United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Second Amendment supporters talk a lot about the upcoming midterm and off-year elections, to say nothing of the 2024 Presidential election. This is very understandable, given the myriad of imminent threats to our rights.
But what about further down the road? What is the plan to ensure our rights are safe? Favorable Supreme Court rulings could help in that regard, but we have already seen that anti-Second Amendment extremists are finding workarounds to established laws – and even the Heller decision hasn’t made a dent when it comes to modern, multi-purpose semi-automatic firearms.
That is to say nothing about the threat of financial deplatforming, which has been wielded before. Legislation can hold these threats at bay for the short and medium terms, but the best hope for beating these won’t come from just legislation. Over the long term, something else is needed.
For instance, the biggest threat legislatively may not come from those seeking gun bans, it will come from efforts to pack the Supreme Court. This will change the calculations that Second Amendment supporters will have to make in elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate. You can bet the Heller and McDonald rulings that struck down handgun bans would be high up on the list of rulings anti-Second Amendment extremists would want to overturn.
I think it goes without saying that Second Amendment supporters can’t afford to let that happen. The best way to stop it is to make sure that there are roadblocks in place – since such court-packing requires legislative action.
The key to stopping court-packing will be ensuring anti-Second Amendment extremists do not control the agenda in the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate. This means that one of the big considerations will be the first vote that is cast in both of those bodies when a new Congress forms on January 3, 2023: Specifically, the elections for Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.
This is why Senators like Susan Collins are crucial. She may not entirely vote to our liking, but that all-important first vote is the difference between Mitch McConnell and Charles Schumer calling the shots in the Senate. Despite rhetoric you may hear from some, there is a huge difference between McConnell and Schumer on Second Amendment issues, and McConnell was a champion of the First Amendment when it came to campaign finance “reform” schemes.
There is also the matter of ensuring that our public schools do not become anti-Second Amendment indoctrination centers. No serious long-term strategy can ignore what takes place in our schools, either.
A long-term strategy is essential to help Second Amendment supporters defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local levels in the future. The planning of that long-term strategy should have been going on for a while now.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.” – Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
Sometimes I wish I could live in blissful ignorance like Harold. His columns seem to reflect that he really has no idea how bad things are. We have transitioned from public schools to government schools a long time ago. When Biden managed to get his “Gun Free School Zone Act ” put into law the school system became “anti-gun indoctrination centers” at that point. Now they are just “indoctrination centers” in general. Now environmentalism, gender theory, race theory and whatever anti-American crap the socialist/communists want can easily brainwash young impressionable minds. When the Dept. of Education was created it was… Read more »
How right you are Oldvet ! It is like he wears oversized blinders. He chooses to ignore the work and accomplishments of any other gun rights groups and all the people that support those groups. He makes it sound like we have been doing nothing. His call for some ultimate plan shows how disconnected he is. He can not see that the 2nd Amendment is the ultimate plan.
That should be: What Is the Long-Term Plan to Defend The Bill of Rights?
Anti-liberty leftists are attacking all of our rights because they know that they are mutually supportive.
We won’t have the common-sense civil right of self-defence if we can’t talk about it.
The situation in Ukraine shows us that we won’t have the freedom of the press or 4th amendment rights if the feral government has a monopoly on the use of force.
Think of the Bill of Rights as a fortification with interlocking fields of fire.
One rampart covers another, just as one amendment covers another.
Once again the fairly fuddly Harold blurts out his standard “You must voot your way out of tyranny in the next (s)election!!”
Nevermind the fact that the only way to vote your way out of tyranny is from the rooftops. But poor little Harold is too chicken$#!t to say what OUGHT to be said, so he reverts to the tired ‘safe’ exhortation to once again do what hasn’t worked in years.
As the founders repeatedly warned us, liberty will only be defended by force of arms, and that is what is required to jettison the tyrannous and treasonous bureaucrats who criminally violate the Constitution.
My thoughts exactly!!
The fraud at the ballot box has pushed us to a real solution that starts and ends with the cartridge box . Reality dictates history repeat itself again in America and Patriots defend the rights of the people from tyrants . The tree will be watered weather you vote or not because liberty requires it !
Shall not be infringed!!!
kill all they send
I recommend every Government worker be required to read annually (with understanding) the United States Constitution and sign an affidavit stating that they will comply with the Constitution or be terminated.
they screen out people that can read or think so this wont work
If all aspects of law enforcement don’t greatly improve imminently, we won’t need be concerned about opposition to or support of our 2nd amendment; everyone will realize that they need to be armed at all times, and they will be, regardless. BE PREPARED!
How about the short term ? Do nothing & let the chips fall where they may. Why prolong the inevitable ?
There is no long term plan because the ONLY thing that can be done is to exercise it. Problem is all these don’t tread on me tough guys out here won’t. Not as long as football is on and the beer is cold. So it will continue to be eroded until nothing is left. Worse they dry up ammo supplies, parts, etc and it’s all over. If you can’t train. You can’t ever be a threat. People that can’t hit the broad side of a barn aren’t much of a threat to anyone. The 2A is a dead man walking.… Read more »
Mitch mcConnell had nothing to do with that one as he was not speaker of the house then, That would have been Paul RINO Ryan.
Paul is just Mitch in drag. Samey same.