If this were 1960 maybe they would have a shot at taking peoples guns, but now, it's mainstream to own guns. The preacher, teacher, doctor everyone , has a gun. They aren't about to give them back, and the Govt, couldn't possibly even buy them back "not that it would happen", but seriously people paid tens of thousands of dollars "in some cases" for these articles, you can't just steal their property.
They saw the resistance they met with the Assault rifle nonsense, do you think, that they think, that they could pull this off. There would be a revolution for sure.
They don't have to confiscate them. All they have to do is make them illegal, and we would have a bunch of 'uncaught felons'. Eventually, either people would turn theirs in, or hide them. Either way, the antis won. We barely won (on a federal level) over the last year and a half. If there hadn't been a narrow majority of republicans in the House, coupled with some pro gun Dems in the Senate (who realized that what they proposed in the Senate would have never made it through the House anyway), we would certainly be dealing with a much worse reality.
I certainly agree with your thoughts about the will of the people, and that, along with increased NRA membership, and people with a public voice (Colion Noir, Star Parker, forums such as this one, etc), along with our calls, emails, and letters to politicians, made sure the House republicans (not even all of them) acted in accordance with our rights, but if there wasn't a pro 2a majority in the House, we would have been done. I forget which committee has overview for gun legislation, but the chairman of that committee, since there was a republican house majority, was a pro 2a republican. Since the House had a republican majority, that translated to that particular committee (7 repubs and 6 dems, I believe) having a republican majority as well. That translated to no 'anti' bills even making it out of the committee, let alone getting a vote on the floor and to the presidents desk. And on the Senate side, with its democratic majority, they could have passed whatever they wanted, but it still had to go through the House. That's what saved us.
These upcoming fall midterm elections are extremely important for us. We HAVE to ensure that we have pro 2a senators and representatives in Congress. That's where the real power lies. Despite all the crowing from the antis about how dysfunctional our government is, this was actually a classic case of our government's checks and balances. And that worked to save our rights this past go-round.
This was not meant to say that all republicans are pro2a, and that all Dems are anti. I just wanted to lay out the political landscape of the (current) time.
I had an Australian friend at work that always said "That'd never happen in Australia" whenever the latest and greatest gun-control law would be enacted here, to my eternal rage. After Australia crashed, I asked him what he thought about it. Not much to say.
That's exactly right. It CAN happen here in the U.S. History has proven that time and time again. We have to keep fighting.