"Where has "working the system" gotten us?"
Seriously? If we have any memory of recent history at all, the answers to that should be very clear -- and VERY positive! What we've gained on the federal level (and in almost all of the states) in the last 30 years of POLITICAL (non-violent) action and grass roots social change is truly astonishing. Who could have believed, in the bad old days of the 80s and early 90s, that gun ownership and the gun rights movement would enter a period of growth that would swell to a conquering tide of expanded freedoms and proliferation of the arms of the citizens? Who would have expected ALL (...nearly so and the clock is ticking!) of the states to issue concealed carry permits to their residents? Who would have believed the AWB would be allowed to sunset? Who would have ever believed that the ban on carry guns in national parks would fall? Who could have foreseen
Heller and
McDonald? Who would have ever seen the AR-15 rise to become "America's Rifle" and be so common as to be practically "unbannable" because it is the one gun in most common use across the nation? Who would have ever believed we'd see single days breaking 130,000 NICS checks, or single years seeing over 140 MILLION guns sold (just sales through dealers, no less)?
And did we ever, for a moment, think that challenges would not come again? Now, our "worst-case" scenario has appeared. Our latest equivalent of the Stockton or Dunblane, or Port Arthur shootings which threatened and delivered devastating blows to gun ownership in the past. And what happened? We STOOD UP. We fought HARD. And, while we've taken some hits in a few of the states (for now!), we WON. Handed the President and all the old guard gun-ban crowd a signal defeat. (Which for many of them will be the final failure of the waning days of their careers and lives.)
FURTHER, the energy we've brought to bear will not easily fade away, and the anger and drive we've set into motion IS going to bear great fruit in the coming couple of years to carry serious repercussions through the governing bodies that trampled the rights of citizens in a few states, and tried to do so federally. For the antis, this is BAD, and they have not seen the worst of it yet.
So, "where has this gotten us?" RIGHT where we're supposed to be! WINNING, USING the system of government of the country we love. Using the courts, the press, and all the ins and outs of the legislative process to protect the rights of the people! And, I like to think, making the Founders proud (for a change!
) of how the system they set up can still work.