By Jeff Knox

(February 16, 2017) The nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court has triggered the expected ranting and railing from Senate Democrats, and the left in general.  In response, many conservatives are calling for Senate Republicans to give Democrats a taste of their own medicine by pulling the trigger on the so-called “Nuclear Option” – majority vote to change Senate rules, revoking the right to filibuster Supreme Court nominees.

That would be a strategic mistake.

Senate Democrats invoked the “Nuclear Option” a couple of years ago when Republicans were actively using the filibuster rules to block Obama’s judge appointments, but they stopped short of making the new rule apply to Supreme Court nominees.  Had they held the majority in Obama’s last year, there can be little doubt that they would have extended the filibuster ban to SCOTUS picks in order to overcome Republican objections, but Republicans should not resort to the same tactics.

Not only would invoking the “Nuclear Option” set a precedent that would surely come back to haunt them in the future – just ask Democrats how they like not being able to effectively block Trump’s lower court judicial appointments – but it would also jeopardize the filibuster in general, removing one of the few tools the minority has for forcing compromise.  Which again is fine when your party is in the majority, but not so good when you find yourself in the minority.

There are ways for Republicans to win confirmation of Judge Gorsuch without resorting to the “Nuclear Option.”  Some of the experts at the Heritage Foundation wrote a paper on the subject before Gorsuch was even nominated. Their suggestion of using what is called Rule XIX to limit debate, thus limiting the duration of a filibuster, is pretty straightforward, but even that is not likely to be necessary.

The purpose of the filibuster is not to block an action in the Senate, but rather to delay action to give time to whip votes and bring pressure to bear.  In the current situation, the delay and attention works to the advantage of Republicans, not Democrats. Gorsuch is clearly qualified and widely respected, and he has a reputation for standing up to executive and bureaucratic overreach.  He is actually more likely to rule against Trump if he tries to accomplish too much with a pen and a phone.

By delaying, Democrats give more opportunity for the public to realize that they are simply being petulant.  Public pressure will weigh on Democrat senators who will be facing reelection next year – particularly those from states that supported Trump, some by a wide margin – convincing them to cross the aisle and support Gorsuch’s confirmation.

Democrat leaders are making a big mistake going all out to block Gorsuch’s confirmation.  There might already be enough votes to overcome a filibuster, and if not, those votes will come soon enough.  Republicans just need to move forward with confirmation hearings and a vote. If they really feel they don’t have enough votes to overcome a filibuster, they can invoke Rule XIX and let the Democrats talk themselves out.  But just moving forward will probably be enough.

Naturally, Democrats are pointing to Republicans’ refusal to hold hearings on the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy left after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia, and they have a point, but only to a point.  Republicans foolishly rushed to declare that they would reject any candidate Obama chose after Scalia’s death, just as Democrats were foolish to reject Trump’s appointment sight unseen. But unlike Republicans, who treated Garland respectfully, even while they refused to hold hearings on his confirmation, Democrats have launched scurrilous and baseless attacks on Gorsuch.  These tactics are not painting Democrats in a favorable light.

Court watchers know that Gorsuch’s appointment does little to shift the balance of the Court the way Merrick Garland’s would have.  In fact, while Gorsuch is considered a judicial conservative, in some areas, like 4th amendment, he can be expected to side more with the “liberal” wing of the Court.  Blocking a confirmation vote, and saying nasty, patently untrue things about the nominee, just makes the Democrats look petty and vindictive.  That won’t play well with the public at large, and is peel off enough Democrat senators to break from their leadership and vote to bring the nomination to the floor.

Minority Leader Schumer has to oppose Gorsuch’s confirmation, because he is accountable to the radical Democrat base.  Individual senators – especially those from “conservative”-leaning states – have no such mandate. Their first obligation is to their home-state voters, and for many senators, those voters are tired of petty, partisan politics.

If Republicans push forward with confirmation hearings for Gorsuch, they will force the Democrats’ hand, and should win a surprisingly easy victory.  All of the Democrats can vote against Gorsuch in the final vote if they want to, because all it takes for Republicans to prevail is a simple majority.  Getting to that vote is the challenge, as it requires 60 votes for “cloture,” that is, to shut down a filibuster. Democrat senators can vote to end the filibuster, then vote against Gorsuch’s confirmation.  That would allow them to pick which vote to focus on, depending on the audience they’re addressing. That is a very easy out for politicians facing a potentially tough reelection campaign.

Republicans can win this fight without deploying the “Nuclear Option.”  Using that option would be the height of hypocrisy, and would diminish Republican support.  They need to stick to the high ground, push forward with confirmation hearings, and bring public pressure to bear against the Democrats’ weaker links.

by Jeff Knox

(January 24, 2017) I usually try to avoid using this venue as a stump for talking about the politics inside the NRA. I generally write an annual article offering my suggestions for Board of director candidates and leave it at that, but this year, the NRA Board of Directors has introduced some sweeping bylaw amendments that every NRA member should be concerned about.

Every year at this time, a third of the NRA’s 76-member Board comes up for election. This year, a slate of fifteen bylaw changes is being proposed by “unanimous recommendation” of the Board of Directors. These bylaw changes, presented without debate and no dissenting opinions, are claimed to continue the spirit of the “Cincinnati reforms,” and according to press releases put out under NRA President Alan Cors’ name, to give more power to the members.

Quite to the contrary, the proposed bylaw changes destroy the last vestiges of the reforms enacted during the Cincinnati member revolt of 1977. They remove power from the members, further consolidating control over the Association within the Board’s inner circle and staff.

For most of the past century through 1977, the NRA ballot typically contained 25 names for 25 Board vacancies, unless someone died in office in which case the ballot carried 26 names for 26 vacancies. The names on the ballot were chosen by the Nominating Committee, which was tightly controlled by an inner circle of the Board and staff. No petition process existed. In short, the process was as insular closed as the Russian Politburo of the Cold War.

This slate of bylaw changes puts the NRA firmly on the road back to the “Russian ballot” of days gone by, and locks the Association on that course.

In 1977 a group of members and renegade Board members, upset by the NRA’s reluctance to fulfill its duties in the political arena, and the closed electoral system that made change all but impossible, staged a member revolt at the Annual Meeting of Members in Cincinnati. Operating under the bylaws and not-for-profit law, an insurgent team of members and rebel Board members including Neal Knox and Harlon Carter, moved a slate of bylaw changes that reorganized the organization’s structure and imposed a petition process to get access to the ballot. The members, already angry at a proposal being floated by the NRA brass to move the headquarters out of Washington, were primed to join the rebellion. The meeting lasted from 10:00 in the morning Saturday to 4:00 Sunday morning.

In subsequent years, those member-empowering bylaw amendments have been chipped away. Each strike of the chisel was made with assurances that the latest change would “protect the Cincinnati reforms.” The current proposal paves the way to wipe away the last vestiges.

The proposed bylaw amendments would soon put the petition process out of reach of most members, returning to a closed system that virtually guarantees control of the Board by staff and incumbents.

When Dad wrote the current standard, he set the threshold at 250 voting members. That number was deemed achievable an average member who wanted to take a hand in NRA affairs as a Board member. In this internet age, gathering 250 qualified signatures has become somewhat easier, but setting the bar at anything higher than about 500 would take the process out of reach of most members.

The Board proposes setting a threshold at 0.5% of the voters in the past year’s election. The new threshold will be around that acceptable 500 number, but that’s only true as long as less than 6% of eligible members cast ballots. If turnout were to go up to just 8%, the number of signatures required to qualify for the ballot would go up to close to 900 – beyond the reach of an average member.

As an Endowment Life Member of the NRA who has been very active in NRA politics for almost four decades, I’m very troubled by the key provisions of this bylaw change proposal, and I am urging all voting members to Vote “No” on this proposal. While some of the proposed changes are mostly cosmetic, and others seem logical, the overall effect of the proposed changes is to take power away from the members, and this is an all-or-nothing proposition. You can’t get the good without also accepting the bad – and that’s unacceptable.

If you are an NRA member, I urge you to take a look in your February 2017 issue of your NRA magazine to see if there is a voting package bound into the middle of it. If there is, go to the back of the package where you will find 2 ballots and an envelope. One ballot is for voting on the Board of Directors, the other is for voting on the proposed bylaw amendments.

Whether you vote in the Director election or not, be sure to completely fill in the circle next to the word “No” on the bylaw ballot, put it in the envelope, sign it, and drop it in the mail.

“As the NRA goes, so go our gun rights.” My dad first penned those words more than thirty years ago when the NRA was embroiled in another of its internal struggles. The NRA management likes to think that a placid, compliant NRA is good for gun rights. That is not true. The organization was born out of strife and is at its best when there is tension. For its leaders to relax into complacent incumbency will not yield an NRA that is willing to press the strategic advantage we have now, nor dig in and fight the hard battles that will come when the political pendulum moves the other way.

* * *

For the Board of Directors election, I am recommending just 3 candidates, and no others. They are Sean Maloney, Adam Kraut, and Graham Hill. There are others on the ballot who are also good, but they don’t need my help.

By Jeff Knox

(October 27, 2016) A Connecticut judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by the families of several victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.  The suit was filed last year against everyone in the manufacturing and sales chain of the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle that was used in the murders.  Defendants in the suit, Bushmaster and its parent company Remington Arms, Camfour, a major firearms wholesaler, and Riverview Sales, the small gun shop that originally sold the gun to Nancy Lanza, all claimed immunity from the suit, based  on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, or PLCAA. In the end, the judge agreed with the defendants, stating that the case “falls squarely within the broad immunity” protections of the PLCAA.

That being the case, it certainly took the judge a while to reach that conclusion since the PLCAA prohibits civil liability actions from being brought as a result of third-party misuse of a firearm or ammunition. Defendants raised the PLCAA from the very start.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that their suit was permissible under two of several exceptions included in the PLCAA.  One is that a licensed seller can be sued if they “negligently entrusted” a gun or ammunition to a person that they knew, or should have known, would use it to cause harm to themselves or others.  The other is that a suit may be filed if the licensed seller violated federal or state law in the conduct of the transaction. Plaintiffs’ attorneys claimed that by “unethically, oppressively, immorally, and unscrupulously” marketing the “assaultive qualities and military uses of AR-15s to civilian purchasers,” whom they knew would let others, including family members, access them, constituted both “negligent entrustment,” and violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.

The lawyers’ hyperbole regarding the AR-15 was so thick that it sounds more like a parody than an actual lawsuit.  They insisted that Bushmaster, Remington and the others “know that civilians are unfit to operate AR-15s” – the fastest selling and most popular rifle in the country – and that they “knew or should have known that the sale of assault rifles like the XM15-E2S to the civilian market, posed an egregious and unreasonable risk of physical injury to others.” The suit just goes on and on with this nonsense, with single sentences taking up over half a page, and circuitous logic going all the way to asserting the defendants’ knowing that “mass casualty shootings” are becoming more frequent, that schools are a popular target for such shootings, and therefore they should have known that the gun they made and sold had an unreasonably high risk of ending up in the hands of a crazed murderer slaughtering innocent children.

It’s hard to begin to understand why a rational judge, knowing the provisions of the PLCAA, did not dismiss the case on the spot.  Instead, she allowed it to drag on for almost two years before she finally pulled the plug. Some skeptics have suggested that she was initially just going through the motions, and would have dismissed the suit, but then it suddenly started attracting national media attention as it became a major issue in the Democratic Party primaries, and perhaps she wanted to drag it out so her preferred candidate could get as much mileage out of it as possible.

Whether that was the judge’s motivation or not, it all worked out well for Hillary Clinton, who used the case as a bludgeon against her primary rival, Senator Bernie Sanders.  Sanders had voted in favor of the PLCAA when he was in the House of Representatives. Clinton herself had been in the Senate at the time and voted against it. She was able to effectively use the Sandy Hook case as a wedge to first position herself to Bernie’s left, then – after he waffled and declared that he would support a partial repeal of the act – paint him as not only having been wrong, but also weak in his convictions.  Clinton has pledged to repeal the act and repeatedly made false claims about the PLCAA and what it does and doesn’t do. Her claims have been so outrageous that even the Washington Post, Politifact, and NPR called her on it, but the false claims remain on her campaign website, and she continues to repeat them at her campaign rallies.

In defending his vote, Sanders compared suing gun companies for crimes committed with their products, to suing a hammer company because someone hit you over the head with one.  He also said that if such suits were allowed, that would be the end of gun manufacturing in the U.S. Various pundits and self-appointed “fact-checkers” have claimed that statement to be false, but history says otherwise.

The PLCAA only came about because gun companies were being milked dry by frivolous lawsuits, filed primarily by government officials at taxpayer expense.  Back in the mid ’90s as tobacco lawsuits started gaining traction, some whiz kid came up with the idea of going after guns like states were going after the tobacco companies.  In 1998, New Orleans became the first city to sue a gun company over the public costs of “gun violence.” Within a year, almost 30 other cities, counties, and the state of New York had jumped on the litigation bandwagon.  The symphony of lawsuits was conducted from Bill Clinton’s White House by his HUD Secretary, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo, NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, and others made no bones about the strategy and their objective: to force gun companies to accept rigid marketing and sales restrictions or be forced into bankruptcy.  Handgun Control, Inc. – which later changed its name to the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence – gleefully documented the strategy in position papers and fund-raising letters.

And it was working.  One of the nation’s oldest and largest handgun manufacturers, Smith & Wesson, caved and cut a deal to get out from under the suits.  If it hadn’t been for the PLCAA, the whole industry could have collapsed.

Now the question is where this strategy will go next.  The Sandy Hook attorneys say they are going to appeal. If they do, will it end up in front of a Hillary Clinton Supreme Court?  How do you think that would turn out? You need to vote accordingly.

By Jeff Knox

(October 19, 2016) If you live in Nevada, Maine, Washington, Colorado, or California – or you know someone who does – it is critical that you – and they – get the following message about initiatives that are on the ballots in those states this year:

You are being lied to.

The initiatives will not accomplish what supporters and their advertisements claim, and they have great potential to harm innocents.

That message is what voters need to hear.  Trying to explain to them the details of the bills and convince them of the flaws and harm that will result from passage, is an unrealistic goal.  What they need to know and understand is that the promoters are lying. The laws won’t accomplish the stated goals. And they will be expensive and harmful.

Your mission is to make sure voters in those states get this message.  The NRA and local grassroots groups are stretched thin in this critical election year, and voters are being inundated with political ads from all sides, so they need to hear it from trusted friends like you that these initiatives are bad, being promoted by deep-pockets, outside interests, and will do significant damage to rights for years to come.

Most voters don’t understand the initiative process or its implications.  If a proposal sounds reasonable, they are inclined to support it – without understanding what it will really do.  Many voters though, can be convinced to withhold their support if just a seed of doubt can be planted by someone they trust.  There is nothing in these initiatives that is not already covered under existing state and federal law. Promoters of the initiatives try to paint them as simple common sense, but the mere volume of verbiage in the proposals puts the lie to the simplicity claim.

In Nevada, one word in the existing law could have been changed to accomplish the stated goal of the Bloomberg-sponsored initiative, but the initiative contains page after page of legalese that raises questions about virtually all firearm transfers, including simply letting a friend handle a gun, or even having someone house-sit while you’re out of town.  It also takes something that has always been managed – at a profit – by the state, and puts it into federal hands – removing both control and revenue from the state.

In Washington, where 2 years ago Bloomberg and a consortium of billionaires spent over $10 million dollars to get an initiative like the ones on the ballot this year in Nevada and Maine passed, they are back for another bite of the apple, this time giving police, family, and coworkers the power to take guns away from someone who they say is a threat to themselves or others.  This law is ripe for abuse, and its provisions are already covered by existing laws. So much for the claim that there is an urgent problem that requires immediate attention.

The first Bloomberg initiative, like the initiatives in Nevada and Maine, was opposed by virtually every police organization in the state, but the heavy ad campaign was enough to drown out that opposition and allow low-information voters to push the proposal into law.  The state recently announced its first ever prosecution under the oh-so-urgently-needed law. It is a case where a young man admits to committing a federal felony by making an illegal, straw purchase on behalf of a friend. Now Washington has tacked on a misdemeanor for illegally transferring the gun.  Criminals beware.

I have previously written about these initiatives in this column, and you can point people there if they want to better understand the issues, but a deep understanding isn’t really necessary.  What is necessary is that they understand that these initiatives are much more complicated and convoluted than their promoters are claiming, and that they are being funded by outside interests for reasons other than what they are hearing in the expensive TV ads and the cards in their mailboxes.  A billionaire like Bloomberg doesn’t pour millions of dollars into misleading advertisements promoting initiatives in several states for altruistic reasons. There is a bigger game afoot, and voters are being played.

Initiatives should be a tool of last resort, a way of forcing laws past an unresponsive legislature and/or governor, and they usually have special protections to keep the politicians from making any changes to them for at least a couple of years after they are passed.  This adds to their power, and adds to the dangers involved in using them. Just a few wrong words or clever provisions can result in consequences that voters never intended, and they can’t fix them without another expensive initiative or waiting several years for the legislature to be able to take some corrective action.  The more words an initiative has, the greater the probability that there is something dangerous buried in them, even if the main provisions are sound.

So again, here is the mission for everyone reading this who supports individual rights and opposes the nanny state: Contact everyone you know in Nevada, Maine, Washington, Colorado, and California.  Let them know that they are being lied to by supporters of the gun initiative on their ballot, and urge them to vote “No.” Share this article with your like-minded friends so they can let their friends in those states know that they too are being lied to.  Use your influence to plant the seeds of doubt and stop Bloomberg and his money from buying rights by lying to voters.

By Jeff Knox

(October 12, 2016) Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party have declared war on “the NRA,” meaning all gun owners.  The truth is a frequent casualty in their war, as they inflate statistics, make false associations, and offer up simplistic “solutions” that seem reasonable, but actually can’t possibly accomplish anything positive, while they do real harm to innocent people who have done nothing wrong and are not part of the problem.

Those of us who have been involved in the fight to protect the Bill of Rights for years, and those who have studied the history of the fight, have seen all of this before.  Bitter experience has proven that when gun owners agreed with what seemed like reasonable restrictions on their rights, the problems that were supposed to be solved only got worse and gun owners were vilified for pointing the facs out.

Right now, the “reasonable” gun control proposals from Hillary Clinton, Mike Bloomberg, and other Democrats – like Arizona Senate candidate Anne Kirkpatrick – revolve around expanding “background checks,” blocking terrorist access to firearms, ending firearm industry liability protections, and reinstatement of the 1994 “assault weapons” ban.  All are tailored to sound reasonable, but none of the proposals would accomplish their stated objectives, and would instead place innocent, responsible gun owners at risk, and dilute and degrade rights.

The Lie: There is an epidemic of mass murder and gun-violence in this country.  We are often told that the U.S. is the “only developed nation” with such a horrendous “gun-violence” problem, and that our “gun violence” problem is growing and must be addressed to save innocent lives.

The Truth: Crime – including crime involving firearms – has been steadily and precipitously dropping for the past 20 years and is currently at the lowest rates seen since the early 1960s.  The U.S. ranks relatively low in overall violence statistics, though the ready availability of firearms does mean that guns are more often involved. What is missing from the statistics is the fact that the violent crime numbers from a handful of neighborhoods in a handful of Democratic Party-controlled cities with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation distort the national statistics.  Exclude those cities from the data, the U.S. has some of the lowest crime numbers in the world.

One of the other most frequently cited statistics is a claim that some 30,000 Americans die each year as a result of “gun-violence.”  This is not so much a lie as it is a massive distortion. Only about 8,000 of those “firearm deaths” are acts of criminal violence. Most are suicides, but the statistic also includes justified shootings by police and armed citizens.  And while 8,000 is too many, it is a very low percentage in a population of over 320 million. Again, these murders predominantly occur in just a few major city neighborhoods, and are most often connected to illegal drugs and street gangs.

More Lies: Terrorists and mass murderers are able to buy guns and “automatic weapons” at gun shows and online, with no background checks.  Every time there is some atrocity committed with firearms, this argument that we need “universal background checks” is trotted out as if passing this legislation would have prevented the latest horror.

The Truth: There has not been a single mass murder or terrorist attack that would have been stopped or mitigated by this proposal.  The only instances where the perpetrator did not pass a background check were those involving minors who gained access to a parent or other relative’s guns – which had been legally purchased after a background check, and often were securely stored.  In the case of the Sandy Hook murderer, the primary weapon was purchased under a tighter “assault weapon” ban than the Clinton Ban, and he murdered his mother to gain access to it.

And More Lies: Clinton and company tell us that the firearms industry is virtually unregulated and is exempted from liability lawsuits for the harm caused by their products.  Hillary Clinton has made repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act one of her major campaign issues.

The Truth: The firearms industry is one of the most tightly regulated in the country.  Firearms may only be bought or sold in face-to-face transactions. No mail-order or internet sales.  Every firearm must be marked with a serial number, and must be accounted for. Guns can only be made for sale by licensed manufacturers, and imported and sold by licensed importers, distributors, and dealers, with records of every dealer transaction maintained in perpetuity.  The reason the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was introduced was because anti-rights politicians were using taxpayer funds to sue gun dealers and manufacturers for criminal misuse of guns that functioned as designed. This is akin to Ford or Chevy being sued because their vehicles were used in hit-and-runs or as getaway cars in bank robberies.  The cases were generally dismissed by the judges and juries who heard them, but the litigation costs were bankrupting gun dealers and manufacturers. Under the PLCA, gun manufacturers remain liable for faulty guns that malfunction. PLCA only shields manufacturers from politically motivated lawsuits.

So-called “universal background checks” would have no impact on crime, but would make criminals of innocent gun owners while creating a de facto firearm registration system.  Currently, all private transfers must be conducted face-to-face between residents of the same, or for some guns, contiguous states.  It is illegal for a prohibited person to buy a firearm or ammunition, or for anyone to sell them a gun or ammo if they know or have reason to believe they are prohibited from possessing firearms.  Laws prohibiting a trade of cash for a gun are as doomed to failure as laws that prohibit a trade of cash for drugs.

As to the so-called “terror gap,” it is a fiction and a constitutional nightmare.  The Terrorism Watch List is a secret. No one knows someone gets on the list or is taken off of it.  With some politicians and Homeland Security officials suggesting that NRA membership should be a reason for adding someone to the list, it is small wonder that gun owners are skeptical at the idea of suspending Second, Fourth, and Fifth Amendment rights on the basis of inclusion on the secret list.

No issue is ever as simple and straightforward as proponents and opponents try and make it seem, but when proponents must resort to lies and distortion to make their case, it’s a pretty safe bet that neither the proposal nor the results will match their rhetoric either.

New Hampshire:  Incumbent Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) vs. Governor Maggie Hassan (D)

Senator Ayotte rode the Tea Party wave into office, but she, like many “moderate” Republicans, wavered in the face of the Sandy Hook horror.  She eventually voted against the Manchin-Toomey ban on legal private gun sales, but anti-gun forces smelled blood and have been circling her ever since.  The reality is that Senator Ayotte is not a hard-line Second Amendment supporter. But she’s far better than Governor Hassan who has made support for gun control, particularly banning private sales, one of her flagship issues.  Recent polling shows Ayotte and Hassan in a statistical dead heat. It will boil down to who can get the vote out. Granite State GunVoters can contact Gun Owners of New Hampshire (GONH.org) for volunteer opportunities.

Pennsylvania:  Incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey vs. Katie McGinty

Senator Pat Toomey burned many bridges when he put his name on the Manchin-Toomey “compromise” bill to prohibit private gun transfers.  That some leaders of the gun rights movement even signed off on the legislation did little to satisfy GunVoters who largely abandoned him over the bill.  Pennsylvania GunVoters may not want to support Toomey, but giving McGinty the seat not only brings us closer a Democrat-run Senate and Chuck Shumer as Majority Leader, it gives a boost to a rising star in the Democratic Party. GunVoters need to swallow hard and vote for the Republican.  If you are in Pennsylvania and looking for a way to help, contact our friends at Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League (http://acslpa.org/).  They can point to organizations and friends statewide.

North Carolina:  Incumbent Senator Richard Burr (R)

Richard Burr has run on the Second Amendment, but like many “mainstream” Republicans, he has sought “compromise” where there was no grounds for compromise.  Most recently, he voted to allow debate to go forward on a bill to deny Second and Fifth Amendment rights to anyone on the secret Terrorist Watch List. Burr is another boring Republican who at least does not bring us into a world with Schumer as the Majority Leader.  His opposite number, Deborah Ross, is making her opposition to Second Amendment rights a banner issue. Contact Grass Roots North Carolina (http://grnc.org/) for the latest information and volunteer opportunities.

Florida: Incumbent Sen. Marco Rubio (R) vs. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D)

In Florida, Republican Presidential might-have-been candidate Marco Rubio is running against Rep. Patrick Murphy.  While Rubio has done little to get GunVoters excited, he is generally friendly to gun rights, while Murphy claims that the “NRA fears a shift” in American opinions regarding guns and predicts that Congress no longer fears the wrath of GunVoters.  With some time and effort, Florida GunVoters may be able to correct Rep. Patrick’s view by keeping him out of the Senate. Our friends at Florida Carry (https://www.floridacarry.org) can tell you how to help.

Indiana: Incumbent Sen. Evan Bayh (D) vs. Rep. Todd Young

Moving inland, Indiana features a race between Evan Bayh an incumbent with a dynasty name and Tea Party upstart Todd Young.  Late Senator Birch Bayh was one of the last of the genuine pro-gun Democrats of the previous generation. His son has not continued that tradition, and has instead toed the Democratic party line voting against Second Amend rights at almost every opportunity.  Of the seven toss-up contests in play, Indiana is one of only two opportunities for Republicans to grab a Democratic seat. Indiana GunVoters need to check in with Jim and Margie Tomes who run Second Amendment Patriots. Not only are they legendary activists, they are long-time family friends to the Knox family.

Missouri:  Incumbent Sen. Roy Blunt (R) vs. Rep. Jason Kander (D)

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt is gaffe-prone and a bit an old-school good ol’ boy politician.  He faces a tough challenge in the form of a young Secretary of State from the other party.  Kander ran an ad showing himself, a former National Guardsman, field-stripping an AR-15 blindfolded while expressing support for banning private transfers and denying Second and Fifth Amendment rights to anyone who is placed on a secret list. Even with his warts, Blunt is better for the Second Amendment, and ultimately the country, than Kander.

Nevada:  Rep. Joe Heck (R) vs. Catherine Cortez Masto (D)

GunVoters shed no tears at the news of Harry Reid’s retirement.  His departure was both a relief and an opportunity to pick up a pro-gun Senate seat.  His hand-picked replacement is former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, who has already dabbled in gun politics lobbying with Mark Kelly to prohibit private transfers of guns.  Unfortunately, Heck has dabbled with the same position in a vain search for a “moderate” position on the most polarizing of all issues. Hopefully, our friend Don Turner and Nevadans for State Gun Rights (http://nevadansforstategunrights.org/) can educate him.

By Jeff Knox

(October 6, 2016) GunVoters don’t like to reward squishy Republicans, but in this very high-stakes election year, who you vote against is just as important – if not more more so – as who you vote for.  Just as many GunVoters distrust Donald Trump – especially after his unfortunate comments and missed opportunities during the first debate – but intend to vote for him anyway, as a vote against Hillary Clinton, so to are many GunVoters faced with an unsavory choice in their U.S. Senate race.  Several incumbent Republicans have less than stellar records on gun issues, making it very hard for GunVoters to get excited about them. On the other hand, all of the Democrat challengers have embraced Hillary Clinton’s anti-rights mantra, calling for bans on private firearm transfers and use of the secret Terror Watchlist to deny Fifth and Second Amendment rights..

More important though, is the critical role the Senate plays in limiting the power of the President, and how the parties play into that role.

If Donald Trump wins, he will face an uphill battle regardless of which party wins the majority in the Senate.  With all of the Democrats and half of the Republicans in Congress, as well as the media, openly hostile toward him, it would be very difficult for him to accomplish much of anything as President unless he went full turncoat – AND – Democrats won the Senate.  But even then, the Republican majority in the House could block or de-fund things they didn’t like.

On the other hand, the media and Democrats in Congress, along with at least a quarter of the Republicans, would fully support, or at least go along with, just about anything Hillary Clinton wanted to do.  There would still be resistance from the House to keep things from coming completely unraveled, but Paul Ryan has not been impressive in his battles with Obama, and Clinton is a much more formidable opponent.

The vacancy on the Supreme Court emphasizes the critical importance of maintaining Republican control of the Senate.  While we try to be non-partisan, Democrats have firmly established themselves as the party of gun control, so even electing a couple of squishy – or even hostile – Republican senators is a necessary evil in order to keep Democrats from taking control of the Senate.  As I recently noted in this column, this isn’t just about the Supreme Court, but lower federal courts as well. Obama has taken great strides in “liberalizing” the courts by appointing over 300 judges over the past 7 years. A Democrat-controlled Senate would mean that Trump judicial appointments would be blocked and Clinton judicial appointments would be unstoppable.

A Democrat majority in the Senate would also mean that rabid, anti-rights zealot, Chuck Schumer would be Senate Majority Leader.  Just the thought of that should make every gun owner shudder.

You can impact Senate election – even those outside your own state.

First, be sure that you get to the polls on November 8 and vote for the people who will keep the serious enemies of liberty out of office.  That might mean holding your nose, but sometimes that’s what it takes.

Second, make sure that your friends and family, folks at the range and gun clubs, church, fraternal organizations, etc., all know why voting is so critical this year, and why they can’t afford to sit this one out or use their vote for making symbolic gestures.  Share this article with them. Post it on bulletin boards and your social media pages, and tell folks specifically who they need to vote for to slow the slide toward tyranny. Make them cheat-sheets to take to the polls with them if necessary.

Third, go through your contact lists and reach out to everyone you can to share this message – especially people living in battleground states where just a few votes could mean the difference between a pro-rights majority, and a majority led by Chuck Schumer.  Again, share this article and make specific requests for votes, and ask the people you contact to contact others with the same message.

The most critical states this year are: Nevada, Indiana, Missouri, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire.

Republicans are likely to lose seats in Wisconsin and Illinois, meaning that if they don’t convert the seats in Nevada (very possible) and Indiana (less likely), Democrats winning in any two of the other five states would result in Majority Leader Schumer.

This year, for the first time in more than 20 years, Democrats have gun control a flagship campaign issue from the top of the ticket on down.  If GunVoters don’t answer that push with a resounding “NO” at the polls, anti-rights forces will be emboldened to advance more restrictive proposals, and we will see more “moderate” Republicans like Illinois’ Mark Kirk working with them to erode your rights.

Money is not enough.  You must get personally involved.  If you can’t actively support the Republican candidate, then actively oppose the anti-rights Democrat.  This is too important to leave to others. Take action now.