United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- To call the 2022 midterm elections a near-disaster is like calling Sheila Jackson-Lee’s Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act a mild infringement on our Second Amendment rights. The “red wave” that wasn’t is bad news. Second Amendment supporters have a LOT of hard lessons to learn, and fast, because the 2024 election is truly for all the marbles.
Candidate Quality Matters
Bad candidates in Pennsylvania and Colorado cost Second Amendment supporters big-time. Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz both brought significant baggage (of different types), and while Oz campaigned hard, it wasn’t enough. Two House seats went to anti-Second Amendment extremists. Worse, the Pennsylvania state house flipped.
It wasn’t just in Pennsylvania. In Colorado, a lousy Senate candidate meant Second Amendment champion Lauren Boebert had a close call. Joe O’Dea managed to alienate a lot of Second Amendment supporters on a big non-Second Amendment issue.
Second Amendment supporters need to nominate strategically. Candidates who make stupid comments – whether on Second Amendment issues or non-Second Amendment issues – ought to be passed on. We can’t afford it.
Mail-In Ballots Matter
Mail-in ballots again overcame election day turnout. It’s time for Second Amendment supporters to get on the field in this area. Yeah, it’s not what should happen in an ideal world. Ideally, election campaigns should involve serious discussions about issues and convincing voters, not just collecting and banking ballots.
Well, we left an ideal world long ago, and now, it’s about preserving our rights. If it is possible to make these ballots secure, Second Amendment supporters should do so, but if not, they have to get in the game. They have a choice: Either we start to build a ballot-collection operation of our own, or someday, anti-Second Amendment extremists will collect our guns.
That’s the choice.
The Schools Matter
The youth vote is being touted as something that saved anti-Second Amendment extremists. The fact is that schools have become filled with indoctrination, and that includes anti-Second Amendment indoctrination. The Supreme Court’s MYSRPA v. Bruen decision is good news, but it will eventually fall unless we address the ongoing anti-Second Amendment indoctrination in schools.
You Can’t Beat Something With Nothing
Several mass shootings, notably those in Buffalo and Uvalde, have made it clear that Second Amendment supporters have to offer something proactive to address these events. In an ideal world, nobody would be coming after our rights after one of these events, but they are, and if we don’t offer active, positive, alternatives to address mass shootings, we will end up with an Australia-style gun ban.
Don’t Offend Voters
Kari Lake made a big mistake when she reportedly told McCain Republicans to “go to hell,” as did Charlie Crist when he told people who voted for DeSantis that their support wasn’t welcome. If you tell a voter to “go to hell,” they will gladly decide not to vote for you… and may well vote for the other side, and work to convince their friends and family to join them.
Look On The Bright Side
One thing that also will be essential is not succumbing to despair. Despite a downer result, more Americans voted pro-Second Amendment than anti-Second Amendment. The demographic time bomb is not happening. Pro-Second Amendment leadership will control the House of Representatives.
Second Amendment supporters have a lot to do to prepare for the immense task of defeating anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box at the federal, state, and local levels in 2023 and 2024, and that preparation starts 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.
What’s the lesson? Democrats cheat, and anyone who votes for them is complicit.
There are no “good” Democrats.
Well maybe the dead ones? But they still mange to vote somehow.
My dad was a staunch Republican his entire life, all the way up until the day that he died. Now, he votes Democrat.
A little proof? And, if so or not, turnout is still the answer.
Final Lesson: The Republican Party is not a Conservative party, is not a Constitutional party and is from the top a classically progressive party. Gone are the founding principles and commitment to the preservation of individual liberty as the primary goal of the party. In their place you find corporatism, globalism and self interested cliques who are guarding their privilege from the common people. That mix is a toxic mix posed against the very rights conservatives claim to be defending. And that, my friends is the crux of the problem.
As for the coming presidential election, a good candidate has yet to step forth and be recognized. Despite the near messiah level reception by many to Trump’s announcement that he will be running, he is not the answer for 2A supporters as he proved during his elected term. If he obtains the Republican nomination then he will all but guarantee a Democrat win in 2024, despite the hope of many Ammoland commenters. At the very least if elected, he will guarantee another congress focused more on obstruction than production. This is an unpopular opinion to many, and my post will… Read more »
I agree, and I voted for the man twice. At this point, Trump is too polarizing of a figure, and with Democrats patented Mail In Ballot cheating made legal, the chance of Trump winning is slim to none. TDS is real and a not insignificant number of Republicans suffer from the syndrome as well.
Personally, our Elections are being manipulated in the most Banana Republic fashion it defies all logic and common sense. The steeple, go right along with it.
Reagan was right.
We’ve had mail-in voting for years in WA and I’ve seen no big problem.
Really? Just the thought that they tell you they recieved your ballot doesn’t mean merde. NO ONe can follow the path and the hoops that your ballot has to pass through and there is no guarantee that it was ever counted. Why do you think we have an unfit governor, senators and attorney general? and have had such for so long that it is hard to believe that they haven’t been cheating for decades. This state was a great state (WA) until about 1974. IT has pretty much gone to hell and back since then. It really got to me… Read more »
There’s a much larger lesson that you’ve failed to learn over the past century. Even if every single election had ended with a Republican winner we would still get arms laws. That’s because you have endeavored to elect increasingly tyrannical, big government candidates just because they have that R next to their name and you live in constant fear of the Democrat winning. What you fail to see is they’re both driving you to the same destination. The only difference is speed.
That’s right. The dems got us on the fast train over the cliff. The reps got us on the slow train over the cliff. Opposite wings on the same bird.
“It matters not who votes. What matters is, who counts the votes.”
Uncle Joe Stalin
I here a lot of dems quoting Joe lately.
Do not forget the massive campaign spending differential. Here in WA our 30 year incumbent “never met a big pharma donation I didn’t like” senator was reelected in a campaign spending spree almost 2:1 in the almost record level $35 million endeavor. The two biggest, and most impactful, slants our incumbent used was her opponents support for Dobbs and her opponents support of and ties to “MAGA Republicans”/”same people who supported the insurrection on January 6”. These two issues here were a MAJOR hit to almost every republican candidate in our state, leaving historically red districts with far closer decisions… Read more »
Harold, Kari Lake was a great choice! She was robbed by fraud in Arizona. 20 percent of vote tabulators not working in red leaning counties early on Election Day denied thousands of voters their rights !
FIX voter fraud or nothing else matters at this point.
Do you really believe these elections are HONEST ? Money is not the deciding factor in elections when it comes to supporting a candidate. That is nothing but a front. A plausible excuse for ignorant to feed on. The true money is being spent in TRILLIONS. US TAX DOLLARS. IT-ISAC has the final say. But hey why would you report on them ? As the visibility of the “glitches” found in Dominion Voting Systems continues to spread across multiple states, and the longstanding issues surrounding Election Systems & Software start to re-surface, one critical question has yet to be asked,… Read more »
2018
2020
Ties to every aspect of US Govt. Do you really think they don’t have the ability to use back doors on voting machines ? C’mon kids were seen hacking in the past. Why do you think they won’t let anyone examine the machines ? Does mail in voting make a difference ? For sure it covers their tracks. They want you to register your firearms but not your votes. lol
A powerful sentence that everyone should take note of… We either start to build a ballot collection operation of our own or someday they will be knocking on your door.
I believe Dr Oz made a mistake in attaching Fedsernabs health so muck and not attacking his positions!
Ope, absolutely!
Dual Turkish national that wouldn’t give up his Turkish citizenship and not a 2A supporter , another RINO loser
The elephant in the room is named Donald Trump.
Yea and verily!