Leftists have been rocked to their foundations by several developments in the past year… starting with the enormous failure of their gun control campaign following the Sandy Hook massacre (which, was clearly a coordinated publicity campaign involving the Democratic politicians and the anti-gun mainstream media), followed by the gigantic failure of Obamacare rollout and the public outcry against it from all quarters (including leftist news outlets), then the abysmal failure of the Connecticut AR-15 ban followed now by the equally complete failure of the New York “SAFE” Act “assault weapon” grab, and of course last week’s BLM backdown from the the Nevada stand-off, it has not been a good year for the Democrats.
Under the provision of the SAFE Act, citizens of the Empire State were given until midnight on April 15, 2014, to register any “assault weapons” in their possession, thereby creating a state registry. Governor Andrew Cuomo, who pushed this bill through the legislature in only 3 days under circumstances that would be called shady at best, is now faced with the fact that the first real test of his anti-gun law has been an almost complete failure. Unnamed sources from within the NY state government have said that less than 5000 weapons were voluntarily registered by New Yorkers. It has been estimated (by the NY state govt) that there are at least 1 million “assault weapons” in the state, which means that 99.995% of New York’s assault weapons are now illegal, unregistered, and firmly in the hands of private citizens who don’t give a tinker’s damn for Cuomo’s gun law. These citizens are now, by the definition of the SAFE Act, felons.
But New York gun owners clearly don’t care. For that matter, neither do gun owners in Connecticut, who similarly defied an “assault weapon” registration law in their state earlier this year.
Cuomo’s law, which faces several serious legal challenges on its constitutionality, is in big trouble. The flat refusal of hundreds of thousands of New York’s citizens to comply with the “assault weapon” registry is a wake-up call for the gun-grabbers, and they appear to be totally confused by it.
Cuomo is faced with the fact that Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy had to swallow earlier this year: a law of this type that the people choose to disobey en masse is a ticking time bomb, and the incumbent is stuck with it. The people who oppose the SAFE Act, which is by polls a majority of New Yorkers, are voicing their intent to throw Cuomo out of office at the next election. The people who applaud the SAFE Act are furious with Cuomo for not enforcing the law vigorously, and they vow to replace him with someone who will. He can’t win. If he backs down and repeals the law, he loses the liberal gun-control vote. If he enforces the law, he risks inciting violence between police and gun owners and an even greater public outcry as bloodshed is visited upon the good people of New York. Gun control zealots like Cuomo and Malloy are re-discovering the political consequences of being a gun-grabber in America… it’s political suicide.
When I read the liberal press they are either conspicuously silent on the issue, or they express puzzlement that New Yorkers have en masse engaged in one of the biggest acts of civil disobedience to ever take place. They fail to grasp the implications of this watershed event. Americans are saying in numbers like never before that they are sick and tired of the overreach of elected officials, and they are not going to take it any more.
And almost simultaneously with New York’s quiet rebellion, a rancher in Nevada along with an awful lot of supporters around the country have forced the Federal government to back down.
I get the sense that the Nevada standoff was a watershed event in this nation’s history. It doesn’t matter to most Americans that, as many legal analysts have pointed out, the law was against Rancher Bundy. Yes, we are a nation of laws; but when the government has made so many bad laws that even the lawyers and tax accountants can’t make sense of them, the people will cease to have respect for the law. They necessarily revert to Natural Law, the law of Right. Many Americans, perhaps, most Americans, just don’t care that Rancher Bundy has defied the law. They recognize that any law that steals cattle and property from a citizen is bad law, and bad enforcement of a bad law just makes it worse. And as the backstory of Harry Reid and other crooked Nevada politicians profiting from this boondoggle comes out, Americans are even more incensed and even more committed to defiance of bad law.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Obamacare rollout fiasco and the intense criticism it drew made the Washington Democrats nervous, but it was and is apparent they thought that they could steamroll over that speed-bump in the road to total power. But the failure of the BLM tactical teams to accomplish their objectives, and the failure of their control of the mass media to keep the story out of the public eye (thank God for the internet!), and the realization that they were on the verge of an actual shooting war with American citizens, and now the NewYork (and Connecticut) “assault weapon” registry’s failure, well… in my mind’s eye it’s like a virtual hard left jab between the eyes. They are stunned, confused, and temporarily at least set back.
However, I expect them to recover and pick up where they left off, with renewed purpose. And like a stunned palooka who’s too punchy (and wasn’t that bright to start with) to know that he’s about to walk into the beating of his life, they’re going to regroup and attack again. It might be at the Bundy ranch, or it might be on Texas’ Red River, but it’s going to happen. It makes me unutterably sad to realize that the powers that be are committed going to war against their fellow Americans in the blind pursuit of and addiction to power, but it seems to me to be inevitable. But I believe we can rest assured that they will attack again, and American blood will be spilled on American soil.
Unless we can elect a Republican Senate in November, and a united Congress can force a bloodless revolution, I fear the outcome is going to be unthinkable.
