In Virginia The Gun Guys Won With Or Without The NRA.
If I had a nickel for everyone who has predicted the
demise of the NRA since the national meeting back in April, I wouldn’t
have to go out today and watch a bunch of cops try to hit the broad side of the
barn with the guns they haven’t cleaned since the last time they tried to punch
some holes through the broad side of the barn. And until last week, between
closing down their video network and stumbling through a lawsuit against their
own advertising agency, there was every good reason to believe that Wayne-o and
the boys from Fairfax were just hanging onto the ropes, if not down for the
count.
That was then, this is now. And now happens to be what took place at the State House in Richmond, VA where America’s ‘first civil rights organization’ demonstrated that any thoughts about their impending demise might be a bit immature.
Let’s not forget that in June there was a really bad
mass shooting at Virginia Beach. And let’s also
not forget that it wasn’t all that hard for gun-control groups to show up at
Richmond in force because Virginia’s capitol city is less than 100 miles from
Washington, D.C. But what we also shouldn’t forget is that once you leave the
affluent, liberal-minded DC suburbs of Virginia and travel through the
hinterland, you’re in the old South, and the old South still has folks who own
lots of guns.
The gun-control proposals promoted by a Democratic Governor
who is up for re-election, included the usual comprehensive background checks
and regulating assault rifles and hi-cap mags, along with a law that would have
re-instated a 30-day waiting period between the purchase of handguns. And while
the Democrats control the Executive Mansion at the moment, the legislature is
still in GOP hands. Which means that Governor Northam’s proposals went nowhere
fast. Zilch. Finished.
The NRA‘s strategy to defeat the gun bill was
the group’s usual concoction of anti-crime rhetoric combined with support for 2nd-Amendment
‘rights.’ Here was their post-session statement: “We commend the House and Senate Republican
leadership for renewing the focus on putting violent criminals behind bars and
a much needed refocus on mental health initiatives. The discussion before
the Virginia Crime Commission should focus on solutions that provide strong due
process and put a stop to the continued politicization of law-abiding
individual’s constitutional rights.”
In other words, gun violence is caused by criminals and nuts, not
by lawful gun owners exercising their Constitutional ‘rights.’ And this happens
to be a very powerful argument, given the fact that a majority of Americans not
only believe
that violent crime is always and has always been on the rise, but that having
access to a gun is a foolproof solution
to the problem of crime.
Yesterday I was up in New Hampshire and drove through Swanzey,
which is one of those old, red-brick factory towns which saw its best years
sometime before World War II. The local propane dealer had a sign offering a starting
salary of $55,000 for someone to make home deliveries – you can rent a nice,
one-bedroom in the next town for $700 a month.
These are the kind of guys who can and do walk into a gun shop any
time they want, plunk down five or six hundred bucks and walk out with another
gun. And while they may have heard something about problems at the NRA
with Wayne-o outfitting himself at Zegna or Chris Cox opening his own lobbying
firm, it’s my friends in Gun-control Nation who pay attention to such
headlines; those gun guys couldn’t care less.
On the other hand, those gun guys vote and they have actually met
their local government reps at the annual Knights of Columbus bar-b-que or at
the gun show held up the road every few months. Until and unless my friends in
Gun-control Nation figure out how to communicate with those guys, what happened
in Richmond last week will continue to happen in other places as well.
