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Thank you Sir!

Did it work at Disneyland?

By Kimberley A. StrasselFollow
June 23, 2022 6:22 pm ET
If this week’s Senate gun compromise and Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen highlight anything, it’s how much gun politics has changed since 1994. The left’s 30-year campaign for sweeping “gun control” is hitting an ever-taller wall.

OPINION: POTOMAC WATCH
WSJ Opinion Potomac Watch
A Gun Law Reversal at the Supreme Court
The media is hailing the Senate bill as the first federal gun breakthrough in decades—since President Clinton signed the short-lived “assault weapons” ban. The more honest headlines concede an all-important point: This is a “gun safety” compromise. It’s an acknowledgment of what isn’t in the bill—not a single flagship provision of the left’s gun-control agenda. No universal licensing. No bans on classes of firearms or types of magazines. No raising of the purchase age or limits on firearms purchases. No national database to track gun owners.

Instead, the overwhelming bulk of this “gun” bill consists of provisions aimed at mental health, school safety and tougher prosecution of gun crimes—precisely where conservatives have insisted for years that the federal focus needs to be. When even Democrats admit their standard prescriptions are nonstarters and make a deal anyway, that’s a notable political moment.

GOP gripes aside, what small changes the bill makes to existing gun laws are items even Second Amendment stalwarts (like this columnist) can support. Uploading juvenile adjudications and mental-health records to the background-check system is a no-brainer; blowing out 18 candles doesn’t suddenly make one a law-abiding citizen. Concerned that red-flag laws in blue states are a constitutional train wreck? This bill might help. It contains no mandates, and what grant money it offers is conditioned on states incorporating stronger due-process provisions in red-flag laws.

The modesty of the bill is an admission that despite Democrats’ campaign to leverage mass shootings into gun bans, there remain nowhere near 60 votes in the Senate for more gun control. And that’s a reflection of just how deeply ingrained Second Amendment rights have become in recent decades—partly thanks to the Supreme Court. Despite the press using every mass shooting to highlight liberal states that respond with more gun laws, those states remain the distinct minority.

Most of the country has gone the opposite direction. As Thursday’s 6-3 decision striking down a New York gun law noted, only six states and the District of Columbia still had what are called “may issue” laws—in which gun licenses are left to the discretion of public officials. Forty-three have “shall issue” laws, under which licenses are provided to anyone who meets established, objective criteria. That number has been steadily rising since the late 1980s.

More notable, 24 of those 43—along with Vermont, which has no permitting system for guns at all—are “constitutional carry” states, which allow law-abiding adults to purchase and carry firearms without a license. Alaska’s decision in 2003 to rescind its permit requirement opened a floodgate that continues today. A dozen states have passed or expanded constitutional carry in the past three years alone.

Gun ownership is on the rise, and across new demographics. In an online survey conducted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, firearms retailers who saw an increase in sales reported that they sold 58% more guns to African-American customers in the first half of 2020 than a year earlier. The figures were 49% for Hispanics and 43% for Asian-Americans. Some 5.4 million people bought a firearm for the first time in 2021—30% of all purchases. For all the media touting of surveys that purport to show Americans want “gun control,” that support is concentrated in pockets of urban America. The message is a harder sell across most districts and states, where the conversation these days is increasingly about prosecutors’ failure to enforce existing laws and jail criminal gun offenders.

Meanwhile, even the left understands that the high court’s rulings since District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) potentially kill key parts of its gun agenda. In Bruen, the justices reiterated that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms in “common use.” As the media never ceases to remind us, AR-15s—and other “assault weapons” the left wants to ban—are pretty common these days. Would the Supreme Court agree to a law raising the purchase age to 21, given the long history of 18-year-olds fighting and dying for America?

What politics drove the bipartisan Senate deal? Republicans had an obvious interest in moving beyond the gun debate and returning the midterm focus to inflation. The Democratic motivation is more complex. Party leaders wanted to show that Democrats can govern and to give vulnerable members something fresh to advertise to constituents. But the decision to compromise was also an acceptance of political and legal reality. The notion that “ ‘we’ll get more later’ is just rank bulls—,” an anonymous Democratic senator told Politico this week. “For the foreseeable future, I think this will be the high-water mark.”

That could change if progressives manage to destroy the filibuster, or if the high court’s composition alters. But neither is on the immediate horizon, meaning Democrats need to rethink. Federal “gun control”—for now and for some time—is a dead letter.

The address was not listed on the flyer.

Amen!!!

Amen!!!

I remember Jim Croce’s music well and it reminds of that time in my life. I was madly in love and finally got my dream job.

I lost the girl, but kept the job.

I saw him perform o Johnny Carson. Prior to his performance, Glen Campbell performed a song with lots of special effects.

The camera panned to Jim. He was siting on a wooden stool and sang “Time in a Bottle”.

Glen remarked on the differences in the performances and said he was very impressed with Jim’s style.

Only the serially stupid can tell the ethnicity of the vehicle occupants while driving behind the vehicle.

It would not be more obvious even if it had a chin strap.

“I’ve heard people tell me I’m not Christian because I’m pro-choice,” Marsh said. “I ask those people: How can you be pro-life and not support getting rid of assault rifles? You can’t pick and choose where you want to be pro-life.”

Obviously, this idiot cannot tell the difference between murder and an inanimate object.

I guess people will have to start buying (or building) ar-10s or ak-74s

They run the vin.

Thank for your post. I was about to post the same, but was going to add that wild animals are basically lazy, and that a human would be the easier prey.

The democrat party chairman Hinojosa complains that by the Texas National Guard building the wall; Gov. Abbott has placed them in harms way.

The idiot is not coherent enough to know that if the Texas National Guard are in danger by illegal aliens, so is the rest of the population of the United States.

California rejected all biology books because they stated there are two genders.

When these illegals end up in prison, their supporters will claim they there because of racism and demand they be released.

MLK III Has Dr. MLK spinning in his grave.

The waveless mattresses are great. I won’t give up mine.

I used to have jaguar, also.

I have had my water bed for over 40 years. Love it!!!