David French think it’s high time the NRA got on board with Gun Violence Restraining Orders, and praises it as a good move. I don’t agree it’s a good move, but I think it’s probably a necessary one. French seems to think this will make a difference, but I’m going to bet you even if we pass GVROs in every state, we’re still going to have mass shootings. French seems to believe gun control will work. It won’t. It’s never worked. In the Parkland case, they had every opportunity to take action under current laws, and no one ever bothered. This would just have been one more crack the killer would have fallen through, and everyone knows it.
I worried when Bloomberg started pushing the GVRO issue that there was a chance this would get traction, and that’s what has happened. So what do you do if you’re NRA? Again, the hard line answer is to shout “no” louder, but that’s not going to stop you from losing in a dozen more states on a bill that, like California’s, has zero due process. You also have the White House on board with this idea, which doesn’t help things.
So what NRA has decided to do is rebrand GVROs as Risk Protection Orders (RPO), demand some level of due process, and become all for it. Looking over the RPO concept, it would actually have more due process than a Protection From Abuse (PFA) order, which is already disabling. So this isn’t really the sellout some are claiming it is. I’d be thrilled to get this much due process for PFAs.
This is not the first time NRA has done a move like this. When it became apparent the Brady Bill had real traction, after years of fighting it, NRA declared that instant background checks were good and wholesome, and pushed that idea as an alternative to the seven-day waiting period the Bradys originally wanted. NRA’s position is eventually what we got.
I know hard-liners will be all “Negotiating Rights Away” yet again. By this point, I’ve heard it all. But let me ask you this: would we be better off with a 7 or 5 day waiting period for all gun purchases everywhere? Would we be better off if we had an assault weapons ban that had no sunset clause? Would we be better off with a dozen more states passing GVROs with no due process protections whatsoever? Would we have been better off if, as the original NFA intended, machine guns were defined as any firearm which could fire more than 7 rounds without reloading? As I’ve said, sometimes outright defeating your opponents isn’t an option. Sometimes it is a matter of minimizing the damage they are inflicting on you. If NRA had 10 or 20 million members, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But we don’t, so we are.
Anyone know what the current NRA membership numbers are? They must be up from 5mil lately…
Not so sure. A lot of people are pissed NRA appears to have given cover for bump stock ban and Risk Protection Orders. Or in Maryland, ‘Extreme” Risk Protection Orders.
What would stop a person with a restraining order from buying in a private sale? Nothing.
I don’t like the idea of GVRO, but I understand why they are a powerful pull for the gun controllers.
If we are going to get them anyway, and the NRA surely knows how the votes will likely go, then we best put as much protection in them as possible. Its not about “compromising our rights away”, its about “saving as much of our rights in this battle right now”, and hopefully win the long term war.
The bigger frustration to me is that we aren’t gaining ground. ie. HPA and reciprocity.
Those are what we need in order to get more people onboard with gun rights.
And this is where I feel Trump the “deal maker” is seriously letting us down.
Combined with a united, Democrat Party opposition, the 1/3rd of the GOP that is “Establishment” and loyal to Bush-Mafia is giving Democrats (particularly in the Senate) the votes to defeat HPA and National Reciprocity.
We could’ve gotten Short Barrel Rifles and Short Barrel Shotguns removed from the NFA as well, and I wanted those 2 things the most. Those 2 things were more feasible to get done, and were of equal impact, politically, to National Reciprocity and HPA.
You are wrong there, Reciprocity is far more important than SBR’s or suppressors.
NCCR would kill the anti-gun states restrictive regimes because I could carry any firearm into them. SBR’s and suppressors won’t restore the 2A in CA or NJ.
That is the greatest failing of our GOP controlled Congress.
And sadly I think the window is closing. But I’m naturally a pessimist.
I think the window closed, and you know what, your pessimism is the truth.
Sadly, the Demographics of the USA are within the next 4 to 6 years, going to swing this Country so Far-Left, your head’s gonna roll.
By 2030, America will look like a combination of Mexico and Venezuela; 3rd World, Failed, Fabian and Utopian Socialist Countries.
Suppressors are much more valuable politically than SBRs/SBSs, because they make guns less scary to learn to use. They make ranges less annoying to neighbors. Etc… The other NFA items are nice to have, but ultimately only benefit us as individuals.
And as Scott points out, the holy grail is reciprocity. That’s what will get us the most people into the shooting world and the most rights restored for a wide swath of currently disenfranchised people.
David French is an unhinged loon.
The gun-violence restraining order (GVRO) will be turned into civil asset forfeiture for Guns.
The police will take people’s guns, the owner will have to hire a lawyer and go to court to get them back.
I try not to pay attention to Establishment, Bush Wing Republicans at all, so I don’t see this as “losing” at all. However, privacy, due-process, and trial by jury rights, are the real issues with “Gun Violence Restraining Orders”. They’re Trojan-Horse, weaponizing the erosion of the 2nd Amendment to subvert, usurp, and destroy the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments in the Bill of Rights as well.
Need I remind people, there is a rumored (credible possibility) in Washington State that Bloomberg and his Pigs are preparing the expand their “Gun Violence Restraining Orders” through another Ballot Initiative, to go beyond immediate family to “co-workers and classmates”. If you’re a pro-gun college student, you’ll be losing your guns in a heartbeat.
The Illinois State Senate also has a bill filed that goes even further than that, creating an “Anonymous Tip-line” that anyone, regardless of their relations to you, can scream “J’accuse”! (To cite the French Revolution And the guillotines), and your 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and even 1st Amendment Rights are gone….for good.
I have got into a lot of heated political discussions over the gun-issue in college with the gun-banners, and they were the types of people who would’ve, if they could’ve and one day might be able to do so against pro-gun people like myself in the future, scream “J’accuse”!! to the Police, and my guns would be gone.
We have to draw a line in the sand soon, because the anti-gunners aren’t interested in compromise, but total Civilian Disarmament.
What the NRA should do however is push to Amend the Lautenberg Domestic Violence Law, and “Gun Violence Restraining Orders” proposals to all go before a Trial By Jury Immediately, because (especially with Domestic Violence), you can lose your gun rights at the Bench-Trial, and the forfeiture of Rights, without going before a Jury-Trial, is a violation of the 6th Amendment.
We need to exploit the extremism of anti-gunners at the State Level, to stymie the anti-gunners at the Federal Level.
Even in edge States like Washington and Colorado, I think the example of extremist gun-control in places like California could be exploited to good ends. (States like Washington are what I like to call edge States. In general their gun-control laws are not oppressive, but new Democratic majority control is pushing them towards oppression.)
The NRA when you look back always concedes to anti-gunners when the going gets really tough. After Sandy Hook happened they were going to cave on universal backround checks and registration. They eventually pulled out of that discussion but that shows you that the NRA is basically only in the fight if it’s easy. Otherwise they bend over backwards to the people who have openly state there end goal is the total and complete ban of gun ownership with full confiscation and to use the military to go door to door to round up all the guns and kill all who oppose them. They are of the opinion that everyone who is not like that should be killed. If you tell them that’s over 100 maybe 150-200 million people they shrug. To them the ststematic extermination of gun owners and anyone not a leftist no matter how high the numbers is good thing. The reason the left brings up bombs and tanks is because they WANT them to be used against us. The left RIGHT NOW is calling for total confiscation and they have openly stated that they want the government to round us all up and kill us. THESE are the people the NRA is conceding too. Why should democrats push gun control when the republicans and NEA are doing it for them?
Sometimes you need to retreat a little, re-group and replenish supply lines.
Over the long term, gun rights has greatly expended since 1999. Keep that in mind.
You speak the truth, and even for gunowners and pro-gun non-gunowners, the truth seems to hurt too much.
The pro-gun community needs to unite for its self-preservation, collectively, because the Democrat Party (using Dannell Malloy, the Democrat Governor of Connecticut as the prime example), sees gunowners as political dissidents that must be “purged” from society, and they crave “purging” them from society with Government-Imposed, violent means.
http://publicola.blogspot.com/2018/02/pardon-my-french-but-gvro-hell-no.html
That is a post I did outlining the pragmatic flaws with GVRO’s. That was just after French wrote about them initially.
The NRA board has always had a contingent that liked some forms of gunowner control. Not just thought it was a necessity, but desirable. So I don’t ascribe every time they support some piece of gunowner control to some sort of pragmatic strategic surrender in the face of ultimate defeat.
To answer your question directly – yes we’d be better off with a 5 or 7 day wait than the NICS. Why? Cause NICS denials have a 94% to 99% false positive rate. Less folks would be harmed, though it’s not an ideal trade off by any means. Plus sans NICS it could have been fought & possibly stopped.
No sunset on the AWB? Yes we’d have been better off as it likely would not have passed without the sunset.
Sebastian, when the NRA makes a bad law a little less bad, they throw in with Anti-gunners to do so. You lament there’s not a 10 or 20 million member NRA? Well maybe if we didn’t feel like we were mustering on a battlefield so the noblemen could negotiate a better deal for themselves perhaps there would be a 20+ million member NRA.
Two cases – pick which one would be easier to win as an attorney; a GVRO with little due process, or a GVRO with a moderate amount of due process.
We could do this all day (& I believe we have in the past). I think we should fight GVRO’s no matter how they’re dressed up. If it seems like a losing PR battle then change the approach. The NRA”s problem is that it has compromised too much, so it’s hard to walk back &, say oppose NICS since it has supported it so long. But without opposing all forms of prior restraint gunowner control, then opposing some here while backing others there looks hypocritical. & hypocrisy ain’t a good strategy to sway public opinion. The NRA would have to admit it made mistakes, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. But they could fight these effectively if they’d just base their fight on the principle, not the political climate of the moment.
It is my firm belief that if every gun owner everywhere interjects “NICS denials have a 94+% false positive rate & an appeals process of over a year” anytime a background check is mentioned then that could start to change minds on background checks. Mentioning how difficult it is to retrieve a gun from a police department & you make more headway on gathering opposition to GVRO’s. Toss in how this will disproportionately affect minorities (as most gun owner control laws do) & that’s more progress towards defeat these types of things.
I don’t see this as such a sure lose as you do. But if I did I’d say it is much better to fight, even if we lose, than to cede any more ground than we already have. Though I maintain if the NRA really fought – stopped supporting all the gunowner control it does & really fought – we’d not lose as much as we have been with the “make bad bills a little better” strategy.
Please show me (without citing a Lott article) where NICS has a 94-99% false positive.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like NICS but it’s far better than a waiting period. I grew up in a state with a 7 day waiting period which in effect took 3 weeks or more as no dealer would transfer after the 7 day waiting period until they heard back from the police.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/239272.pdf
“The DENI Branch screened 76,142 NICS denials received from the FBI during 2010, and
referred 4,732 denials (approximately 6%) within the established guidelines to field
divisions. The referred cases were made up of 2,265 delayed denials (3% of all
denials) and 2,467 standard denials (over 3%). The remaining denials (71,410, or
nearly 94%) did not meet referral guidelines or were overturned or canceled.
Overturns occurred after review by the DENI Branch or after the FBI received additional
information. The FBI canceled a small number of denials in cases where a NICS check
should not have been conducted. (Table 2.) Standard denials that are not being
referred are reported weekly to the field divisions and made available in a database if
further review is deemed necessary. ”
The 94% comes straight from government documents.
You get to approximately 99% by the time they finish whittling the number of cases down to a few dozen they took to trial.
Sorry, that is NOT “…NICS denials have a 94% to 99% false positive rate.”
Wow. How did you contort those sentences to mean what you claimed? Failure to prosecute is not the same as a false positive. It just means the DA is lazy.
Brad and Rick, here’s the specific quote…
“The remaining denials (71,410, or nearly 94%) did not meet referral guidelines or were overturned or canceled. Overturns occurred after review by the DENI Branch or after the FBI received additional information. The FBI canceled a small number of denials in cases where a NICS check should not have been conducted.”
Overturned or canceled are false positives. That’s not contorting it at all.
I knew exactly which sentence you were referring to. And it DOES NOT meet your interpretation.
What amount of those 71,410 denials ‘did not meet referral guidelines’, as opposed to ‘overturned or canceled’? The sentence doesn’t say.
Yet you insist 100% of of those 71,410 denials were overturned or canceled.
Yeesh!
You belong with that nutcase in NAGR. If you like tilting at windmills and LOSING so much, they have an excellent record of mouthing platitudes and being “no compromise” while getting their heads bashed in.
NICS is worse than a 7 day waiting period? You don’t know bad until you live in a 10 day waiting period State like Commiefornia!
Let’s not participate in the rebranding of what this actually is. What is being actively discussed here, supported by NRA “Leadership†and advocated by Mr. French are
Gun Confiscation Orders
nothing less.
How do guns get confiscated?
By heavily armed stormtroopers.
This is what these people are looking for – one, just ONE incident in which the otherwise innocent victim of a GCO fights back, so they can then call for the next step.
What will the next step be? Tough to say, because we don’t think like them, but this is very much what is being set up.
There isn’t enough due process in the world to make up for the proposed GCOs.
This already happens with PFAs, which have far less due process than is being proposed here.
You cannot compromise with the left. They will break every promise. So never a step backward. They will just use it as a bridgehead for the next step.
And the NRA needs to dance with the one that brung them which was most definitely NOT David French.
Anti gun groups are making significantly less progress this year than in 2013. I realize to many people this is small consolation. Every time one of these massacres happen legislators are gonna feel an impulse to do something. I think that even what has come out of state legislatures has been extremely measured compared to 2013. I realize people don’t wanna hear it.
NRA needs to regroup and start figuring out a way to rack up some wins in blue states. The ability to rack up easy wins in red States has reached the point of diminishing returns
dwb;
In 2013, here in Florida, we got zero anti-gun legislation.
In 2018, here in Florida, we got some anti-gun legislation.
That’s not less progress, here in Florida.
So far Florida has been the only loss.
After Sandy Hook, what CT, NY? others.
Though I don’t know if this spasm is over yet.
The Anti’s know that, statistically, these things are going to happen, and in a population of 330 million, they are going to happen on a regular basis. The Anti’s are prepared to jump on these as “opportunities”.
Yet somehow the NRA is always caught flat-footed. Why can’t they plan for these kinds of events pre-emptively as well? Particularly since we already know what Anti’s are going to propose!
There really is no excuse for the NRA’s lack of preparation.
Jacob Sullum at Reason had a comprehensive rebuttal to French’s initial column on this subject, pointing out that all of the real-world examples of GVRO laws lack the basic due process protections that French considers indispensable, and there’s no reason to think that future iterations would be any better. Sullum further pointed out that the entire point of GVRO laws is to lower the threshold for seizing guns from people — that the more due process protections they entail, the less “effective” they’ll be.
French’s response was to handwave along “everything is subject to abuse and we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” lines, while maintaining that a well-written GVRO law (which, while a Platonic ideal in David French’s mind, does not and will not exist anywhere in the real world) could do some good.
With friends like these…
please call these what they are, gun confiscation orders or GCO
Under current law, if you get carted off to the loony bin, guess what happens?
I’ve a better idea. I’ll call them what I like, and you can keep complaining impotently about it.
our side won’t get motivated over gun violence restraining orders. Our side’s ears perk up at the word confiscation. but by all means, continue using the left’s propaganda.
Yeah, no. If you want to calibrate your word choice in whatever way you think best “motivates” “our side,” by all means have fun with that. But here, in a blog comment section, I’m calibrating my word choice towards making myself understood, by the host and other commenters. That means referring to laws by their common or statutory names, rather than by made-up terms some random dude on the Internet thinks are more politically impactful.
And by the way, it’s not a great look to complain about the left’s propaganda while you’re doing your level-best to try to get people to use invented terminology for the express purpose of making “our side’s ears perk up.”
I’m as much as an 2A absolutist as anybody (yet I don’t think “arms” means tanks or bazookas) and I’d like to yell NO COMPROMISE!
but, if you don’t have votes (for whatever reason) then you either compromise, let them have exactly what they want, or start shooting.
If you start shooting over GVR’s the public is not going to be on your side. They might not be on your side if the Congress banned AR15’s (but you would get a few more gun owners to go into the street with you).
Though I’ve been a Life Member of the NRA for 45+ years I haven’t been happy with them since they ran the “jack booted thug” ad. Since then they gotten way to timid for me.
But I didn’t give up my membership.
And I also believe that if there were 20 million members now (or in 1992) we wouldn’t be fighting this battle.
But too many gun owners seem to want to cut their own nose off to spite their face.
Shawn, Mike, David, Richard and myself stated correctly on this discussion thread, that you can’t compromise with the gun-banners anymore.
This GVRO issue is now using anti-gun initiatives and standings to subvert, usurp and destroy the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments that protect, property, privacy, due-process, and trial by jury rights in conjunction with destroying the 2nd Amendment.
GVRO’s will start off with “immediate family members” being able to call you in to the Police. However, the gun-banners will then look to expand it to “co-workers and classmates”, and then broaden them further to becoming “Anonymous Tip-lines” for anyone, regardless of their relations to you, to scream “J’accuse”!! “J’accuse”!!, and your guns are gone.
And so if we shout NO COMPROMISE, and the other side gets what they want, as they want it, what then?
You going into the streets and start shooting?
What is your plan to actually win the political battle here?
Getting into the political process at the State and Local Level more thoroughly for Constitutional Conventions through the State Legislatures that overturn anti-gun statutes in the Country.
If “shooting in the streets” ever starts in this Country, the Leftwing, Progressive, Communist scum will be the one’s who start it.
If our side needs to start “shooting in the streets”, Worst Case Scenario, it’s a last ditch effort; self defense.
Also, Gun Rights Organizations from the grassroots up through gunowners themselves together need to start winning the PR Battle by fighting for 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments pertaining to Property, Privacy, Due-Process, and Jury Trial Rights to defeat these Gun Violence Restraining Orders and the BULLSHIT that they will cause for 95 million to 135 million Americans who own guns.
My state, Texas, passed an article 5 convention resolution years ago. How about yours? Is one even PROPOSED? Again, you fight with what you have and if you will LOSE, you take what you can get. Otherwise, TODAY, we would have a TOTAL SEMI-AUTO BAN AND 7 day waiting period and god knows what else.
After Texas passed the Article 5 Resolution, Trump got elected a couple years later, and those of us on the Right, gunowners and all, did one thing we always do best……get lazy, apathetic, and disengage from Politics all together after winning Elections. The Political Left, win or lose, never does that.
Sad to say, and of course thanks to Bloomberg and the Democrat Party Billionaire Donor Class, driving pro-gun, Blue Dog Democrats into political extinction, be it 2018, 2020, or 2024, the next time the Democrat Party gets a Trifecta, with both legislative majorities and/or the Presidency, they will be pushing for “god knows what else”, and MUCH..WORSE!
If you’ve been listening to Democrats like Dennis Kucinich, Dannell Malloy, Jerry Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Chris Murphy, Jay Inslee, Nancy Pelosi, Stenney Hoyer, and others, The NRA is a “Terrorist Organization worse than ISIS”.
The NRA is just a strawman. They are dogwhistling that gunowners are political dissidents that must be violently and forcefully “purged” from Society.
They’ll be pushing for your worst nightmares , at a minimum, when it comes to gun-bans, and worse than you could ever imagine.
Gun Violence Restraining Orders are **NOT** needed.
Utilize state-level “Baker Act” laws properly.
“Officials wanted the Florida suspect ##committed## in 2016 after he wrote the word ‘k*ll’ in a notebook, drank gasoline, and cut his arm after a bad breakup”
(## involuntary mental evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act)
http://www.businessinsider.com/officials-wanted-florida-suspect-nikolas-cruz-committed-2018-3-2
“Such a commitment would have likely **stopped** him from being able to **obtain** the weapon he used in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school last month.”
Add this to the **LONG** list of government failures in this latest school tragedy.
(why would we be adding even **more** laws that won’t be followed?)
Of course they aren’t.
So, how do you get a lot of apathetic gun owners to put a stop to this madness?
“So, how do you get a lot of apathetic gun owners to put a stop to this madness?”
Getting real leadership from the NRA would be nice.
(to inspire some confidence)
Maybe getting those apathetic gun owners to even join would be a start. Not that I think the NRA is a perfect organization or even the best gun rights organization.
But the NRA is made up of gun owners. They drive it, the NRA doesn’t drive them.
Seems to me the problem doesn’t start with the NRA, it starts with gun owners that are too cheap to spend $50 a yr for a membership (I’m a Life Member for 45+ years so I don’t know what an annual membership is now), or say they won’t join because the NRA isn’t perfect (or because they sold us out on full-auto), or they “don’t want to be on a list” etc etc.
If not the NRA there are other gun rights orgs. No law against joining more than one either.
The NRA bushwhacking of the Brady Bill 7-day waiting period is an excellent example of turning an enemies strengths against them. Sometimes what looks like a step backward can actually be a step forward.
The level of political ignorance about actual gun-control laws is astonishing. Not just among the general public (which is why most public opinion polls on gun-control are meaningless), not just the brain-dead News Media, even among the gun-control cultists themselves. In fact, that ignorance is vital to some of the successes of gun-control advocates have had in pushing new laws.
If a gun-control bill is proposed that is actually weaker than existing law, you could have an excellent chance of getting it passed. Let the anti-gunners try to explain how the bill is actually weaker, which would just expose to the public how strong current law really is.
The anti-gunners run us ragged as we have to use pages of explanation to defeat their one-sentence big-lies. Why not put that shoe on the other foot?
What’s vital is that the overall legal regime gradually weakens so that our rights suffer less interference. The transition of may-carry to must-issue to constitutional-carry is a great example of that.
How about a universal background check bill that would “expand” background checks to all buyers, but would exempt family transfers, exempt temporary transfers and exempt people who already have guns. In addition no fee could be charged to the buyer or seller as part of the background check process, as the Feds would have to pay for it. And in addition the restrictions of the GCA 68 on interstate sales would be removed.
Let the freaking ant-gunners try to explain away how those provisions are ‘bad’.
Universal background checks are unenforceable without gun registration. Once the guns are registered, then they are at high risk for eventual confiscation.
Plus, I don’t believe the anti-gunners would ever agree to allowing “temporary” transfers without going through the process. They would make it a felony to loan a gun to a friend, and that would be a disaster to the gun culture.
The antis don’t have to explain why they reject weaker gun control bills than they want. They didn’t have to explain why they rejected the amendment that added some due process to their terrorist watchlist ban. They didn’t have to explain why they rejected Coburn’s DIY universal background check bill. Who would they have to explain themselves to? Who’s calling them out on this besides us? The media? Their constituants???
You are right TS.
I’m just pointing out the weakness of the other side.
Yes, so far the other side has stymied pro-gun legislation but that’s mainly because of the peculiar processes of the U.S. Senate where it is so easy for a minority of 40 votes to stop legislation.
I’m not claiming that any specific bill that helps us is definitely going to pass using my strategy, I’m just pointing out how my strategy improves the chances of pro-gun legislation to pass, and even more importantly how that strategy could short-circuit anti-gun legislation.
We have to play the political game smarter. We have to exploit every weakness of the other side.
Sure, the clever creeps like Schumer or the Legal Community Against Gun Violence won’t be fooled. But their anti-gun underlings are an army of morons. It could be so easy to misdirect those morons if we just give it a chance.
If you think that fine swine and schumer don’t understand these laws, you’re not paying attention. Fineswine in particular has a more keen grasp of gun laws than do most so called republicans, This is what makes her and her sycophants such formidable foes.
The only way that her and her henchmen can be negotiated with politically is to defeat their proposals. The only way to accomplish this is to bring the NRA and NRA-ILA leadership to heel, and revoke support for gun confiscation orders and their support for propping up the secret no-guns database, otherwise known as NICS
Feinstein and Schumer need 60 votes to do anything. It’s those 60 votes you’re negotiating with.
They have an all too wiling contingent of republicans and the tacit ok from NRA-ILA on NICS and GCOs.
there isn’t much negotiating left to do. More Republicans at the local, state and federal level are jumping on the bandwagon every day with proposals that would do nothing but scapegoat us.
our side is not positioning for success, short term or long term. We need more vocal opposition to the current proposals. withdraw support from ILA, – every day, more government failures are uncovered about Parkland, to the point that it’s as if the shooter was empowered at every turn.
Even the ACLU came out against the GVRU legislation here in DE due to the lack of Due Process. Heck, I have family members who are not gun people who think they are a very bad idea.
Realized that my earlier post is perhaps inconsistent with a much earlier post on another thread so I shall attempt to explain and I think support Sebastian’s last several posts. I had opined that it is necessary to support the person on the spot (i.e. the NRA) in fighting through these problems but then I objected to their retreat on GVRO or whatever they are calling them.
I think the difference is between tactics (at which the NRA is supreme) and strategy (where they have some weaknesses). In some circumstances, it is acceptable to lose a tactical battle if it advances the strategic goal. The NRA needs to rally the base which is more important than getting an less unacceptable bill out of the Congress. A truly awful bill that violates not only the 2nd amendment but the 1st and 4th and 5th and 14th as well would be easier to get struck down and will rally the base. There will be casualties though but strategy accepts this.
I am not certain the current leadership of the NRA gets this. Tactical mastery is seductive and can lead to strategic error.
Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. – Sun Tzu
The restriction of allowing citizens to have guns based on mental health is very worrying to gun owners. Why? Because simply the desire to own a gun can be considered a mental health issue.
There are people who simply are too unstable to trust with guns. Those people probably should be confined in mental hospitals rather than waiting for them to commit a violent crime and in jail. Most of our mentally ill people are in jails not in hospitals. So I would rather Baker Act these people rather than GRO The GRO are simply a way to take guns away from people. Make the states open up mental hospitals
As to whether we are losing I thing the record is mixed. The number of school district and states that are allowing teachers to be armed is growing Tennessee just passed a bill in the House to allow it.
The thing that worries me about GVROs is that a judge can look at a bunch of flimsy anecdotal accounts of how a suspect is a danger and think to themselves, “would I rather deprive a hundred good citizens their constitutional rights? Or be the judge who allowed one madman to keep his gun and shoot up a school?†If they’re one of those judges who have convinced themselves that the second amendment is a collective right belonging to militias, there is a fat chance they’ll take due process seriously