THat it was not renewed shows how desperate you are to tout a victory.
Not desperate, but happy.
I am willing to call a victory a victory, espically since there was such intense pressure by the Left to keep it on the books.
Had the Democrats been in control of Congress it would have been.
[ The right to own weapons is being discussed as a personal right for the first time in decades. ]
Yep, before it was taken for granted.
Not by the Democrats it isn't.
Note in Miller the scotus did not rule the collective right, but tha the weapon involved was not a militia weapon. Of course, a little defense (Miller was dead), might have pointed out that a short barrelled shotgun has numerous applications as a military weapon, thus the premise of the ruling was in error: the court was misinformed.
[ But for some reason Conservatives have this penchant for predicting the imminent end of the freedom, so lets just forget our responsibilities to vote. ] Yes! Because complacency guarantees the end of freedom. If every statute is not studied in its worst light, its greatest potential abuse, then it will eventually be used that way. Best to nip it in the bud.
Best to stop it before it gets started.
Were any new gun control laws enacted when the GOP controlled congress?
Keep in mind, too, that we are the ones who have had our core issues nibbled away at by the herd who would mouth nonsense about waiting until next time, about lesser evils, and how you get 80%, so what if you don't get the other 20? No loss of freedom is tolerable to conservatives, it is those who tout compromise who are selling our liberty piecemeal for convenience.
No, it those who are advocating 'dropping out' that is ensuring that the next generation will have less freedom then ours.
[ One thing that conservatives could learn from liberals is their eternal optimism and determination. ]
First, we are about as determined as it gets. We are still here, even though the purveyors of Republican-ism have crapped on us time and time again. We have not given up.
Really?
The Left has been working to socialize this nation for decades and don't give up because they haven't obtained their goal.
Second, I have a positive attitude. I am positive, that given any advantage, pecuniary or otherwise, my government will continue to amass to itself power at the expense of my liberty. That is human nature, and to get starry-eyed and start doing the happy-feely kumbaya bit might work for the socialists' drones, but they are oblivious to the freedom they are losing in the process.
No, they are confident that they will win in the end and thus, they continue moving forward, while Conservatives retreat and make no attempts to actually roll back socialism.
[ No matter how often they are defeated, they keep coming because they have faith in their cause. ]
As do we. Faith in our cause, in God, in the ultimate desire of people to live secure, productive, and happy lives--and to pass those freedoms, that security, and the fruits of our labors on to our progeny.
No, you are not 'coming back' you are advocating giving up.
[ The biggest difference is in how we desire to attain that goal. ]
I have a mother and a father, God Bless them, and I learned the concepts of personal responsibility at their knee. I do not need the State to act as a surrogate, not then, and certainly not now, when I am a great-grandfather.
And who does?
[ Would that conservatives had that same kind of faith in theirs, instead of 'I am going to hunker down with my rifle and ammo and wait for the United States to collapse'. ]
Perhaps a few do have that idea in mind, but most of us would rather prevent that collapse. If you or anyone else wants an idea what happens to a modern city in a year of warfare, look at Sarajevo, the jewell of the Balkans, and site of the Winter olympics (I forget the year). No one wants that for America except our enemies. No one wants to live like East Germany in the '60s either.
Well, the way to prevent that politically is at the voting booth.
But, in extremis, the rifle and ammo are there--and will continue to be, regardless.
If it comes to that, then we have failed when we had a chance to change things peacefully.
Actually it was, at least by some Democrats of the Bad Olde Days.
"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible."
Sen. Hubert Humphrey, Know Your Lawmakers, Guns Magazine, Page 4, Feb. 1960.
Senator Humphrey was a liberals liberal, Senate Democratic whip from 1961 to 1964, Vice President from 1965 to 1969, Democrat nominee for President 1968. (Lost by only 1% of the popular vote).
While you see getting back the Government's permission to exercise a fundamental and Constitutionally guaranteed right through Government inaction to be a 'victory', I look at it as an issue which never should have been on the table in the first place.
Pray tell, what happened to the the RKBA conciousness of the Republican Party?
The current "front runners" are either somewhat soft on the issue (Huckabee--a 'B' from the NRA), or have a track record for being downright hostile to the RKBA (all 11th hour conversions aside).
You seem to feel that we are somehow resisting the forces of Socialism by only advancing their agenda a little here and a little there, instead of letting them go ahead and make a train-wreck.
Either way, they win.
If the Republican party candidates win, the Socialists can kick back with a bottle of their favorite beverage and celebrate.
Why? becuse they won, that's why.
Their agenda transcends party lines as well as do the Conservative positions on the issues.
In 2006, the Republicans tried to out-liberal the liberals, and lost, resoundingly. Democrats ran to the right of Republicans on key issues and won.
That should have been a wake-up call, but instead of recognizing that that was a critical Republican mistake, here we go again.
How is voting for the candidate who is only 20% Socialist a win? By not getting the candidate who is 40%, 60%, or 80% Socialist?
Look, at some point, we have to decide where the limit is.
Some of us will hit it earlier than others, because we have values and beliefs which are absolute.
To demonstrate, let's roll back the clock.
If, for instance, in 1960, someone had decided to use the no-knock, dynamic entry, militarized police unit technique for serving a warrant, it would have cost the local sheriff his job in short order.
The process of allowing a baby to turned in the womb, born except for the head, and their brains sucked out would have been decried as the horror it is, and not debated as a woman's 'right' in Congress.
The idea of some people using a word (no matter how distasteful) being a "hate crime", would have been laughed at as straight out of 1984, another horror story which was embraced by some as a manifesto.
Some things were socially unacceptable among decent folks, no law needed.
The idea that a local government wanted to take someone's property and tear down their home or lawful business, not to put in a road, but to sell it to someone who would build a property which would increase the local tax base, would have been met with a march on city hall with torches and primitive farm implements, not upheld by the SCOTUS as 'emminent domain'.
The idea of keeping a firearm in your home for the defense thereof and not being charged for using it for that purpose was taken for granted.
The idea that the Federal government would mandate what kind of light bulbs you could obtain and use would have been laughed away.
I am not saying every change has been bad, but a great many have.
So where do we decide to stop the slide and begin the long climb out of the abyss?
If voting for someone other than the big two candidates can send the message, great.
Personally, I think 'none of the above' would be good to have on the ballot, and that might get out more voters than all the election-year pandering and fear mongering will.
Am I quitting? No. But I'm not going to spend the rest of my life stuck on stupid, either, by slowly voting away my great-grandchildrens' freedom when I have a chance, any chance of helping turn things around.
If the Republican party is not going to be the vehicle by which we achieve that turnaround, and at present it does not seem so, then we had better find another vehicle by which to accomplish those ends before things have gone past the point of no return.
Maybe all the gauges running in the red will get the point across.
If the Republican Party is going to be the vehicle by which conservatives can turn things around, then it is time for the drivers to realize that it needs to be reworked. It is running badly and pulling hard to the left. A combination of denial and panic is keeping it from being fixed.