The ship left the dock and you stood there with your eyes closed until it was out of sight. With all due respect you're an example of what's wrong with ALL of the over 40 crowd of gun owners. After all they're the ones who laid down for this $h1t 55 years ago so why expect them to be part of the solution today!
The baby boomer generations are also known as the "slave generation." Raised in the post-WW2 world to do exactly as directed by "the man." Grow up, get a job, do as you're told, put your head down and collect your pension. The slave generation sat by and said nothing as the 1968 GCA was enacted. They stood silent for the original AWB and mag ban. The SG has basically let the politicians steal 90% of the 2A all because that retirement check meant more than their 2A freedom! Oh, they didn't just give up 2A rights, no they gave up plenty of 1A, 4A, 5A, 8A, and 14A rights being good little citizens and now presume to be PROUD of having handed over the keys to the ever-encroaching government!
When I see American CITIZENS, both men and women, standing PROUD with an AR draped over their shoulder and a tac-vest with magazines I'm ENCOURAGED that perhaps, the country WE sold down the river by NOT standing up in 1968, or 1984, or as each of these draconian anti-2A laws was passed, has risen up and will not "go gently into that goodnight!"
It was the gun grabber's overreach that targeted the AR15 to the point where every social miscreant knows exactly what rifle to obtain before going on a shooting spree! The media and the gun grabbers - with the WILLING and EAGER support of citizens who "didn't care" about ARs have spent decades vilifying the rifle to such exclusion that NO spree shootings today are carried out with any other form of rifle! Thank you Baby Boomers!
And now, the baby boomer is "insulted" to see young men and women on the street, openingly showing support for gun rights...not just gun rights, but AR15 rights!
Perhaps had the government spent the last 50 years insuring everyone had a nice, cushy pension and guaranteed, well-paying job, the "slave generation" would have continued, but instead, the military industrial complex got GREEDY, and the politicians focused more on funneling CASH into their own hidden accounts than worrying about a sleeping populace, so now we have the generations left to make it any way they can...and the first thing they're NOT going to do is become wage-slaves for the man - which baby boomers just hate, and the second thing they're GOING to do is turn out in the street and express their opinion on a country that spends over a trillion dollars a year on military contracts, while the roads, bridges, dams, and power transfer stations crumble, and they'll leave the schools UNHARDENED to make it easy to play politics with spree killers...all while demanding law-abiding citizens just line up like the SHEEPLE of 1945-1970 and hand over the guns! Only, those people aren't running things any more! And thank God for it!
A few points in response to your….commentary.
1. I was three and a half when GCA ‘68 was enacted, so yeah, it’s all my fault. I am almost literally the last baby boomer, and yet in 1968 the oldest baby boomer was only 22 years of age. Baby boomers were a small minority and I’m highly confident there wasn’t a single one in the US house or senate in 1968.
A known fact is that S&W, Colt, and other hand gun and to a lesser extent rifle manufacturers were big proponents of GCA ‘68 and actually drafted and lobbied much of the language around the handgun restrictions in order to cut out much of the foreign competition.
Again, the folks leading that charge, as well as the politicians who voted it in, and the voters who left them in office afterwords were all “greatest generation”. Does the generation that did it change anything or mean anything? No it doesn’t.
Your being off an entire generation in your accusation does. Try to stick with facts rather than emotion.
2. I was thirty when the AWB of 1994 passed and I watched as the NRA through us under the bus in exchange for vague promises for guaranteed hunting access on public lands. They haven’t seen a dime of my money since.
I also would not have voted for any of my senators of representatives that voted for it, except none of them did. Don’t blame my home state.
3. The AWB of 1994 was strongly promoted and lobbied for by a former president who is still mistakenly regarded as a saint and a pro gun advocate when he clearly was not, either as governor or president. He also signed the Hughes Amendment to the AOPA even though it was inserted at the 11th hour with no debate on the floor.
4. We currently have folks in leadership positions who say things like “I did it one and I can do it again”. I think they are mistaken and have certainly forgotten that when the AWB of 1994 was passed, the house and senate, both held by the same party almost continuously since the Great Depression both flipped in the 1996 elections and left the other party in control of both houses for most of the next 25 years.
That isn’t indicative of people who are willing and eager to support folks who didn’t care about ARs.
5. I do agree with you about greed and what’s happened since. In the first election after the 1929 crash, the house and senate flipped when the American people demanded progressive legislation to rein in the politicians and business leaders who drove us over the financial cliff in 1929 due to greed and totally unrestrained capitalism. What resulted was 60 years of progressive legislation with with greater investment and financial guard rails, a much more robust social safety net and an economy with a much greater focus on jobs and livable family sustaining wages. That was something the great depression raised “greatest generation” saw as important.
Not surprisingly, as things improved for the middle class and poverty rates declined, it led to a long slow decline in crime rates and in particular violent crime rates. That reached an inflection point about a decade after the AWB. That didn’t happen as the ban expired. It happened because of the flipped congress in 1996, after which those safety nets and jobs based economics were replaced by greed and removal of regulation on investment and consequences for moving jobs and profits offshore.
Life got worse for the average person and in particular for the class of working poor that was created. And crime rates went up.
Both sides are at fault as one only sees guns as the problem and the other only sees unrestrained capitalism and government bail outs for the banking, housing, and investment crashes their short term focus creates as the priority.
And yet we vote for them. We get the government we deserve and they stay in power because they get way to many people stirred up with emotional arguments and divide and conquer by telling one group the other group wants to take their rights away from them, while sticking it to both.
So please re-direct your righteous anger at the real target.
