By: Anthony Morelli
Republicans are flaking out on the Second Amendment.
For years they have claimed to be the strongest allies of gun owners.
But one key Republican just endorsed a horrific gun control scheme.
While the Republican Party has generally been better on the gun issue than Democrats, it’s important for gun owners to remember that the Republican Party has one major goal – electing more Republicans.
If the Republican Party thinks that the best way to elect more Republicans is to abandon gun owners and endorse gun control, it won’t hesitate to do that.
Likewise, individual Republicans will sometimes come out in favor of gun control measures, knowing that the party will continue to support them regardless.
That is exactly what happened in New Jersey, where the U.S. Senate nominee Curtis Bashaw took an anti-gun position that is not going to sit well with conservatives.
Bashaw is trying to get elected in a state that leans Democrat, and he’s apparently willing to say whatever it takes for that to happen.
That’s why he decided to endorse a terrible gun control scheme and abandon the gun owners in his state.
According to NorthJersey.com, “Not long after the Sept. 4 mass shooting at a Georgia high school, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Curtis Bashaw called for ‘commonsense reforms we can all agree on’ to curtail gun violence.
“Those included closing gun show loopholes, mandatory background checks and bipartisan legislation to reinstate the ban on bump stocks, devices that effectively convert a semiautomatic rifle into a machine gun.”
Needless to say, these are not “commonsense reforms we can all agree on.” These are measures that curtail the right to bear arms, and in the case of mandatory background checks, threaten to lead to a national gun registry.
Bashaw is posturing in the hopes that the liberal media in his state will look kindly on him and won’t attack him during his campaign. He is almost certainly mistaken.
The article continues, “Bashaw’s call for commonsense gun laws puts him close to the moderate middle in New Jersey, home to some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. New Jersey also led the nation back in the 1990s when it passed its own ban on semiautomatic, assault-style weapons. New Jersey is one of only nine states that outlaw these weapons, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a prominent gun control group.”
The “moderate middle” for New Jersey is left-wing for the majority of America. The fact that New Jersey already has such strict gun laws makes it a real head-scratcher that Bashaw wants more gun laws, whether federally or at the state level.
The gun laws in New Jersey have not stopped crime from taking place. On average there are 439 gun deaths in New Jersey every year, according to EveryStat.com.
Gun control hasn’t worked in New Jersey, or in any other state. There’s no reason to think it would work on a federal level either. And Curtis Bashaw taking this position won’t help him become a senator.