Bloomberg Group Focuses on State-by-State Gun Control Strategy
Maybe there’s something to the slippery slope argument after all
Here at LI, we’ve been covering the various progressive attempts to pass anti-Second Amendment legislation at the state and federal levels.
While gun “control” advocates from the White House down are “disappointed” that there hasn’t been more progress in this area, they are signalling a change in tactics. The representatives of the people in Washington won’t move on guns, so they are taking the case to the American people via the ballot box.
Stymied on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures, supporters of stricter gun control measures are taking their cause to the ballot box.
Voters in four states will decide ballot measures relating to gun control this November. In Maine and Nevada, voters will decide whether to expand background check requirements to include private gun sales.
In Washington, voters will decide whether to take guns out of the hands of people who are subject to extreme risk protection orders, which include restraining orders and people at risk of suicide.
And in California, voters will decide whether to ban the possession of large-capacity magazines. The California measure, Proposition 63, would also require individuals to pass a background check before purchasing ammunition.
According to the spokeswoman for the Bloomberg-funded “gun safety” organization, the American people will do what Congress will not.
The Hill continues:
“2016 will be the year of gun sense,” said Kate Folmar, a spokeswoman at Everytown for Gun Safety, the group funded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “If elected leaders themselves won’t change the laws that make it too easy for dangerous people to get weapons, the American people will change them themselves.”
. . . . Gun control advocates have made little progress in recent years despite a series of mass shootings. Just six states have expanded background checks in the four years since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., and Congress has rejected several gun control bills.
“After decades of legislative and electoral defeat, the gun control lobby has resorted to buying gun control by spending [Michael] Bloomberg’s billions to impose his New York style gun-control through the ballot initiative process,” said Jennifer Baker, an NRA spokeswoman.
This shift from pressuring Congress in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack or mass shooting is an intentional step designed to be the start of that slippery slope Second Amendment supporters have been warning against. Intending to start with the seemingly harmless idea of expanded background checks, these groups intend to move on to more restrictive measures.
The Hill explains:
Gun control advocates in several states say they are turning their attention outside the Beltway. They hope to build momentum first by expanding background checks, then later by tackling other specific gun controls that poll well with voters.
They compare their strategy to the fight to legalize same-sex marriage, which started in a few states before snowballing across the country.
“Our goal is in fact a state-by-state strategy, given how intractable Congress is. It’s not unlike what you saw with the marriage equality arc,” Folmar said. “They started to build momentum state by state, and as more and more people lived in marriage equality states, momentum built.”
Washington State provides an example of the progression gun control advocates hope to see. In 2014, Washington voters passed Initiative 594 to expand background checks. Versions of that initiative were exported to Nevada and Maine this year.
This year’s measure to limit access to firearms for people under protective orders, Initiative 1491, is modeled on legislation that has passed in states like California, Connecticut and Indiana. If it is successful, it too will be exported to other states. Stephanie Ervin, who is running the pro-1491 campaign, said she expected a similar measure to appear on the ballot in Oregon.
“It feels like we’re at a real tipping point, and folks are really engaging in the dialogue around gun responsibility issues,” Ervin said.
Gun rights advocates note how one seemingly harmless law will lead to the next . . . and then the next after that.
Gun rights advocates, too, believe they are seeing the opening moves in a prolonged campaign by gun control backers. They say the proposals for expanded background checks are unenforceable and represent a slippery slope toward something more sinister, like gun registration.
“This is the camel getting its nose under the tent. Before you know it, you’ve got a whole camel in your tent,” said Maine state Sen. Eric Brakey (R), one of the leading opponents of the ballot measure in his state. He worries about what comes next.
“That’s when you start seeing bans on particular firearms, and then they come knocking on your door because you have a prohibited firearm that’s registered to you at your home.”
Until now progressives have been a bit cagey about their plans, mocking the slippery slope argument as preposterous and fear mongering. Almost as alarming as their state-by-state strategy based on the success of the gay “marriage” campaign is their openness about how they intend to accomplish their end goal.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nlhQafsx3o
hateful hillary delegate explains how they plan to ban guns.
Just like boiling a frog alive. You do it slowly with cool water and then slowly turn up the heat until it is too late. Are we frogs?
Or, another way to say it: death by a thousand (paper) cuts.
You might say they’re bringing a sheet of paper (legislation) to a gun fight.
That is a myth.
But if Bloomberg is finally take a page from the ALEC playbook, it is about time.
I have a better analog for you. Think of being caught in the grasp of a boa constrictor.
They tried this in Illinois earlier this year with a regulatory scheme for gun stores. The attempt was clumsy, didn’t make Bloomberg any friends in local government and ultimately failed. May they not learn from their mistakes.
After we all vote #NeverTrump and she appoints a few court justices the anti gunners will have a much easier time of it since the 2A will be redefined to uselessness. Just as with the #NeverTRump crowd, some gun owners refuse to support the NRA, et al, because they aren’t pure enough for them. And like the #NTs, they have no solution to offer, just their self righteousness. Too many people on our side think it’s a game of home runs and ignore the need to get on base or the consequences of never scoring and letting the other team choose the umpires.
This is almost entirely bluster.
“… the American people will change them themselves.”
Meaningless. “The American people” don’t draft legislation or write court opinions. Local activists can annoy businesses to the point that they cave on making their retail establishments “gun-free zones,” and they can agitate to keep gun-safety classes out of their schools, but that rubbish has no effect on legislation.
It’s not just the Second Amendment that is in jeopardy with a President Hillary/Kaine, it’s all the rights so defined in the Constitution and especially those enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
Lady Hildabeast has said, several times at least, that rights must be regulated (Perhaps for the benefit of society?). A right regulated is not a right, it is a boon granted to us, the Hoi Polloi, by our “betters!”
Hate Speech is just one example of how the Socialists want to restrict free speech, and right of assembly, and freedom of religion, etc… What about the right to not incriminate oneself? Or, the right to being secure in one’s own house? Name any other right and the Socialists want to restrict that right when exercise of that inhibits them from achieving their goals; control uber alles!
To me, this means saying always, #NeverHillary, #NeverDemocratnik by any other name. It also means to me, #AlwaysGOPTicket, and #NeverGOPe!
The CA proposal will be interesting. If it passes, it would be a good business opportunity to open an ammunition store just outside their borders. Are they going to do with am minion what they do with produce – have border stop stations (which, it turns out you could bypass if you had CA plates or plates from an adjoining county). Serious Commerce Clause problems if they seriously restrict importation of ammunition. And, probably ditto for std capacity magazines (which are available in bulk in nearby Phoenix). I think that I might keep one case of ammo lying around, and then bring in that type in bulk, if they take to searching cars at the border, both ways. You could then claim that you were just carrying around that same case for emergencies. Hard to prove otherwise. And any search would be problematic.
Expect things not to go well in NV and ME for the proposals. Anyone seriously looking at WA should be petrified – as I understand it, you can’t even loan out a firearm to a friend, and using the federal database only works if you are a FFL. If I had been in WA last week when I handed a gun to a guy helping me on the range last week, we would probably both be lawbreakers. All he did was dry fire it once, and hand it back, telling me it had a decent trigger.
A most important word to remember is this ongoing debate is “BLOAT”. IT means; Buy Lots Of Ammo Today!!
In related news. A son of Obama carrying a gun was killed in Milwaukee season. Lokks like an early shopping season there.
I know this sounds like a radical plan, but instead of passing laws that makes criminals out of people who are legal gun owners and have crime rates well below that of police officers, how about passing gun laws that targets criminals. A concealed carry permit owner has a gun homicide rate of less than 0.05/100,000 while a white criminal (the crime is unimportant) has a gun homicide rate of 50/100,000, Hispanic criminals have a gun homicide rate of 120/100,000, and black criminals have a gun homicide rate of over 300/100,000. How does it make any sense to restrict gun ownership for those with a gun homicide rate of less than 0.05 while ignoring those with a rate of 50 to 300+?
Well, there you go with the facts. Sadly, it appears that the American electorate is all about “the feels,” so to speak.
This method is a true threat. Bloomberg dumps millions to spread falsehoods/lies to the voters.
And once again the biased media is supporting this fraud.
Obviously, leftist forces in this nation have absolutely no interest in nuts, felons or even terrorists. Universal registration is their path to success. We need to reply to the uninformed public that leftists often quote the highly biased “push poll” commissioned by Bloomberg that claims most NRA members favor universal background checks. But the questions were loaded and respondents were offered no background information on the question. The NRA countered Bloomberg’s “push poll” and produced opposite results, clearly proving NRA members are massively opposed to universal checks. It’s clear that leftists are interested in the lawful working citizens they need as voters who are dependent on them. Felons and the entitlement class already are dependent on them but they desperately need to “control” the normal, everyday, middle class workers who actually earn money. By the way, that’s us. And that’s the money they use to create the dependency that keeps them in power.
We need to make sure the moms & pops know what these politicians really want is to keep tabs on transfers between mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, uncles, cousins, friends, and neighbors. They’re after inheritances, bequeathals and gifts. They’re also after the sales of inherited collections, however small they are. And we need to repeat the fact that universal background checks won’t give them what they want without a universal registry. First they’ll register owners, then firearms and then they’ll match other data, e.g., death certificates, to take their next steps. New York, California, et al., already have begun by comparing death certificates to permits and taking guns from widows. Clearly, they don’t give a hoot about nuts and felons. They want us because we’re the source of THEIR money.
Remember the great Canuckistan venture into “universal registration”? Cost them $2 billion or so and got maybe 10% of the gunz out there. Know where the $2 billion came from? Taxpayers and the owners that complied. And that is the socialist/fascist plan for the U.S. When “universal background checks” don’t do anything, then “they” will lobby for licensing/registration. If you don’t comply, you become a criminal and if found out, lose your gunz, etc. Then, “they” can require you to submit to “home inspections”, etc. And they charge you, the gunowner, for the PRIVILEGE of owning that gun. Then they either TAX you out of your gunz or just come pick them up.
It’s rather ironic when a Leftist is turning to a plebiscite rather than relying on judicial tyrant to get their agenda.