Same Crazy, Hybrid Tactics: The Current Face of Gun Control

If you've participated in firearms at all over the last dozen years or more, you've probably heard most of the arguments on both sides. After eight years of an Obama presidency with no significant federal firearms legislation we've begun to see some action from the Trump presidency. But, no longer are anti-gun groups solely going for that home run of federal bans. The new face of gun control is a hybrid of tactics that have worked for other issues in the past:

Push for local/state ordinances

The 144th Congress (2015-2016) passed 329 pieces of legislation into law. At the same time. In 2016 alone, California legislature passed 900 bills into law. While California may not be the pulse of the nation regarding bill passage, it's still just one of fifty. When anti-gun groups saw that they were liable to fail at the federal level, they began focusing more at the local. We've seen this before, and many ended up with draconian laws like the NY SAFE Act. In the current push, even states people considered gun friendly like Florida and Vermont passed feel-good-do-nothing legislation.

Social Shaming

While overt proponents of firearms are used to being shouted at online, businesses don't always take it so well. Retailers like Dicks, who stopped carrying so-called, “assault weapons” years ago made new declarations of not carrying them; nothing new there. However, Citigroup not extending their services to firearms manufacturers is new. Youtube pushing off good content creators is new. And most recently, Governor Cuomo is outright urging banks and insurance companies to not deal with firearms manufacturers.

No doubt more will add to the pile soon. For that PR and virtue signaling.