Americans are embracing the Second Amendment like never before. Mark Kakkuri looks back at six recent victories for the gun rights movement for the November issue of Townhall Magazine.
Across the nation, Second Amendment advocates and those involved in hunting and the shooting sports have enjoyed a stream of victories affirming the rights of Americans to keep and bear arms, not just for ownership, hobbies, sports, and hunting, but also for personal defense. Credit goes in part to the many pro-gun rights organizations, conservative legislators, and a myriad of everyday citizens for what many consider an unprecedented forward movement in protecting, affirming and expanding gun rights. In some sense, however, credit also goes to the anti-gun rights crowd for not only failing to make any headway for their misguided cause but also for reversing any semblance of "progress" for its anti-gun rights agenda.
Although the failures of the anti-gun rights movement are many,six will suffice to make the point.
FAIL #1:TWO ANTI-GUN COLORADO SENATORS RECALLED BY GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT
On Sept.10, 2013, Colorado voters recalled, for the first time in the state's history, two senators who played a role in enacting restrictive gun legislation in the state. Recalled are state Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) and state Sen. Angela Giron (D-Pueblo).
Voters in Colorado Springs sided with the recall of Morseby 51 percent to 49 percent. Voters in Pueblo sided with the recall of Giron by 56 percent to 44 percent. The results are impressive because both senate districts are heavily Democratic. ln fact, President Obama in 2012 carried Colorado Springs and Pueblo by 21 percentage points and 19 percentage points, respectively. Additionally,just getting there call on the ballot required signatures totaling at least 25 percent of the number of votes from the district's previous election.
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While pro-gunrights organizations focused on energizing a grassroots movement to oust the senators, the anti-gun rights crowd went over the top to keep the senators in place, spending almost $3 million of the approximately $3.5 million total spent on the election. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad together contributed $600,000 to oppose the recall.
The catalyst for the recall, according to a statement by the Newtown, Conn.-based National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), was "the passage of a series of highly restricted gun control laws that will do nothing to improve public safety but that did reflect the wishes of national anti-gun organizations.''
In other words, "The legislators failed to represent the beliefs of their constituents," said the NSSF, and so the voters fired them.
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