Perhaps I am in fantasy land, but is it too much to ask our "pro gun" congress and "pro gun" president to actually do something "pro gun" instead of doing nothing at all?
Well, just in case you need to check your bearings in relation to fantasy land, here is the situation from the past four years:
2000-2002 - Republicans control the House; but about 20% of them are anti-gun. Not much pro-gun legislation gets passed. Democrats control the Senate.
2002-2004 - Anti-gunners from both parties get a boot and the percentage of anti-gun Republicans in House drops significantly. Slight pro-gun majority in the House. Republicans barely gain control of Senate; but once again the Democrats are mostly united against guns and just enough Republicans defect that gun legislation is doomed.
In March 2004, 52 Senators support a silly ban on cosmetic features. 53 Senators support outlawing private sales. This is the same Senate that will be in session until January 2005.
Despite this, the Republicans do pass some modest pro-gun legislation including the Tiahrt Amendment, bills arming airline and cargo pilots, and National CCW for police.
January 2005 - we replaced Republican Senator Pete Fitzgerald (pro-ban, anti-gun) with an even more anti-gun Democrat. We replaced moderately pro-gun Republican Senator Campbell with a moderately anti-gun (pro-ban, pro-MMM) Democrat. On the other hand, we replaced 5 GOA F-rated Democrats with 5 new candidates all receiving GOA grades of B or better.
We will now have a chance to pass any legislation that the Dems do not want to filibuster. The real question will be how much political capital are the Dems willing to burn filibustering gun bills?