Great strategy Gifted, I applaud your positive spirit and vision for the future.
Zunfold, I'm not quite sure where I offended you. For starters, I belong to pro-RKBA organizations, I vote, and I write letters. More importantly, I've taken more of my fair share of anti-gun libs/moderates to the range and that has ERASED their entire negative image of it.
I was speaking from the perspective that now that the Democrats are in power, you can absolutely positively forget about any pro-gun progress, no matter how little it may be. Also, you can forget about maintaining the status quo.
It is obvious that many people aren't happy with the GOP since not a lot got done. That's actually a good value. It is good to demand progress. But, like you, I am a realist, and no I don't think I will ever wake up and see the gun grabbers have disappeared, nor am I a chest thumper who wants to kill them all in the streets. So those comments aren't accurate at all.
There's another thing to consider though. GOP rule of the Congress, if not to repeal bans, was extremely, extremely positive for us in that it maintained the status quo of no new bans.
Why is that good? Because it buys us time. It buys us time to spread the word and grow the gun culture without interference of bans. Look at the sheer number of people who have bought AR's and AK's and 30rd magazines since? These are all new people who will not like to be told that they can no longer buy or have 30rd magazines.
With Democrats in power, the AWB would have been renewed (to use it as an example) and such magazines would not be around as they were getting very scarce in 2003-2004.
So, the actual physical availability of firearms and magazines in the market place has a direct and positive impact on the growth and size of the gun culture.
It is no secret that attacks on hunting, licensing, hunting lands being taken away and all this has limited the amount of people interested in that sport. Likewise, when you make entire classes of firearms extinct, you limit entire disciplines of shooting and entire sports and activities. People like convenience and ease. When something is a pain in the butt to get, they just skip it. People won't go to a restaurant that is on the left side of the street because they have to make a left turn and wait at the light. That's the psychology in play with the very casual moderate middle of the road, non-serious gun owners that can EASILY become allies. Instead, small bits of gun control make it a hassle for them and they give up.
So it was ok to have the GOP blocking gun control. It did lead to positive things.
If someone believes that the 1986 ban or any ban earlier than that is going to be repealed without a CULTURAL change in America with regards to firearms, then they are simply delusional.
So, how do we enact cultural change? By making it more acceptable. How do you do that? BY PROLIFERATING FIREARMS like AR's and such so that more people go shoot highpower or want an AR for home defense. More and more it is seen as "ok" and when that is seen as ok, we can chip away at registered machine guns, or sporting purposes clause etc....
How do we ensure that we can proliferate firearms? By putting a halt to new bans. How do we put a halt to new bans? By supporting the GOP, not the Democrats.
It is a simple equation. The GOP did not stab us in the back, nor did they sell out. They did exactly what they said they would. They never promised to go in there and bring America back to pre-1934 gun laws. They said they'd defend the RKBA which means from new attacks.
That's being realistic. The gun grabbers did not seize political power through organizations like the Brady Camp, they hijacked education and media...and enacted CULTURAL change that was sympathetic to gun control.
What do you think?
