{"id":4699,"date":"2011-10-10T11:31:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T15:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gunpoliticsny.com\/?p=4699"},"modified":"2011-10-10T11:31:08","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T15:31:08","slug":"losing-strategy-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gunpoliticsny.com\/?p=4699","title":{"rendered":"Losing strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had a relatively good legislative session this past year. \u00a0The only bad bill to see any action was microstamping in the Assembly<\/a> and it took a lot of arm twisting for A-1157<\/a> to pass with a 77 vote majority. \u00a0Only 5 years ago they would typically pass with much fanfare and 20+ votes a dozen or so gun control bills in the Assembly followed by motions to discharge<\/em> in the Senate<\/a>. \u00a0This change of direction in Albany is the result of the slow, but steady progress we’ve made over the past decade with our PAC<\/a> in electing good people and removing some bad ones.<\/p>\n

Contrast this with California<\/a>, where gunnies seem to have given up on elections and pinned their hopes on the courts. \u00a0Governor Brown<\/a> just signed three bills into law including 1.) long gun registration, 2.) prohibition on unloaded open carry and 3.) diverting certain fees from background checks to other purposes. \u00a0Even if somewhere down the road one or more of these laws is ruled partially or entirely unconstitutional, that would not change how legislators treat the gun issue. \u00a0The first thing they did after losing the Chicago gun ban case<\/a> was to rewrite the law so that it was 99.9% as obnoxious as the one the courts struck down. \u00a0There is no reason California legislators would not do the exact same thing.<\/p>\n

The reason for this is because politicians don’t win or lose elections because of legal challenges to the laws their write and that is all they ultimately care about: winning and losing. \u00a0If decades of research proving that gun control does not crime control<\/a> did not stop legislators from passing gun control laws why should anyone assume that years of court cases will? \u00a0Facts don’t matter to politicians nearly as much as they should.<\/p>\n

Gun owners need to be involved in the election\/selection process \u00a0from primaries to general elections, from town board and city council to statehouses and Congress. \u00a0That is the only<\/span> way to defeat gun control and it’s advocates.<\/p>\n