My mistake. I thought this conversation was around the Federal level.I don't disagree. I'm just arguing we need to do better. We need to work smarter.
But drawing a line in the sand isn't the way to work smarter. It's an invitation to a winner-take-all brawl. It's an invitation to all-out war where the loser loses everything.
I honestly believe there's a chance we could lose everything. Because I believe that, I accept the need to not draw un-cross-able lines but, instead, to work the system to try to make incremental progress.
We have successfully made incremental progress, a great deal of it, at the state level and in the courts over the last 30 years. Look at how much more common the ability to legally carry a firearm has become over that time frame in so many states. Look at the Heller decision. Why can't we bring that mindset to the arena of federal legislation?
Incrementalism isn't a dirty word. It's just a strategy. It's a strategy that has been used effectively against us for a long time at the federal level. I'd just like to see us turn that around and start winning at that level. I think it's possible as long as we don't fall into a self-defeating, absolutist mindset.
And at the Federal level we aren't looking at gaining things incrementally, we are looking at stopping anti-2A legislation. And there we cannot give anything more.