The Devil went down to Georgia…
And the Republicans have lost the Senate majority, it appears. The historically red state of Georgia has shifted purple and both Senate seats are currently projected to go to the Democrats.
Now, we can keep huffing and puffing and shouting about election fraud but let us not for a moment pretend that the Republicans set themselves up for great success here with their own antics. By eroding faith in the election and challenging results as they did, they drove away their own voter base who where the disenfranchised losing team this time.
Why would your voters turn up again to a “stolen” election? Why should they care? The game is rigged right? Turning up won’t make them win, they can just as comfortably complain that the Democrats stole the election from home knowing that the system was always going to deliver this result and they didn’t ‘play their farcical game’ by showing up.
The Loss of the Senate
What this means is the Biden White House has a reasonably reliable 51-50 vote in the Senate and a minor lead in the House 222-211 (2 open seats). We are as vulnerable as we could reasonably be to the passage of gun control legislation. The only worse stage set would be a 60-40 majority for Democrats but that was not a possibility given the current polictical landscape.
The nation is very nearly evenly split and in a most uncompromising humor with both sides ready to blame the other for stubbing their own toe. Democrats can’t accept that this was their own ridiculous attitudes that prevented a strong referendum on the Republicans, instead of a slimmest of margins victory in a contentious election with a lot of public sketchiness. Republicans equally, cannot admit (at least as a mature majority) that it was their antics and the actions of President Trump that made them vulnerable to this shift.
Neither side got their cake and everyone is mad at the ice cream flavor.
Gun Control Express?
No, actually. The freshly elected and newly restored Democrats are (probably) wiser than the loudest mouths of the gun control movement and not all of them are ignorant of the inclusive shift to the left politically that gun ownership has taken.
The political right is no longer synonymous with firearms freedoms alone and the left is no longer blanket gun bans and confiscations. Millions of Democratic voters bought handguns and AR-15’s in 2020, seeing a the need and utility for the first time in their lives. And unlike many clashing political issues, gun owners largely welcomed the new gun owners. There wasn’t some gate keeping political purity test beyond, “Hey, you just bought a gun. Let me know if you have questions.” and, “Yeah, you’re right. Ultimately it is up to you, nobody is coming to save you.”
This was not universal, nothing is, but the attitude new gun owners have overwhelming found is the right one, welcome and please feel free to ask questions.
Gun owners ability to answer said questions varies by knowledge and experience.
Back to Politics
Basically we ended up in, while not the worst possible, one of the worst realistically possible electoral situations when it comes to gun rights.
The saving grace is the fundamental shift of gun ownership’s base. It got bigger. Millions bigger, 2-4% of the voting population in the US bigger. How many elections would have swung, how many states would have changed hands in the other direction, by a 2-4% shift?
Gun owners tend to be a very motivated and very engaged base of voters so these 2-4% are likely to be very vocal in the defense of their newly realized right of defense. Especially after 2020.
Now, the race isn’t finalized and it could still theoretically end up 51-49 in favor of the Republicans. But I won’t hold my breath. A potentially rough 2 years+ of defending the 2nd it is looking to be.
