The Message To Gun Owners from Election Night 2014

Much is being written about last night's huge victory for Republicans.  In Virginia, the big story was how close the U.S. Senate race ended up.  While Warner has not claimed out right victory and Gillespie has not conceded, Warner clings to a razor thin 13,000 vote margin out of over 2 million votes cast.  The disappointing thing to note is had everyone who cast a vote for Dave Brat in the 7th District, and Barbara Comstock in the 10th also voted for Ed Gillespie, Warner would be packing his senate office this morning.  In my home county of Chesterfield, Gillespie underperformed his ticket mates Brat and Forbes (Chesterfield is split between two congressional districts) by about 5500 votes - almost half his final deficit.  If you are voting for Brat, the candidate who defeated former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, it is hard to understand how that same person votes for Mark Warner, or doesn't vote in the Senate race at all. You have to believe those folks oppose President Obama's policies and anyone who has supported them.

Across the country, candidates who supported the rights of law-abiding gun owners won in places like Maryland where GOP candidate Larry Hogan will be the next governor, North Carolina where Thom Tillis defeated Senator Kay Hagan, and Iowa where Joni Ernst defeated Bruce Braley.  There are some exceptions however.  In Colorado, John Higgenlooper, the man who signed the ammunition magazine ban that caused Magpul to leave the state, looks like he survived a close race all the while Republican Cory Gardner was defeating Senator Mark Udall.

The troubling result is passage of Initiative 594 (I-594) in Washington State.  I wrote last month that what happens with I-594 will impact us in Virginia.  Supporters of I-594 say it simply requires so-called "universal" background checks on the sale of privately owned firearms.  But it would do so much more. And as Caleb notes over on Gun Nuts media, the strategy employed by its supporters should be a wake up call to pro-rights activists:

But allow me to return to the point. The reason why 594 passing is bad news for gun owners everywhere is because it validates Bloomberg’s strategy. This is a new kind of gun control game, they’re smarter than the Brady Campaign and they have functionally unlimited resources. Yes, they played it smart in Washington. They picked an issue that’s easy to misrepresent in universal background checks; they played that issue to a strong blue voter base, and then they spent a ton of money on marketing and GOTV. That’s textbook “Winning Ballot Questions 101″ and it’s really hard to fight against.

I would expect to see a lot more ballot question fights in the near future, and I’d expect them to be over things like background checks. It is by far the toughest fight for us, because defeating their argument requires low information blue voters to actually care about facts, and that right there is why we lost in WA. Gun rights had all the facts on their side, and they still lost.

Sure, gun control at the national level is dead for at least two years. But buckle up Sally, because at the state level things could be getting rodeo pretty quick.

Virginia is not an initiative state, but that doesn't mean we won't have to expend a considerable amount of effort on defeating legislative proposals pushing so-called "universal" background checks. That fight will be greatest in the State Senate where we have had to work hard to keep background check bills from getting out of committee even with a GOP majority.  Get ready because it's going to be a busy legislative session.

Update: John Lott asks the question, considering the initiative passed with just slightly less than 60% of the vote, with the gun ban lobby finally stop claiming that 90% support "universal" background checks?

NRANews Finds What Media Can't About the Negative Impact I-594 Will Have on Washington Gun Owners

Opponents of Washington state's Initiative 594 (I-594) have been pointing out that the simplest of transfers among gun owners would be impacted by the 18 page law if it is approved by voters.  Most recently San Juan Island Sheriff Sgt. Scott Brennan wrote about how residents on the island off Washington's coast would be negatively impacted if the initiative passes:

This means if you want to sell your long time neighbor John that shotgun he has always admired, you, John and the shotgun have catch the ferry to the mainland and drive to a licensed gun dealer in Anacortes or Mt. Vernon.

You have to register the gun. John has to fill out background check papers. You have to pay a ‘reasonable fee’ (whatever the gun dealer wants) You then both go home and wait.

Then 10 days later, you, John and the shotgun again catch the ferry back to the mainland and go back to the dealer, where John finally pays you and you get to hand him the shotgun. That’s SALES.

Now, we get into TRANSFERS. Sooo, the deputies want to surprise a retiring officer with a gun as a gift. The gun owner, the gun and the retiring officer again have to catch the ferry and go the mainland gun dealer. We have to register the gun and the ‘surprised officer’ has to do the background check paperwork. We again pay the ‘reasonable fee’.

Then we all get to go home again and wait ten days. Then we again catch the ferry to the mainland, go back to the gun store and finally ‘surprise’ our coworker with his gift (TRANSFER).

Here is one better. I want to loan my friend Gary my break down shotgun for his motorcycle trip to Alaska. We, once again, have to go to the mainland, drive to Anacortes or Mt. Vernon, register the gun, Gary does the background check and we pay the ‘reasonable fee’.

Ten days later we’re back and I get to ‘loan’ him the gun in front of the dealer. Gary has a great trip and comes back three weeks later. After he comes back, we all have to go back to the mainland, go back to the dealer and now I have to fill out the paperwork and pay the fee to be approved to get my own gun back.

What has been the response of proponents to folks that point out these facts? They simply deny it and move on and the media in Washington have been happy to leave it at that.  So, it has been left to the new media, in this case, Cam Edwards of NRANews, to go to the 18 page document and confirm what Sgt. Brennan and others have been saying.

These arguments appear to be gaining traction as polls have shown support for the initiative has begun to drop even though supporters have spent millions and still have millions more to spend in the closing weeks.  And, gun ban proponent Gabby Giffords will be closing out her "Protect All Women" tour in Washington just before the election.  Pro-rights forces have their work cut out for them.

Why I-594 is Important to Virginia

This November, an important ballot initiative is before the voters of Washington state.  It is known as I-594 and if it passes, it will make the simple act of handing your firearm to a friend at the range, or an instructor handing a firearm to a trainee, a criminal offense.  I-594 is being sold by billionaires like Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates, both of whom have contributed the bulk of the $7million raised by supporters of the initiative, as "universal background checks".  But this proposal spanning 18 pages is much more.

You might ask why Virginians should care about I-594.  Virginia doesn't allow ballot initiatives and one half of the Virginia General Assembly is firmly in pro-rights hands and would never pass such a law.  But for how long will that be the case?  Last week's federal court decision throwing out Virginia's Congressional redistricting could have ripple effects on state legislative districts in the not too distant future.  There are voices in Virginia who want a "non-partisan" commission to undertake the task of redistricting every 10 years.

It is not lost on the pro-rights community that I-594 could just be the start of the trouble.  Washington is being used as a test to see if the model can be used in other states that allow the initiative process.  The forces aligned pushing the bill have far more money than the pro-rights side, not withstanding the claim by the anti-rights folks that the NRA has gobs of money and uses it to beat back "commonsense gun safety proposals."  There has been a small family feud in the pro-rights community, with some in Washington fighting I-594 complaining that the NRA is not spending enough to fight the initiative.  But the NRA's strength has not been its money, it has been an active grassroots, and the NRA has had staff in the state working with those grassroots supporters for months.

As the information is getting out, support for the initative, which stood at over 70% in the spring, is beginning to slip, though a majority of those polled still support it.  Now the NRA is up with a new add that points out that law enforcement are opposed to the measure.

As Sebastian wrote earlier today, let's hope that the ad hits the "low-information" voter and continues to chip away at the support in the final 21 days of the election.  Because if this scheme passes, look for it to come to a state near you.

Discontent Among Gun Groups Over Initiative 594

The Washington Post has a piece this morning on its GovBeat blog that says Washington State firearm advocates are asking where the NRA is in the battle to defeat Initiative 594, the ballot measure that would criminalize transfer of firearms between anyone, even at training sessions, that does not involve a background check:

“The NRA has really not been involved at all until very recently, and not in the area of spending significantly at all,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and founder of the Second Amendment Foundation. “I have no idea why. We have a coalition made up of all the gun rights groups in Washington, and they are not participating. They’re doing their own thing.”

Barron Barnett, a pro-gun rights activist, asked in a recent blog post: “Where the F*** is the NRA?!” “[T]he NRA is more than happy to take my money but then is no where to be found when things actually go sideways,” Barnett wrote.

From what I can tell, NRA has been active getting the message out to defeat I-594. It was the cover story on this month's America's First Freedom. Cam Edwards has covered it a number of times on NRANews.com. But, it appears that some think that the NRA needs to match Billionaires Bill Gates, Mike Bloomberg, and others pushing the initiative dollar for dollar. NRA has been active in other ways too:

Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the NRA in Virginia, said the group has had two full-time staff on the ground for months. He estimated that the NRA has spent a total of $300,000 to $400,000 so far against I-594, with that number likely to grow in the final two months before Election Day. That figure doesn’t include communications with members and those who receive the NRA’s magazines and publications, he said.

It's true that the pro-I594 forces have raised over $7 million. But, it doesn't serve our cause for pro-rights groups to complain that some are doing more than others to defeat the measure. And as Arulanandam told the Post, while money is important, the Milwaulkee County Sheriff's race proved the power of grassroots. That's where I-594 will be defeated. And the grassroots is the NRA's strength.