I'm not going to read the whole thread. But here is where my gut is.
We have worked hard for the last 25 years to establish that bearing arms is a right, and to force state governments, one at a time, to ease or eliminate restrictions on it. We have hammered through court decisions to get a definitive answer that bearing arms is a right, and that local fiefdoms can't declare otherwise. We have forced the anti-gun argument to subtext and silence for fear of retribution to those who support it. We have used the 'creeping incrementalism' of our opponents to achieve a position where we have the momentum and initiative in this argument. They are defending themselves against US, not the other way around.
SO, when we have a national-level decision to be made on this issue, after all these dominoes have fallen, we have to choose. Is this the next inevitable step towards allowing free men to keep and bear arms? Or is it some kind of elaborate trap designed to sucker us into allowing the .gov to restrict our rights?
If we had stood firm on the "carry permits are allowing the government to restrict our rights" platform, and insisted that all states just drop their laws against carrying concealed, we would have nothing today. The problem with insisting on 'all or nothing' from the government, is that they are all too willing to give you nothing. We have come this far. To now get leery because of a potential future fight over semantics, is to admit that we really don't have the stones to continue forward. I say we go forward and address conflicts as they arise. This seems to be working well so far. Pass it, and if someone in the future tries to twist the law to make it do something it wasn't intended to do, they will have exposed themselves and we can address them directly.
If not this fight, which one? If not now, when?
