No, the other crowd wasn't caught off guard, it was already scheduled in their planners. 1) Get reelected, 2) Push all the socialist agenda.
Use your collective memory, the NRA put out the word nearly a year ago - the Dems were being quiet on gun control until after the reelection, then they would pounce. It's no surprise Diane and her staff already had a bill ready to introduce.
If there was anything that was a surprise, it might have been the big reaction from the public. Within hours the panic buying started, and from their, things spread quickly. Once most of the guns and ammo were off the shelf - at least the military oriented stuff, that hit the news cycle, which spread the word even more.
I visited a local militaria collector five days after Sandy Hook, the pile of old beat up M16 magazines he'd had in a box of others were all gone. Virtual junk, they'd been sitting there for years, nearly a decade. His price was simply too high, the sort of thing you see done by collectors or gun show table renters. Not after Sandy Hook.
There's been a much bigger backlash than anticipated, entirely because - here it comes - AR's HAVE BEEN THE BIGGEST SELLING GUNS OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS.
Why? How about 21 million men and women trained in the Armed Forces over the last 40 years? Grandpa buys a Garand from CMP to remember, but you can't get a M14 - it's full auto modifiable. And you can't get an M16 - again, full auto. So, if you are a vet, and you want what the government won't sell surplus to you, what do you do? Buy a civilian made AR15. If you are a young man, and you see for the last ten years - ten years, guys, as long as we were in Viet Nam - what do you see in the news? M16's, M4's, it's the gun to have - not some old fashioned great white hunter bolt action for shooting endangered species.
Some of you reading this might not like the characterization of the guns I describe, but that comes from the guys who won't buy them. All they saw growing up were American Heroes carrying the AR in foreign nations against terrorists, not Stewart Grainger facing down a charging rhino to save an African farmer his livelihood. The harsh reality of modern politics and the heritage of environmentalism has given them a different kind of hero - and what he carries. Let's not forget many are NOT raised with a mom and dad close at hand - these young men are embracing the AR as an important token of their rite of passage into the ranks of men.
I don't think the liberals had a clue. If anything, the AWB was likely as much help in raising a generation of gun owners as any thing we could have sponsored willingly. It gave a platform for ten years of constant focus on what was wrong with it, and why. It created the forbidden fruit, and when it finally came to a sunset, what these new shooters saw was a sunrise - they could buy them.
There haven't been enough on the market yet to keep up. Now their little brothers are buying all they can, too. And now they are being told they have to turn them in, or can't have the standard issue magazines they know are part of the kit, too?
Who's been buying all the CCW permits? I sure wasn't Uncle Fred to carry his Garand around town. It's the same guys again. We are almost at a full 50 state shall issue compliance, with Illinois on the verge of doing it - or being forced to. And we also have flirted with complete reciprocity, which is likely within reach simply based on an appreciation of Constitutional interpretation alone. All that remains is a Senate that isn't anti gun. As time passes, that obstacle is passing away, too. At least 6 Democrat Senators are planning to retire.
No doubt some lame under the table deal could get pulled off - but as we already see in NY state, that is being challenged on a number of legal grounds, less than a month since it's passage. The citizens aren't rolling over as much as some posting about it, that's for sure.
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