Nov 12 2024 17 mins 6
I am not a political blog or podcast, so I typically stay well away from the topic. That said, I also realize that participating in and advocating for positive "gun culture" is an inherently political activity to begin with- so the topic of politics is not entirely avoidable. I first started drafting the idea of this post in the wake of the first assassination attempt on President Trump during the campaigns, then left it to rot. Interest picked up again after some more high profile shootings, and I convinced myself to keep sitting on it. Well, now that the election is over I think there's a clearer path for what's to come in the next several months and years.
To start off, I reiterate that this is not a political post. I'm not going to discuss the reasonings for who won and lost the election. Rather, I'm focusing on what's been happening in the gun control sphere over the last several years, where the momentum seems to be going, and what I expect to happen soon.
A Pinch of History
I've been involved in debating gun control in some capacity since about 2007. That's before I was even seriously into shooting, and at the time I considered myself someone who was interested in guns but not really an enthusiast. Still, I spent many hours going back and forth on various forums and social media of the time (which, at that time, was MySpace). Honing my arguments there, when I started getting much more serious around 2010-2011, it was just in time for the debate to dramatically pick up at the end of 2012 when Sandy Hook happened and we all thought there was going to be a dramatic push for more gun control in President Obama's second term. Frankly, I lost a lot of [casual] friends during that time when they realized I was on the other side of the issue from them and didn't just nod along in agreement and actively pointed out the flaws in their thinking.
I kept that momentum up for a few years. Through all of it, I saw the cycles of arguments that would gain popularity and then fall to the wayside (on both sides). I knew the core tenets of the Heller and McDonald SCOTUS decisions- and pointed out every time they were getting twisted by the other side.
The most common examples of that twisting, by the way, are muddying of the "dangerous and unusual" standard to instead be "dangerous or unusual" as well as "commonly owned for lawful purposes" getting twisted to "commonly used for self defense."
While my enthusiasm for the debate diminished over time, I still find myself sometimes wading into the fray over on Reddit. I'd say that I've got a really good track record there of winning debates in the eyes of the audience, even if the discussion usually ends with the other side hurling insults at me rather than arguing the points.
In any case, I just wanted you to know that I've been around for a while and have a long memory on this.
The [Coming] End of Hardware Restrictions
Since Heller and McDonald, we've also gotten the Bruen case through SCOTUS. My understanding is that Bruen didn't actually say anything new, but it put a serious exclamation point on the Heller opinion. A bit like SCOTUS saying, "Did I stutter?" It forcefully laid out the standard of review for how second amendment cases needed to be reviewed, and I think it was very clear about that even if lower courts in anti-gun districts still try quibbling over it.
In my view, they only quibble over Bruen being "vague" because they know that applying the standard as written to their pet laws would make their laws unconstitutional.
What I see happening now is a bit of a cultural divide where the traditional anti-2A courts like the 9th, 7th,
