misinformation
If you think the establishment news media is going to help solve this problem, you’re behind the curve already. The press has already been lying about a string of federal court rulings on Second Amendment issues that have struck down gun control laws.
How has the media reacted and reported this? They’ve consistently portrayed court rulings as expanding gun rights, a perspective so false it could be shoveled off the floor of a horse stall in the barn. From Heller through McDonald and right up to Bruen, the Supreme Court hasn’t been expanding anything. Instead, the court majority has been restoring the right to keep and bear arms to its rightful stature — a full right protected by the Second Amendment.
Ignore the establishment media. You can ask your own questions at public gatherings, and there will be lots of them between now and November 2024. What questions? Try these:
Q. Do you have any solutions to homelessness and the increase in crime that seems to accompany so-called “homeless camps?” (Sure, it’s a social issue unrelated to guns … but keep reading.)
Q. What’s your plan to combat the drug crisis, which is always linked to crime? (Another non-gun question you’re using to get the candidate in a chatty mood; keep reading.)
Q. How do you feel about Voter ID? Should photo ID be required to vote? (Get ready …)
Q. What’s your position on licensed concealed carry and do you support permitless/constitutional carry? Are you licensed to carry? (Why/Why not?) NOTE: You should have data on how many citizens in your state are licensed.
Q. Are you a gun owner? Do you hunt? What kinds of guns do you own? (I know several politicians who can answer these questions almost reflexively; they’ve got my support.)
The answers will give you a very good idea about the candidate and whether you should/should not support this person.
What’s the Plan?
Here’s an outline — it is up to you and your friends to make it work by smoothing out the fine points to fit your circumstances.
• For the next two months, monitor your state legislature and news from Capitol Hill to identify every anti-gunner in both places. Then, identify their challengers and support them. Target gun grabbers for defeat in November 2024, even if they’re two states away. Gun owners must help one another any way they legally can, and the more anti-gunners you can help defeat, the better.
• Do not fight publicly about any disagreements you may have within your own ranks. Don’t like a vote your usually-agreeable representative made on an issue? Fine, talk to him/her in private and stay off social media with accusations of “treason” or other complaints. Work it out quietly.
• Watch the presidential primary debates. These can be brutal, occasionally boring, sometimes hilarious, always revealing and very educational. Cook up some popcorn and take notes. Remember “Beto” O’Rourke in Texas four years ago, declaring he would come after your AR-15? A lot of people knew immediately his remark was the end of his campaign, even if he didn’t. You can’t say something like that — especially in Texas — and survive politically. These are the moments you need to capture.
It is legal to make campaign contributions, even small ones of $15 or $20, to someone’s campaign who is not your representative or even in your state. Don’t balk by arguing you “don’t want your name on a list.” Bad news: Your name is already on lots of lists, if you pay property taxes, if you’re licensed to drive, if you have a carry permit or license in your home state, if you have a hunting license and if you vote. Instead of hunkering down and pretending to disappear just to avoid your responsibility of citizenship, make the most of it instead.
Remember this also: The majority party always sets the agenda, so make sure the party sympathetic to your rights is in charge. One party is widely known as the “party of gun prohibition.” The other major party is demonized for trying to adhere to the Constitution. Third parties really do not have a chance, at least not yet, and certainly not in 2024. Maybe someday they will, but right now, just remember a third party vote in 1992 gave us Bill and Hillary Clinton.
