David Codrea writes [via ammoland.com]:
“GOP faces growing demographic nightmare in West,” The Hill’s National Correspondent Reid Wilson reported Monday. “Demographic change is slowly, but inevitably, moving Western states to the left.” Inevitably.
“And it could also spread to states with metropolitan areas experiencing significant Hispanic population growth such as Texas, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida.”
That’s a drum far too few gun owner rights advocates have been beating or even acknowledging. More likely, especially with the major “gun lobby” groups, the response has been to ignore it, with an occasional deflection falling back on the “single issue” excuse.
Yet the cultural terraforming, by all objective measures, represents the greatest growing threat gun owners will face. The simple fact is, votes enable legislation.
PewHispanic.org: “82% of foreign-born Hispanics think controlling gun ownership is more important than protecting gun ownership rights…”All credible polls show such populations buck the trend and favor gun restrictions by an overwhelming (71% to 25%) margin, as does the California experience. Further, after over 20 years the needle barely moves to the right. Additional documented evidence includes:
– NewsTaco: “For Latinos gun control is common sense.”
– NBC News: “On Gun Control, A GOP Disconnect With Latino Voters.”
– DCClothesline: “Most Hispanics favor gun control, a Democrat-controlled Congress, and Hillary as president.”
– Talking Points Memo: “Huge Majority of Latinos Back Stricter Gun Laws.”
– Latino Decisions: “Latino voters favor gun restrictions.”
– The Washington Times: “Hispanics already in Democratic corner for 2016.”
They’re evidently intent on recreating the same relationship between government and citizen that they fled. And while Republicans are hardly perfect, with Democrats all we need do is look at their party platform:
With 33,000 Americans dying every year, Democrats believe that we must finally take sensible action to address gun violence. While responsible gun ownership is part of the fabric of many communities, too many families in America have suffered from gun violence. We can respect the rights of responsible gun owners while keeping our communities safe.
To build on the success of the lifesaving Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, we will expand and strengthen background checks and close dangerous loopholes in our current laws; repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) to revoke the dangerous legal immunity protections gun makers and sellers now enjoy; and keep weapons of war—such as assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines (LCAM’s)—off our streets.
We will fight back against attempts to make it harder for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to revoke federal licenses from law breaking gun dealers, and ensure guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists, intimate partner abusers, other violent criminals, and those with severe mental health issues.
There is insufficient research on effective gun prevention policies, which is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must have the resources it needs to study gun violence as a public health issue.
In short, the vast majority of those numbers occur in Democrat strongholds perpetrated by criminals who don’t obey gun laws. But to mask their utter failure at governing unopposed, Democrats want to end private sales, bankrupt the firearms industry, impose prior restraints, ban the very types of weapons needed by a citizen militia, ignore due process and treat freedom like a disease.
Serendipitously, The Hill piece coincides with a rebuttal by the National Rifle Association to The Washington Post that makes a point some of us have been calling on them to act upon for years:
“We talk about more than guns because every freedom is connected,” NRATV host Grant Stinchfield declares. “If one is threatened, they all are threatened.”
Bingo!
Despite NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre elaborating on that theme a few years back at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he avoided the dangers immigration, amnesty and a “pathway to citizenship” pose toward advancing the “demographic nightmare.”
NRA refuses to consider how a politician votes on that DIRECTLY RELATED ISSUE in its political ratings, resulting in “A” grades and endorsements for candidates who vote “right” on guns, but then turn around and set the stage for having everything undone when the immigration policies they support come to fruition.
We saw the deliberate indifference manifest itself when Fairfax circled the wagons around director Grover Norquist who teamed with Michael Bloomberg and others like the Hispanic Leadership Fund to advance an economic agenda that does not consider or acknowledge the longterm political effects of a foreign replacement electorate.
Here’s a challenge for those who would still argue NRA is right to ignore this:
Audit all credible polls against real world experience in places like California and then produce credible data – not opinion, not anecdotes, not isolated examples, but something that can be independently validated – demonstrating that “amnesty” and a “pathway to citizenship” for MILLIONS of foreign nationals in this country illegally (and legally, with CURRENT culturally suicidal policies) WILL NOT overwhelmingly favor Democrats and anti-gunners.
Show your sources and methodologies for determining this WILL NOT result in supermajorities in state and federal legislatures that will then be able to pass all kinds of anti-gun edicts.
Show how this WILL NOT result in nominations and confirmations of judges to the Supreme and federal courts who will uphold those edicts and reverse gains made to date.
If you can’t, explain why a politician’s position on an issue that will end up eviscerating “legal” recognition of the Second Amendment should not be reflected in grades and endorsements.
Those who would “fundamentally transform America” are counting on continued deliberate indifference from the gun owner rights advocacy community.
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.