Midterms Fairly Good For TAKIN' ALL YR GUNS

Gun Sense spending way up, NRA spending WAY down.

With all the Trumpfuckery clouding every single aspect of the midterms, it would be easy to overlook any single issue that isn't the suddenly-vanished (maybe, for a day) existential threat posed by some terrifying Central American families fleeing for their lives. But hey, turns out the midterm outcomes showed definite gains for candidates calling for saner gun laws. Maybe the USA won't be turning into a liberty-free hellscape like Australia, which went from 1996 to 2018 without any mass shootings. But there's definitely hope for saner gun policy, starting with Tuesday's election results.

Seems like some sanity might be in order, since we drafted this story yesterday afternoon and now we're all waking up to yet another massacre, this time in Thousand Oaks, California, where Wednesday night a previously responsible gun owner shot and killed 12 people, including a sheriff's sergeant, at a nightclub full of college students. Time for thoughts and prayers and doing nothing more, we guess.

In 2018, the National Rifle Association, having blown a load of its own and Russia's money (allegedly) getting Donald Trump elected in 2016, spent less than half as much to support candidates than it did in the 2014 midterms. Spending and campaigning by gun-sanity groups was, by contrast, up considerably from previous years, outspending the NRA in a bunch of races:

YOU DID THIS: For the first time EVER, gun safety groups like @Everytown are outspending the @NRA, and @MomsDemand… https://t.co/CIikUJ3xv2

— Shannon Watts (@Shannon Watts) 1541516965.0 

Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action issued a press release Wednesday calling the midterms pretty darn good, announcing, "Of the 110 Everytown-supported races that have been called so far, nearly 80 percent of candidates have won." A few f'rinstances:

In Virginia, Sen. Tim Kaine easily held his seat against neo-Confederate idiot Corey Stewart, and Everytown-endorsed Jennifer Wexton flipped the seat that had been held by GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock. Not just any seat, that -- the Virginia 10th is home to NRA headquarters, so if anyone were to drop by and moon Wayne LaPierre and Oliver North, we would not object. Other Virginia congressional districts also went to gun sense candidates: Elaine Luria (US House District 2), Abigail Spanberger (District 7) and Don Beyer (District 8).

Another very big win: In Colorado Congressional District 6, Republican incumbent Mike Coffman, who had an "A" rating from the NRA, lost to Democrat Jason Crow in one of the nation's spendiest congressional races. Crow, an Army Ranger veteran, was a first-time candidate but managed to get an "F" rating from the NRA even without holding office, an achievement we hope he'll continue to uphold once he's in Congress.

And in Georgia, Lucy McBath, who went into politics after the 2012 "stand your ground" murder of her son, Jordan Davis, was finally projected to win her race against incumbent Republican Karen Handel. (Handel conceded this morning!) Handel had an "A" rating and an endorsement from the NRA, while McBath had the moral high ground and over $4 million in support from gun reform groups.

The good guys didn't win everywhere. In Florida, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teens who inspired nationwide demonstrations were disappointed by a lot of the local races. NRA toady Ron DeSantis will succeed Rick Scott as governor, and several Parkland kids said they feared he might even undo some of the very modest gun reforms Voldemort BatBoy had signed into law earlier this year. As for the state's US Senate race, incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson, down by less than half a percentage point against Scott, called for a recount, so kids, don't give up the ship yet.

But back to good news: in the only gun reform ballot initiative in the country, Washington voters passed a measure to raise the age necessary to purchase semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21. And more!

The measure also creates an enhanced background check, training requirements, and a waiting period of 10 business days for the purchase of such guns. And it enacts a new storage law that requires gun owners to secure their firearms, or risk criminal penalties.

With the Senate still in Republican hands and the NRA's One True Dipshit in the White House for another two years, a Democratic-led House won't be passing any gun reform legislation all on its own, a fact reflected by lower stock prices for gun companies the day after the election -- the gun humpers just aren't worried about anyone seizing their precious boomsticks, which is bad for the fear business. But all told, this election was a very welcome step in the direction of reform. Shouldn't be long before the NRA is all scared about Jews and browns all over again -- as if they needed a reason.

[ Everytown/Moms Demand / The Trace / Fox News / Denver Post / CNN / Guardian / Vox / NBC News ]

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