OPFOR Strat

You saw me mention that WaPo series on guns this week. Odd they would bring that up the week before a midterm election. The last time the Dems were in the majority on both houses of Congress and held the Whitehouse the whole gun issue was a major impairment for their electoral chances, turns out. This series would better server Liberals if they had waited 2 weeks to publish.

But the WaPo, while reliably liberal, is not foaming-at-the-mouth batshite liberal. We can see that anti-gunners calm, collected, seemingly reasonable response to rights gains our side has seen recently. We can see how they expect to most effectively counter us from where we now stand, forward.

The level headed anti-gunners don’t whine about “Oh noes, the Wild West.” They know that that is of limited utility. Their issue that might have legs is simply and entreaty for “common sense gun restrictions, not like that Bloomberg guy’s. Who can be against that?” they’ll argue? And they’ll sorta be right, as most pro-gun people have no problem forbidding violent felons from gun possession. I know some libertarian types that don’t have a problem giving ex-cons their gun rights back. But they almost always put in the caveat that if the felon was still a danger to society he should still be in jail until he isn’t. If he’s out of jail, he isn’t a danger, and ergo gets his pistol back. Effectively, it’s the same restriction, just some unreformed felons are on the street in the first scenario and forbidden guns, and other unreformed felons stay in jail and are forbidden guns there.

The new common sense gun restriction is going after gun shops that are loose, in their view, about selling guns that then end up in the hands of criminals. The common sense gun restriction is coming down harder on these gun shops.

Who can be against that? Close up crooked gun shops? That’s a good thing. Right? Right?

Yes, but the devil is in the details. We have been burned by restrictionists so many times that we don’t trust them on this now. Let them write a law and they’ll be clauses in it that go too far and shutter innocent shops. Or they’ll close the worst 10% of gun shops and then… later, close the worst of the 10% of gunshops that remain open and then later close the NEXT worst 10%...

If we dig in our heels opposing such new ‘common sense’ restriction legislation the other side will wave their bloody shirts, calling us unreasonable.

It’s a fine line we must tread. Not all of our opposition are idiots. Some are quite savvy. They can back us into a corner if we aren’t ready.

So what do we do when they come up with some scheme to go after the gunshops (or other items)? We trot out our innocent gunshops. Small business people trying to realize the American dream providing a legal product that possession and bearing of is a right recognized by the Constitution. When they come up with a so-called reasonable restriction we counter with THREE unreasonable ones that need to be taken off the books.

By the way need to start thinking of some more unreasonable restrictions to throw out there for repeal.

That's just some ideas. I’m not on the board of SAF or NRA-ILA or GOA. But all of us gunnies tend to be politically active and thinking on these things early, hashing them out on backs of envelopes, is something that can only help our cause.