Could gun owners suffer the fate of black voters who are loyal only to one party and thus taken for granted? It could be argued this has happened to us.:
The captured group theory was put forward by Princeton political scientist Paul Frymer in a book first published in 1999, “Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America.â€1 He argued that politicians focus their attention on white swing voters, and that the two-party system is structured to push aside the concerns of black voters2 because they consistently and overwhelmingly favor one party.
Eventually, if there is no pro-gun insurgency within the Democratic Party, we’ll just get baked into the election numbers for the GOP and there won’t any good reason for the Dems to improve their standing with gun voters, and the the Republicans won’t have to work very hard to please us.
Yup. But then again, there’s not much in it for blacks in today’s modern Republican party, so what can they do? Whatever platform plank or policy etc that would benefit blacks (and there are many) is drowned out by the veiled and not so veiled racism within the Republican party.
Could you identify two specific points of Republican racism?
Disagreeing with the Progressive agenda is, by definition, racism.
This is why defeating Toomey is key. It shows that we won’t just vote for the GOP because “DEMS SO TERRIBLE”. It shows we have the power, and maybe we won’t vote Democrat, but by not voting at all, the GOP candidate will lose. That will demand respect by the GOP.
It will also be helpful if the Dems did start getting some pro-gun people back in though.
That’s what the NRA’s occasional endorsements of Democrats is so important. There are rare democrats who are worth supporting on the issue, and we need to support them.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/nra-endorses-chris-koster-227771
Republicans know that gun owners will retaliate. Their losses in the 1992 and 1996 election may both be attributed in part to gun owners either staying home or voting third party as a result of Bush41’s import ban on EBRs and Dole’s walking back on repeal of the 1994 Clinton AWB. Unfortunately, both of those protests gave us eight years of Bill Clinton, but on the good side it regalvinized the RKBA movement and made Bush43 much more attentive to our concerns, culminating in SCOTUS appointments that lead directly to Heller and McDonald.
Prominent republicans have been primaried out of high ranking positions. That threat is always available and highly relevant these days.
So you’re saying we shouldn’t vote for Toomey in November? Agreed.
I will gladly vote out Toomey, just promise me we aren’t going to lose the senate majority, our only hope if HilLIARy gets elected…
That’s the problem with throwing out a bum like Toomey in the general election. You’ll replace him with a worse bum.
The time to deal with problems like Toomey (and Mark Kirk) is in the primary election.
Nope. Electing Toomey who is endorsed by Bloomberg and has sold us out will show that gun owners are either okay with what he has done, will go along with whatever the GOP wants, or we have no power to stop anti-gun politicians.
In any case, it hurts gun owners. Its a matter of losing the battle but winning the war.
Its looking increasingly likely that the GOP will control the Senate, even with a Toomey loss. That’s a good thing.
Sure thing, now get out there and don’t vote for Toomey!
Part of the phenomenon (assuming it exists) may result from the demonization of the opposing party, (in this case, the Democrats), as a part of the issue (gun) culture.
Anecdotally, I remember when an executive board member of my gun club went to our county seat and reviewed the party affiliations on the voter registrations of all the active members in the club. The implication within the culture being, you could not have been a Democrat and remained a full member of the culture. (Fortunately at the time I was either registered with an acceptable minor party, or, “No Party” as I am now.)
The result was, that anyone who was both an active shooter and pro-gun, would have had a strong disincentive to become active with the Democratic Party and possibly progress within their ranks.
It also is worth pointing out that a good deal of the demonization of Democrats, had nothing to do at all with guns or gun rights. Painting them as an Evil Empire in their own right, because of their positions opposed by social conservatives, was just part of the cultural meme. But, coalitioning with social conservatives did not often provide a great deal for gun rights advocates.
Yeah Voting in anti gun Democrats is the answer.
As long as Democrats have adopted gun is evil then gun rights people have no choice. But voting in GOP is not always bad. I have watched Tennesee go from gun hostile to gun friendly with the change over to GOP controlled.
Agree we need a foot in both camps but what are you supposed to do when you get demonized? The Blue Dog Democrats which at least would sometimes listen to gun owners are largely gone because of the internal dynamics of the Democrat party and because they were in districts that trended Republicans. What’s left of the Democrat activist base is mostly haters.
The Democratic Party has gun bans in their platform. If they want gun owners to support them, then take the gun bans off the table!
We’re going through this same problem in Tennessee. Our RINO governor and state legislature have voted for small changes in gun laws kicking and screaming. We did better when we had a Democrat governor and Republican legislature.