The article is titled, ‘Town hall meeting reveals fierce opposition to gun control.’ It describes a meeting at which 400 locals came to a meeting to discuss “gun violence” only to have the majority of the crowd loudly announce their opposition to the imposition of additional gun control laws. Oops.
Was the meeting in Kalispell, Montana? Sioux Falls, South Dakota? Amarillo, Texas? No. The meeting the article describes took place in deep blue Middletown, Delaware.
The event, organized as an attempt to bridge the divide between opponents and supporters of gun restrictions, featured four Delaware politicians: Two Republican senators, one Democratic senator and the Department of Justice’s top prosecutor who is now running for attorney general.
All four were on stage before hundreds of people in the theater at Middletown High School, just two days after hundreds rallied in support of the Second Amendment in front of the state capitol.
The moderator was forced to restore order minutes after the event began. The two Democratic speakers were booed and interrupted numerous times while the Republican participants were greeted much more warmly.
The hundreds of gun right supporters were in no mood to be fed the usual load of verbal bovine byproduct before being told that it’s time for more common sense gun control measures.
Several members of the audience began laughing openly after Kathy Jennings, a Democrat running for attorney general, said the state has made a special effort to prosecute gun crimes, a claim Republicans find hard to believe.
Like Florida and Vermont, Delaware is considering a bump fire stock ban, magazine capacity limits, a ban on gun sales to those under 21.
Speakers did their best to control the crowd, but tensions ran high for some participants, especially when a ban on “assault-style weapons” was debated.
While the raucous support for gun rights is certainly refreshing — and was no doubt terribly inconvenient for the four comfy pols not used to hearing much dissent from the unwashed hoi polloi — the reality of the situation in Delaware is likely to disappoint RKBA supporters.
The aptly named Blue Hen State is as blue as can be, with Democrats controlling the governor’s office as well as the legislature.
Over the next two-and-a-half months, the General Assembly is set to debate legislation that would ban so-called bump stocks, prevent 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds from buying rifles, make it illegal to sell assault weapons, prohibit the sale of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, create procedures for taking guns from individuals with severe mental illnesses and prevent anyone on the federal terrorist watchlist from obtaining a gun.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on the age bill Thursday and could send it to Gov. John Carney for his signature. The House could do the same to the bump stock measure this week.
In other words, don’t get your hopes up, Delawareans.
While both Democrats on the panel argued the pending measures make sense as ways to protect public safety, Republicans agreed some are useful but others go too far and may not even reduce crime.
Slope, meet grease.