2A Wins and Losses

Don't really want to jump into a political thread. I will anyway.

I think we in Michigan lost a bit with the election of Gary Peters for Senate, taking the space left by Carl Levin. The only consolation is that we have a junior senator in a now Republican controlled Senate. He won't have as much leverage or pull as Levin. At face value, he seems he may not be an anti, the man reenlisted (or reactivated his commission) in the Navy Reserve after 9/11, so that's worth something. He didn't strike me as a rabid leftist party liner, so he may be salvageable. At the same time, his defeated republican opponent didn't put the 2a high on her priority list.

Everything else turned out as favorably as could be expected.

Washington now has the most restrictive transfer/background-check law in the nation. HUGE loss of the2a rights there, and the message was sent that laws can be purchased by a few wealthy people. By the math about 15% of the population actually voted for it but thanks to an incredibly low voter turnout we are stuck with it unless it can be overturned

DC has also voted to legalize marijuana (along with Oregon). So, no guns but maybe you can puff your problems away?

I don't want to get into the politics of it (impossible as that may seem when discussing an election), but here in CT Malloy (F rating from NRA and shoved the AWB down our throats) has all but beaten Foley (B- rating, and would not have been a champion of our rights but would not have hurt us). They are just doing final counts, but Foley is ready to throw in the towel.

I sincerely hope that Malloy retaining power for another 4 years doesn't spell out the doom and gloom that we are imagining.

I hope that by sticking to the individual candidate's stance on 2A rather than his/her party affiliation, we can keep this thread open long enough to learn something.

In Illinois, where concealed carry was implemented only as a result of a federal court order, It's hard to say. Defeated Governor Quinn was vehemently anti-2A, so it's good to see him gone. OTOH, Governor-Elect Rauner, who's a hunter and has generally spoken in favor of gun rights, has certainly not spoken in favor of an expansive view of 2A rights.

Our Democrat-controlled legislature, which only grudgingly enacted concealed carry, remains unchanged in its composition.

Illinois has huge fiscal problems that will require compromise to conquer; spending and taxation issues will be the primary focus. My guess is that any gains for 2A rights will be small, incremental steps, but that it's not at the top of anyone's agenda. I do have some concerns, though, that Rauner, in an attempt to gain financial concessions might be willing to give ground on issues that are not of great concern to him, gun rights among them.

sillicosys4 said:

Washington now has the most restrictive transfer/background-check law in the nation. HUGE loss of the2a rights there, and the message was sent that laws can be purchased by a few wealthy people. By the math about 15% of the population actually voted for it but thanks to an incredibly low voter turnout we are stuck with it unless it can be overturned

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From a great night, including my home state, this was the saddest news. Still love you Washington guys, You will eventually turn it around.

I was born and raised in Colorado and spent the majority of my life there. I'm so disappointed in CO for retaining their Democratic gov. At least they elected a republican senator. CO used to be conservative (except the people's republic of Boulder) but now it's so overrun by CA transplants that it's pretty much a purple state at best.

Yeah, the great State of Washington, died somewhat last night, Being a eternal optimist, I believe it will come back. Changing Seattle's metrics is the key. It will not be easy.

But it will be done. You have to believe and Make It So.

Pissed off Washingtonian wishing the constitution were used as the literal law of the land instead of guiding principles that can be forsaken for public opinion.

Pennsylvania elected Tom Wolf for governor. Bad news for gun owners in PA. He is all in favor of an AWB. Hopefully his plate will be too full with all the other issues for gun control to rear its ugly head on his agenda

Skribs said:

Pissed off Washingtonian wishing the constitution were used as the literal law of the land instead of guiding principles that can be forsaken for public opinion.
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The Starbucks City just rules. But will it ever be so? No!! Stay Strong! You will get your State back!

It took us Floridians over 100 years. But we Made It So! So will you! We overcame the New York/ New Jersey infiltration. Just keep fighting.

You will win in the end.

In Kentucky, Grimes got less of a spanking than was deserved. Mitch McConnell is not an outspoken literal constitution supporter but at least he is pretty honest about his intentions. Grimes lost over 2 issues, her supporters coming out on her behalf (Clinton and Obama) and the smear campaign about her lies. She played up guns to an extent by shooting clays in one ad, but I very strongly believe she would have jumped on the bandwagon to disarm the lowly common man. Local elections went great too, at least half of the winners are carry permit holders and the other half genuinely don't care. It was my first time to hit the polls (sad but true, I'm 29 so I missed out on 11 times) but every person I voted for won and it was a 50 - 50 split between red and blue. The 2A won in western kentucky.

Lycidas Janwor said:

I'm so disappointed in CO for retaining their Democratic gov.

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Hickenlooper's defeat would have been a clear message that future attempts at gun control would cost elections. Unfortunately that didn't come to pass. Though I am not a resident, I do live there part time and Hickenlooper's re-election disappoints me.

Thankfully there is a little to complain about the right to keep and bear arms in Alaska.

Oregon not only legalized weed, but we re-elected the worst comb-over in congress (Merkley) and a now four term governor (Kitzhaber) that has shown a constant desire to break with the majority of voters in Oregon to do whatever he wants (refuses to put convicted inmates to death, botched healthcare, fiancée with ethics problems, tried to give illegals drivers licenses). That and we gave a bigger majority of both state houses to the Democrats, who as far as I can tell, ran nothing but attack and fear mongering ads (seemed to be a national trend for the D's this year). Add to that our neighbors to the north passing a radically anti-2nd background check law, and its only a matter of time before we have someone trying to pass it here. So it's time to stand up and pay attention, because our ship is heading straight for an iceberg if we don't get it changed.

Here in Arkansas, we now have an all-Republican congressional delegation, four Representatives and two Senators. We also took all the "Constitutional" seats (Governor, Lieutenant Governor and so on). And we have a majority in the State House and State Senate.

Arkansas is now a Republican state, and a pro-gun state.

NY didn't oust the troll of Albany(Cuomo), but the dems lost hard in the state senate, so any further gun control pushes will likely die there. Now we just need to focus on the legal challenges to the (un)SAFE act. Looks like the 2nd circuit is going to hear the NY and Conn. cases before making a decision on both, and the differing definitions of "assault weapon" could be in our favor there.( lends credence to the argument that "assault weapon" is a made up term and therefor has no legal merit)

S.C. went red. Governor re-elected, both red senators re-elected.
Couldn't have asked for better gun friendly teams representing my state.

Lycidas Janwor said:

DC has also voted to legalize marijuana (along with Oregon). So, no guns but maybe you can puff your problems away?

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This is going to be interesting. DC is a federal district, not a state. Marijuana is still illegal under federal law. The Government of the District of Columbia operates under Article One of the United States Constitution and the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which devolves certain powers of the United States Congress to the Mayor and thirteen-member Council. However, Congress retains the right to review and overturn laws created by the council and intervene in local affairs.

So, whatever the DC voters or city council decide, is subject to approval of Congress. The Republicans now control Congress. Think about that whenever you consider what is happening in DC in regards to the 2A or anything else.

Unfortunately, CT has retained Malloy as Governor.

Absent another tragic event, I hope he will leave our remaining rights alone. He is clearly a Media Whore, there are many more aspects of life in CT that he can move on to screw up.

AND the Great Facilitator got smacked pretty hard yesterday, maybe there will be a little less aggression against our Constitutional rights, and more focus on fixing the basic problems that America faces

Amendment 3 passed in my adopted state of Alabama.

http://www.al.com/news/tuscaloosa/index.ssf/2014/11/alabama_votes_yes_on_amendment.html

The amendment was introduced to the state legislature by Rep. Mike Jones (R-Andalusia), and it specifies that the right to bear arms is a fundamental right for citizens of the state of Alabama.

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Absent another tragic event, I hope he will leave our remaining rights alone. He is clearly a Media Whore, there are many more aspects of life in CT that he can move on to screw up.

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Well you know, he does plan to legalize hunting on Sundays, because he supports sportsmen and the magical invisible hunting clause of the Second Amendment.

Unsurprisingly, in Minnesota we re-elected the comedien from SNL and the guy whose family ran the Dayton's stores and spent the time immediately after 9/11 hiding in a bunker in an unspecified location.

The two districts we have that are reliably Republican, John Kline's and the one vacated by Michelle Bachmann's departure, stayed reliably Republican, with Kline easily winning reelection and former GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer taking over for Bachmann. Everything else stayed as blue as usual.

Only upside here is that gun rights aren't actually really a major issue here. We don't get crazy bills like Washington did, nobody really tries to enact any stricter laws, we just more or less stay the same. A lot of that is that a significant chunk of the blue state comes from the northern rural counties who haven't broken with their national party like the similar voters in the southern states have, so legislators know there are a good number of moderate to conservative Democrat voters and local legislators who also don't want to see any changes as far as guns go.