By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
If there is an “October surprise” during this year’s election season, it just might have something to do with firearms, because gun-related stories have popped up all over the map.
The Boston Globe is reporting about looming legal actions involving charges against non-residents who bring firearms into the state without a Massachusetts license, which is a felony.
Slate is previewing upcoming oral arguments in the case of Garland v. VanDerStok, which the publication describes as “a case with life-and-death implications for gun violence in the United States.” This is the case challenging the “final rule” regarding frames and receivers in the Biden administration’s effort to crack down on so-called “ghost guns.”
Guns get the international treatment from The Times, the United Kingdom’s oldest newspaper, which talks about the Sandy Hook massacre of school children in December 2012, focusing on a survivor—now 18 years old—who will vote for the first time next month and gun control is apparently driving her and her young contemporaries to vote for gun control candidates.
The story mentions David Hogg, the spotlight-grabbing former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. He has become an outspoken gun control advocate, and according to The Times, he hopes to see “a repeat of the 2022 midterm elections, where a large share of Gen Z’s 40 million voters rewarded Democrats and helped stave off the “red wave” in Congress that many pollsters were predicting.”
It is this latter revelation about which U.S. gun owners cannot be complacent. There are once again forecasts of a “red wave” to sweep Donald Trump back into office and bring an end to four disastrous years of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration.
Hogg noted to the newspaper that there is a “backlash” against Republicans not only on guns, but on the abortion issue. Democrats have definitely focused on abortion, since they can hardly run on the economy or international affairs.
But gun rights versus gun control is a major issue because it is an emotional issue, and the Left is very good at campaigning on emotions. Just ignore the Boeing workers’ strike in Washington, and pretend the dock workers’ strike on the East and Gulf coasts isn’t happening, since neither can be blamed on the previous administration, at least, not yet.
According to the Boston Globe, the legal problem now being considered by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court involves New Hampshire residents who traveled into the Bay State with their guns. New Hampshire residents can carry sidearms openly or concealed without a license in their home state. Residents of neighboring Vermont can do likewise, but it’s New Hampshire residents who are now in legal trouble. As noted by the Boston Globe, New Hampshire gun owners are “anxiously waiting for Massachusetts’ high court to decide whether out-of-state visitors can be charged with unlawfully carrying firearms when they can legally possess the same guns back home.”
Compounding the problem, the Globe noted, “While many states recognize other states’ firearms licenses, Massachusetts does not.”
The same dilemma is faced in other states, including New York, New Jersey, California and Oregon, which do not recognize gun carry licenses issued in other states. By some estimates, more than 21 million Americans are licensed to carry.
By no small coincidence, the November election pits Harris, an avowed anti-gunner despite her personal gun ownership, against Trump, who has been a welcome guest at National Rifle Association conventions but—at least for the moment—cannot legally own or possess a gun because of his felony convictions in New York earlier this year.
If anything may stir gun owners to shed their traditional lethargy as voters, it is the prospect their Second Amendment rights could be irreversibly eroded over the next four years if Harris wins.
