"Tactical retreat" is exactly what Reid did. There is no "this bill is better than that bill". They asked for everything they could, and if they wind up with half of what they ask for, it's still a gain for them, and a loss for us.
We cannot ever let up, or let our guard down. Sure, this is good news. Winning a battle in a war is always good, but remember that the war is not over, and all we've really been doing lately is performing a 'holding action', trying to preserve what we have, let alone take back what we've lost.
We have to keep pressure up on our policitians. The anti's keep talking about a 'sea change' about 'guns'. I believe the sea change is truly in the opposite direction of what they believe. And it's not about 'guns' per se, it's about our rights, and personal responsibility, and how we don't want those things taken away.
I don't think they expected the wave of backlash that we generated. Even though they controlled the mass media, the internet and it's tools allowed us to push back very hard. Whether it's flooding politicians inboxes, to hitting polls, to bringing other 'fresh faces' to the forefront (ie: Colion Noir, Star Parker...). Those two didn't hit the mass media, because of course, the mass media is biased, but I guarantee that many people have watched them on the internet, and that MUST have an effect on attitudes.
When I would read some related story on Yahoo or something, with an obvious anti bias, I read the comments, and an overwhelming number of them are against that very article. That's a real 'sea change'.
Of course, tragedies happen, and the anti's will jump on every opportunity to capitalize on them. We must keep up the pressure, because they certainly will do so. Make no mistake, if the votes were there in the Senate, this stuff would be passed. We have to continue to make sure those votes don't exist. We have to make sure this junk doesn't even make it out of committee, if we can. We have to continue to fight this stuff on all fronts, because they will never stop pushing it.
Wouldn't it be great if we could gain back the ground that we've lost, incrementally, since the early 1900's?