The Gun Lobby: Reports of Our Demise Are Greatly Exaggerated

Bloomberg, Oprah, & co. had the destruction of the Second Amendment all planned out.

First, they would bring a bunch of kids out to a billionaire-financed free rock concert in Washington on a warm spring day.

Then, they would push an Orwellian gun confiscation measure and sugar-coat it as a "red-flag law."  Articles and segments in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and Fox had already touted these gun confiscation programs.  And anti-gunners believed -- perhaps inaccurately -- that they had duped the president and significant parts of the gun lobby into supporting them.

They had gun confiscation bills introduced in 37 states, reportedly.  (Five states had already enacted them in earlier years.)

But, with the exception of the "swing state" of Florida, they completely and utterly failed on this and every other element of their stated agenda in every "red state" and every "purple state."  (Vermont, a "deep blue state" which had been pro-gun in the past, also flipped.)

Make no mistake about it:  Bloomberg spent over $100 million dollars.  But, other than the two outliers -- plus the 10 most anti-gun states in the country -- there was no gun confiscation legislation, no universal background checks, no gun or magazine bans.  We killed their gun confiscation ("red flags") in roughly 30 states.  In other words, the gun control movement's stated objectives failed federally and in all but the most repressive states (which had already effectively banned guns).

And in "reddish" or "purple" states like Ohio and Pennsylvania -- where we totally demolished the gun control agenda -- the Giffords organization was forced to cling to tiny "face-saver bills" to argue that momentum had swung in their direction.

Now, Bloomberg and Giffords claim that the election results represent a "tipping point" for them.  And, to that end, Bloomberg put up to $5 million into a single race which was already considered to be competitive.

But, according to my study in late November, a flip of 54,543 votes in 17 districts would have shifted control of the House from Democrat to Republican control.

54,543.

That number has changed a little bit now that California 21 has come in.  But it hasn't changed by much.

The bottom line?  In a year when Democrats spent the better part of $5.4 billion -- much of it from billionaires expecting to be anointed "president" as a result -- and in a year which was touted as UNIQUELY favorable to the party out of power, we are now told by the Left that the results lock in a comparable victory in 2020.

I never take anything for granted.  However, legislatively, I wouldn't bet that gun control is going anywhere on the federal level.  We have a House which can pass whatever gun control it chooses.  But we will successfully filibuster it in the Senate.

People have underestimated the "gun lobby" before -- always to their detriment.  Democrats lost the House in 1994 over this issue -- after a generation of dominance.  They lost the presidency when we delivered GOP wins in West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and the Florida panhandle in 2000.  And, after Republicans defeated all federal gun control in 2013, they took control of the Senate the next year -- after we ousted a handful of "red state Democrats."

So welcome to 2020.  "Commence fire!"