My day at a gun range , well here's the story

[spin]

50. A good percentage of the Republican gun owners were once Democrats. ...

Over the last several decades the Democratic Party has become known as the "gun control party."

At the indoor pistol range I used to shoot at we had a long table in the lobby and on Saturday and Sunday mornings many regular shooters would sit and talk about news, politics, sports and computers. It was always a good humored discussion but the few Democrats did get a lot of razzing.

What surprised me was that many of the Republican gun owners actually agreed with the Democratic Party on a good number of issues but said that they would never vote for any Democrat as they feared it might lead to strong gun control such as another AWB or national gun registration.

The morning gathering was not a bunch of "bubbas" as many who post here will automatically assume but was instead was composed of largely well educated professionals including doctors, lawyers, engineers and technicians. Some of the shooters owned their own businesses. A couple were very wealthy and most upper middle class. Many were ex military or had retired from a career in law enforcement. Some were hunters but far from the majority. The group was largely White but there were some Hispanic and Blacks. A fair percentage had concealed carry licenses and carried on a regular basis.

Militia members were not welcomed and I never heard any talk of a need for a revolution. None of the members seemed overly religious in the least and I suspect that most were either atheists or agnostics although religion was never discussed.

This range was somewhat unusual because of the long discussion table. At most of the gun ranges that I have shot at the shooters come in, shoot and leave. At such ranges I never really knew much about the shooters on the line as there was little opportunity for an interchange.

What I fear is that the recent push for the assault weapons ban may drive even more gun owners to vote Republican. There are an estimated 80,000,000 gun owners in our nation and when you add the voting age members of their families who enjoy shooting, you end up with a LARGE voting block. In states with a high level of gun ownership this may it difficult for a Democrat to hold office or gain it.

In my opinion the push for the new AWB was an overreach and was doomed from the start. Had some politicians and the gun control movement merely proposed universal background checks and some other commonsense improvements to current laws coupled with better enforcement and stronger punishment for those caught engaging in the straw purchase and smuggling of firearms, these measures would have had faced little resistance in Congress and would be law by now. Instead the effort encouraged the sky rocketing sale of firearms of all types and led to gun owners stocking up on ammo in large quantities. The solution to gun violence in our nation is not to increase the number of gun owners and the number of guns in our nation and it is definitely not to cause even more gun owners to vote for Republicans.

Of course I could always be wrong. Perhaps it will be the Republican Party that loses at the local, state and national levels in the midterm election over the gun control issue.

Time will tell.