Gun Owners Didn’t Leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party Left Gun Owners.

Remember when Democrats seeking office supported gun rights?  Yeah, I'm old enough I can too.  Then again, I wear a watch and reading glasses, both of which make me past my early 40s.  Sadly, young people today have known only one Democratic Party:  The one dead-set opposed to gun rights for all.

If fact, things have changed so much in the past twenty years that gun control is as much a litmus test for Democrats as is support for abortion on demand.  Even the legacy media has noticed this and feels no reluctance to broadcast it loud and clear.  From the Wall Street Journal…

The Democratic Party’s New Litmus Test: Gun Control

Candidates for the 2018 House midterms are pushing a muscular firearms-regulation agenda, a wholesale repositioning after the party for a generation avoided new limits

During her 2010 U.S. House campaign, Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona highlighted her “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. She opposed gun-control measures and regaled constituents in her largely rural district with stories of hunting with her father.

In 2018, Ms. Kirkpatrick is running to return to the House espousing a gun-control platform that is among the country’s most aggressive. She is for universal background checks and a ban on guns described as assault weapons. She disavows her longstanding position as a “proud gun owner,” saying she gave away the hunting rifles inherited from her father. “I do not have any guns in my home,” she says.

Democrats running for Congress in 2018 are pushing a muscular gun-control agenda that represents a wholesale repositioning on the hot-button issue. In this year’s midterm election, gun control has become a party litmus test from which few dissent, alongside abortion rights and support for same-sex marriage.

 

 

 

Yes, that's Chuckie Schumer pictured above, many years ago.

You would think after gun control cost Democrats control of the US House for the first time in three or four generations back in 1994, Democrats would wisely avoid the subject.  Nope.

Al Gore ran on gun control in the presidential race in 2000.  He lost his home state of Tennessee – on gun control.  Yeah, he moaned and groaned trying to steal Florida by counting and re-counting ballots trying to swing enough votes, but all that would have been moot if 80,300 Volunteer State Democrats had not been turned off by Al Gore's "let's ban scary guns" talk.

More from the WSJ:

Six years ago, when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee advised candidates in rural districts to show themselves with guns in their TV ads, the National Rifle Association made campaign contributions to 30 Democratic House candidates. This year, the NRA is financially backing just three.

Maybe today's Democrats control a lot fewer "rural" districts?  It surely seems like Dems are intent on pandering to urban residents, in particular poor, inner-city voters. 

Need I mention Hillary's coronation-to-be that never materialized.  Just two years ago, shrill Hillary Clinton lost in part because of her radical gun control pledges.  Well, that and calling gun owners reprobates, er, "deplorables".  And being a generally loathsome individual.

The realignment is part of Democrats’ broader shift to the left on a range of issues, accelerated by insurgent energy activated following Mr. Trump’s election. Many leading Democrats are campaigning on platforms calling for a single-payer health-care system and reining in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

That may play well in Democratic strongholds. And the party’s transformation on guns could also appeal in the kinds of suburban districts it needs to win to gain control of the House this fall, based on polls and recent elections.

Yes, the Democratic Party is moving to the left.  Hard!  Single-payer health care.  Amnesty for illegals.  Student loan forgiveness and free college for all.  Higher taxes upon the "rich".  "Social Justice".  Criminal justice "reform".  Abortions on demand up to and including partial birth abortions.  More handouts for welfare recipients.  $15 minimum wage.  More government regulation.  And, oh yes, strict gun control!

But wait!  There's a voice of sanity in the WSJ!

“As a party, we cannot alienate voters by falling to the extremes,” says Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, one of three Democrats to receive NRA contributions this year, “especially as we look ahead towards the upcoming November elections.”

Mr. Cuellar says an anti-NRA stance won’t help Democratic lawmakers in districts like his, which covers a stretch of Texas from San Antonio to the rural areas along the Mexican border.

Clearly, Mr. Cuellar is a voice in the wilderness in today's Democratic party.

For a generation after the 1994 assault-weapons ban cost scores of Democrats their jobs, party members avoided pushing gun restrictions.

Gee, that's what I wrote before I even read this deep into the story.

This year, voters favoring gun control have become more vocal over congressional inaction following recent high-profile mass shootings in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas, and Parkland, Fla.

Let me buy you a clue:  A mere 2% of the general public believe passing more gun control is the nation's number one issue in Jul 2018.  In February 2018, gun control didn't even get a half of a percentage point as the top issue in America.  To put that into perspective, twice as many people (~4%) believe space alien lizard people rule us.  If it wasn't for the largesse of oligarchs like Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, Tom Steyer and a handful of other ones – and their friends in the mainstream media and today's Democrat Party, there would be no Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex in America.

Even after all those defeats, Democrats have embraced gun control going into the 2018 midterm elections less than three months away.

Then again, what else do they have to run on?  President Donald Trump has slowed illegal aliens coming into America, lowered taxes for all spurring all manner of economic expansion and growth.  Unemployment for blacks, Latinos and young people is at or near historic lows.  Unemployment for whites is at multi-generational lows.  Incomes are up, and so is consumer spending.  People are incredibily optimistic.  The stock market's bull run has generated huge amounts of wealth of the middle class in their 401ks.  The list goes on and on.  He's accomplished great things in trade.  The hated, bumbling, incompetent, insane Donald Trump has even engaged with talks with North Korea's despotic leader – something even the world's smartest politician Barack Obama couldn't pull off. 

So what do those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome hang their hats on?  Especially for a party who has lost a whole lot of elections in the past ten years to become the weakest they have been in almost 100 years? 

Gun control?

And people wonder why more and more Americans think of the Democratic Party as the enemy of gun rights. 

It's not that gun owners have left the Democratic Party.  It's that today's Democratic Party has left gun owners behind.

PS:  You know, Rush will tell you that Democrats left the white working men behind under Obama.  Guess who came along and scooped them up.  That's right:  Donald Trump.  Guess who will scoop them up in this election and in 2020?  You probably won't need three guesses to figure it out.