Reflections on 20 years of Second Amendment victories

Clair has a very thoughtful piece up about the last two decades and how they have been a disaster for the gun grabbers:

We gun owners have been utterly unreasonable and lacking in common sense for roughly 20 years. And by golly, look where it’s got us! We’ve whomped the enemies of gun rights into quivering submission. These days, they can’t even draw bodies to their rallies or contributors to their bank accounts. Gun haters are reduced to screaming on Twitter about how all gun owners have tiny man-parts (apparently they’d be shocked to realize that millions of gun owners have no man parts).

Anti-gunners have been trounced so effectively—in legislatures, in the courts, in public opinion, in accuracy of information, in economics, in gun and ammo sales, and in the sheer number of new shooters taking up guns as a hobby or for protection—that these days they have to place their only real-world hopes in sneaky, dubious measures like executive orders.

She then lays out the victories of the powers of Light over the powers of Darkness.  It's quite a list.

It was an interesting read for me personally, since in the early 90s I was making my transition from a reliable Democrat to someone who thought for myself.  I was one of the people whose heads would nod when the Washington Post editorialized for "common sense" controls - without knowing or thinking much about it.  You see, I wasn't a shooter back then.

But the Assault Weapons Ban rang hollow, even to one such as me.  It was clear that the black rifles weren't part of any problem facing the Republic, but the level of huffing and puffing made me wonder what is up with these people?

And I remember being on a business trip on election night 1994, and laughing at how all the Talking Heads seemed about ready to cry at how the Democrats had been punished by the electorate.  Nobody mentioned guns, but even I was able to connect those dots.  It was a loose connection, to be sure, sort of well what do you expect would happen to people who spend all their time chasing stupid non-problems?

But it wasn't a black swan event, it was Stalingrad.  Ever since that high water moment, the tide has been flowing in one direction and one direction only.  Each victory has made the situation more and more plain.  We'll see what the local election results are this year in Connecticut, and New York, and Colorado.  I think that the moving finger has already writ that fate; having writ it will move on to the write the next defeat for the Gun Banners.  Because those Blue State "victories" for Gun Control have a heavy cost.

The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that one more such victory would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward. On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the loss they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.

- Plutarch

Go read Claire's excellent article.