Election Post Mortem

There are still a few races that are undecided at this point but we do have a handle on what the impact of last night's results will have on gun rights. Clearly, I believe it will be hard to get significant pro-gun legislation enacted such as reform of BATFE or the DC bill that passed the House in this session but failed to move out of the Senate. It is not likely that a President Obama will sign such legislation.

According to Dave Kopel's analysis, gun owners lost approximately 15 friends in the House (less than the 26 that he had considered possible). In the Senate, when all the dust settles, we will likely see 4 less pro-gun senators but we will still have enough to sustain a filibuster if those Democrats that identify themselves as pro-gun, like Mark Warner, act as they have campaigned. We shall see if those like Warner will stand with gun owners if and when President Obama nominates justices for the Supreme Court that believe the Constitution changes with the whim of public opinion instead of those who believe that the Constitution means what it says.

My thought is that Barack Obama's left wing tendencies coupled with an over zealous Nancy Pelosi will cause him to try and strike while the iron is hot and push for a renewal of the ban on certain semi-automatic firearms and an end to gun owner privacy protected by the Tiahart Amendment. We shall see if his instincts for survival of his term and his party's majority in the House and Senate will cause him to be more cautious in the first two years than was Bill Clinton.

We have our work cut out for us.