Gun rights and gun laws are a darn effective barometer about life, politics, a state environment, mentality, etc. Anti-gun states tend to breed the same type of people, and those aren't my 'kind' of people. So living there is more than just gun rights, it's attitude. And consider this, these are your future jury of 'peers' if you ever did have to use a gun in self defense and were arrested/prosecuted. Would you rather have a jury of average New Yorkers or Texans when it comes to self defense with a scary looking gun?
What's more important to someone... a job, moving the family, pleasant or particular weather or a 'scene,' or exercising an important fundamental right?
I choose exercising a right over nearly anything else.
True story. I could have stayed in the military and was nearly 1/2 way to retirement. The 'hard' years were seemingly behind me.
Yet looking ahead, I saw doom and gloom in my future in the military. First of all, forget easy gun possession on base, and a total ban on any form of concealed carry. That effectively disarms a person for his travel to and from base, and all day on base, and any official travel. Also, the future holds assignments almost certainly in Washington DC, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Maryland, etc.
I would have to effectively abandon most or all of my gun collection, and register the remaining collection were I to bring it, for probably 1/2 of the next decade... (a decade in which I think we will see serious societal turmoil).
So, where would I store all of my stuff? How? At what cost?
I made a huge life decision to leave the military because it is basically like living in an oppressive NY, CA, DC, etc... A state, or an employer, that doesn't trust me with a firearm is nothing I'm wanting to be associated with any longer.
We have the amazing freedom of firearm ownership... why would ANYONE not want to live somewhere they can exercise it... I don't care how nice the weather in CA is or the 'history' in Boston, or the east coast, etc... no thanks.
I'll take my freedom over that any day.
BTW, I was worried that WA state would be oppressive, but it's amazingly a very pro-gun state. Easy and cheap concealed carry, face to face sales okay, SBRs, Suppressors, no magazine restrictions, no registration, few silly gun rules to speak of (a 5 day handgun wait on FFL purchases if you don't have a CPL - which while stupid is meaningless because you can buy a handgun FTF through the classifieds easier and cheaper, and if you have a CPL there is no wait at an FFL).
I had thought I would move from here after leaving the military, but I'd say it's among the best states for gun rights I've ever lived in.
Regarding sticking around in a hopeless state to try to fight the political fight, like NY or NJ or CA... it's always an option, but do you want to spend the next decade, or two, or three, disarmed and hassled as a gun owner when there ARE greener pastures...? It's a tough question. Sure someone has to do it... but my attitude is that some of those areas will only learn by being a 'crash and burn' example for the rest of the nation to see and hopefully learn from.
You can argue until you're out of breath with an anti-gun person, but until they SEE their failed policies they won't agree. So some of these places just need to go through the growing pains of electing these idiots, implementing their useless policies, oppressing the serfs, and watching crime soar. That is the best teacher. I suppose it boils down to whether a person wants to be a martyr or simply live his/her life in harmony, happiness and armed peace.
And what does a pro-gun person accomplish living in a hopelessly anti-gun state anyway? I'd suggest very little. A single vote in a sea of opposition. Meanwhile, a person is paying 40-50% of their income in tax revenue to the very officials and bureaucrats and police forces and judges that are oppressing the 2A. So a person living there is paying to oppress himself, and suffering the consequences. No thanks.
Take Houston and Chicago. Equal size cities, with similar demographics. Houston is pro gun and relatively safe, while Chicago is anti-gun and a war zone. I don't see how staying in Chicago would change anything, other than making a pro-gun person miserable and defenseless.
So, hopefully, other cities look to this and don't want to be Chicago. That lesson of failure of gun laws does more than all the talking on the subject combined.
I learned that you have to pick your battles wisely. Sticking around on a sinking ship like those anti-gun locations is not how I'd want to spend my days, angry and defenseless.
But as we've seen with many huge changes in various causes, HUGE swings can take place in just a decade or two... so the nation can look totally different with public opinion in just 5, 10, 15, 20 years. Abortion, Gay Rights, Gun Rights (like concealed carry, AWB, etc.).
Here's a political map from the 1984 election, just 30 years ago.
