While the Daily Caller is talking about the big wins and losses in 2018 for President Donald Trump, America’s Second Amendment community scored some wins and suffered some serious setbacks in a year that might be a preview of things to come.
Without a doubt, the top story of 2018 was one that continues to affect gun owners today, the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., as noted by the Associated Press. While there was plenty of blame to go around, anti-gunners seized on the tragedy to demonize modern sporting rifles, young adult gun owners and the Second Amendment by default.
Washington State voters passed an initiative that rights activists believe never should have been on the ballot because the petitions apparently did not meet state legal requirements. Challenged in court by the Second Amendment Foundation and others, a Superior Court judge disqualified the measure on those grounds, but a week later, the liberal state Supreme Court put it back on the ballot. Initiative 1639, which starts taking effect Jan. 1, strips 18-20-year-olds of the right to purchase any semiautomatic rifle, and classifies all such guns as “semiautomatic assault rifles.”
Anti-gunners who backed that initiative have been candid about their intentions to spread restrictive gun control across the country.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
New Jersey criminalized possession of original capacity magazines.
Several people died when a killer with a possible grudge opened fire on staffers at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Maryland.
The Florida shooting might have given cover to Senate Republicans who just didn’t want to bring up National Concealed Carry Reciprocity for a vote. The new Democrat majority in the House will not allow a revived bill – if there is one – to see the light of day.
House Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi are promising to push all sorts of new gun control measures, suggesting that they have not learned from the failure of past gun control laws that none of them work.
On the plus side, the president has put another conservative associate justice on the Supreme Court, and added more conservatives to the lower federal courts. The behavior of Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh may have convinced voters to strengthen Republican control. If Trump gets just one more opportunity to shift the high court, that could impact gun rights for the next 50 years.
Armed citizens successfully intervened in some nasty incidents, including a shooting at a Walmart in Washington State and a gun battle in a Chicago suburb that saved the life of a wounded police officer.
November’s election flipped the House, which will allow Democrats to continue their campaign of obstruction at a higher level. However, it strengthened GOP control in the Senate effectively speed-bumping the far left extremism that now appears to guide the House majority.
As the New Year begins to unfold, Democrats may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of obstructionists when it comes to border security. Public sentiment is mounting against another Democrat-supported sacred cow: Sanctuary cities and states. California police officer Cpl. Ronil Singh was murdered, allegedly by an illegal alien, and now several people have reportedly been arrested in connection with that crime.
Watch for SAF, the National Rifle Association, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and others to remain in the news, possibly with court challenges to restrictive gun control laws, and other activities on the horizon.
It was a volatile year, and the next one could easily be the same.
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