Many thanks to all of you who called, wrote, or otherwise got involved in this fight. If you had told me back at the beginning of the year we’d be where we are right now, I’m not sure I would have believed you. I thought we were going to have to bend over and take something. Also, a big thanks to Bitter, for taking over covering the Senate when I was unable to. That coverage was a joint effort, even if I started the post, and I could not have done all that on my own.
While we are not out of the woods yes, I think we can all give ourselves a big pat on the back for winning round one. They will be back for more, and there will be 2014, which will be critical. We cannot allow the gun community to return to their slumber. The gun rights machine is fired up and engaged, and it’s important to keep everyone involved so that we can not only push our opponents back, as we have done today, but drive them to political extinction. We came very close, once again, to achieving National Reciprocity in the Senate. We won today because millions of gun owners woke up and did something. Let’s hope we can keep that up.
No vote on either gun bans or magazine bans cracked a bare majority of a Democratically controlled Senate, with the full weight of the White House and Bloomberg driving the anti-gun effort. We have succeeded in moving the center of this issue to the point where gun bans are practically a third rail. That is a great victory.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get a nice bottle of champagne to celebrate with over dinner. I think that’s worth celebrating.
And drink a toast to Nanny Bloomberg and the millions he’s wasted on this. Although, as you noted, he’ll be baaaaaaaack.
Thanks to you and Bitter for all the great coverage of this event and everything up to it, Top notch stuff. Enjoy the champagne it’s well deserved.
Second on this one, especially the deserved celebration. Then again, your home is neither a democracy or a constitutional republic, so you don’t need our permission. Go nuts! :)
Ditto. I might even have a glass of Alagash Curieux in your honor.
Yes, thank you for your efforts!
Yes, you and the GOA were my two primary sources of info during these last few months. You were the only reliable, up-to-the-minute source. You helped me feel like I was on top of what what happening. Kudos. Your work is MUCH appreciated.
Congratulations, and thanks once again.
“covering the Senate when I was unable to”
I’m imagining you guys taking alternating breaks to storm out of the room, bash your head against the wall, and down a few shots to cleanse the stupidity.
Kudos to you, Sebastian and Bitter!
The corks will be popping tonight, and a toast will go out to you and Bitter.
Do you know if Colburn’s Ammendment is up for a vote tomorrow? It will be funny to see Schumer and company vote against a background check bill after their’s failed.
Thank you so so much for your hard work – Sebastian, Bitter, and all of the many commenters!
Be sure to let us know where you’ll be at the NRA event in Houston. I’d like to thank you in person.
All I can answer right now is “around.” Bitter is the social director. I just go along for the ride :)
Heh. Yeah, that kind of describes our general status during the event. If you want to shoot me an email about what days you’ll be around at the convention, we can “schedule” a break from the floor somewhere easy to find like either the NRA News area or the main NRA booth.
Sebastian & Bitter: You both rock! I must have written called a combined 10-12 times over the last few months at strategic times, and encouraged my friends/family to do the same.
Without your site to coordinate, this could have been ugly.
Well done, and well played.
Thank You both for a job well done !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np6vAuS0KNs
Yay! Congratulations my friends.
So proud of you both!
Another big thanks to you and Bitter for all the hard work you did covering this and trying to get the rest of us to do something too!
Thanks for your hard work and tenacity.
Thank you for all your hard work – a celebration is well-deserved
Hear, hear! Many thanks to Sebastian and Bitter, and many thanks to everyone who helped!
Hoisting a homebrew (cascade imperial ipa) to all who helped the country today and to some world class live blogging by sebastien and bitter. Good job people!
Yes! THIS!
That Live blogging thing regarding the Senate was an invaluable resource. Bravi, Sebastian and Bitter.
Let loose the pigeons! (and this time, not to shoot, but in celebration! Ha!)
Nicely done, everyone. Nicely done. Today is a good day for The Second Amendment.
But so help me, if any of you start slacking off and getting drowsy, I’m gonna be make sure the space between us becomes as tigers. As noted, this is not over.
Cheers, all!
Good job guys! See what happens when we put the effort in? Feels good, doesn’t it? So let’s keep it up and start punching back. Next is Universal Reciprocity (see what I did there? :) ), NFA reform, overturn/recall the State crap, expand gun ownership to new people, even those on the left. The ultimate goal must be not just to restore freedoms, but to have gun control be removed from the Democratic platform. We need to deny them a party.
Then we can render this odious philosophy extinct.
Yes, thanks to everyone who did anything at all!
Now, just remember the people out there who will not be popping any corks or celebrating tonight, but instead will be planning their next attack. We don’t want them four or five hours ahead of us, do we?
Suggestion: Find the roll-call votes and send a “thank you” message to every senator that supported us, even the ones not from our own states. And send a “say goodbye” message to everyone who didn’t support us.
I’ve done close. Since both of my POS senators voted for more gun control except in one case, I made sure to point out their votes on numerous IL gun rights sites.
Absolutely. Take the advice of Han Solo…. don’t get cocky.
Thanks folks, but this is really everyone’s victory. We do what we can, but it’s everyone who communicated with lawmakers that this victory belongs to.
I’d also like to add that the people at NRA who have access to the legislators behind closed doors also deserve quite a bit of kudos for this. The Toomey-Manchin deal threw a big wrench into all this, but the end result is still good.
I agree, albeit reluctantly — reluctant, only because I had too many unpleasant experiences with the NRA in the past.
But this time, I find no evidence of chicanery going on behind the scenes, and it was the NRA toeing the hardest line. Rewarding them for good behavior would seem logically in order!
Congrats, sir(s).
Oh and Sebastian/Bitter… You did know that you got a HUGE shout out on Cam and Co radio show today, right?
We were too busy listening to C-SPAN! But that’s good to know.
I just want to bathe in the anger, outrage and indignation of Obama, Feinstein and Bloomberg…oooooooohhhhhh, aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!
Just let it pour over me! That’s sooooo great!
Mmmmmmmmmmm! Their frustration feels wonderful.
Thanks for that. I feel totally refreshed.
The Constitution yet lives.
“The Constitution yet lives.”
Really?
I’ve hesitated to be a wet blanket, but please remember some of those anti-gun amendments failed only because of the 60 vote requirement — however a simple majority in the senate voted against the Second Amendment.
That is not every safe ground to build upon.
…sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof…
Let’s just be happy now…and rest up for the next battle.
Malcolm Reynolds: We’re still flying.
Simon Tam: That’s not much
Malcolm Reynolds: It’s enough.
For now. Tomorrow we fight again, and anew.
I would agree with this, but I’d also note that when it comes to gun bans, we got this under a bare majority. That’s at least progress from when the House, in the 1990s, voted for repeal of the AWB, the Senate refused to even take it up, thanks to Bob Dole.
McCain still voted against freedom for the most part. At least Flake held firm to what he told me in January. I’ll be sure to call up Flakes office showing my approval and McCains my disappointment. I lost count how many times I contacted my congress critters, told others to do so both local and around my online circles.
But we all know it’s not over. i can see bloomberg pouring literally hundreds of millions to punish the senators on both sides of the aisle that defended freedom. At least the million or so he spent in Arizona attacking Flake was in essence pissed away for nothing.
Starting with Stone’s “Arrogant Bastard Ale” right now- ah the sweet taste of bitter.
Thank you, everyone.
I’m proud to be a part of a great community.
To Sebastian and Bitter,
I raise a toast for the news you’ve carried and the encouragement you’ve given. Being able to check here for the debate progress was terrific.
Thank You Both
Well, it’s nice to see besides the obvious “betrayal” by Toomey, he at least voted Pro-2A on the remaining amendments. Casey on the other hand showed his true colors as a gun-grabber in the same league as Schumer and Feinstein. I remember his ads during election season trying to push the blue-collar and pro-gun image hard. Unfortunately I wasn’t yet a resident so I couldn’t vote but believe me, now that I am I will be doing my part to see him gone. I didn’t move to PA to see it become a satellite of NY or NJ.
“besides the obvious “betrayal†by Toomey, he at least voted Pro-2A on the remaining amendments.”
“Treachery must never be forgiven. . .” — Don Vito Corleone
“Let’s just be happy now…and rest up for the next battle.”
“On the plains of hesitation lie the blackened bones of countless millions who at the dawn of victory lay down to rest, and in resting died.” –Adlai E. Stevenson
I personally first encountered that quote on a poster advertized in Soldier of Fortune Magazine in the late ’70s. I had no idea that Adlai Stevenson was the source.
In any case, it is apt today.