David Codrea:

“We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. . . . [W]e’ll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. . . . The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal.  — Richard Harris, A Reporter at Large: Handguns, New Yorker, July 26, 1976, at 53, 58 (quoting Pete Shields, founder of Handgun Control, Inc.)…”

It’s what they want, it’s part of who they are.  This is from a write at Daily Kos, cited by me over four years ago.

The only way we can truly be safe and prevent further gun violence is to ban civilian ownership of all guns. That means everything. No pistols, no revolvers, no semiautomatic or automatic rifles. No bolt action. No breaking actions or falling blocks. Nothing. This is the only thing that we can possibly do to keep our children safe from both mass murder and common street violence.

Unfortunately, right now we can’t. The political will is there, but the institutions are not. Honestly, this is a good thing. If we passed a law tomorrow banning all firearms, we would have massive noncompliance. What we need to do is establish the regulatory and informational institutions first. This is how we do it.  The very first thing we need is national registry. We need to know where the guns are, and who has them.

Which is why we opposed universal background checks.  It’s easy to say, “Come and get my guns when you’re feeling froggy.  I’m waiting.”

It’s another thing entirely to work hard to oppose the incremental changes the progressives want to make.  But incrementalism is their game, a game they’ve played successfully for a very long time.  We need to be better at our game, and adopting incrementalism ourselves would mean supporting removal of suppressors from the NFA items list, even if the NFA is left basically intact.  We would like to dismantle the NFA, but the absence of that doesn’t mean we can’t support incremental changes that make things better.

However, it doesn’t mean we have to support things like national reciprocity if that means we give the FedGov power over permitting, training requirements, or national lists of any kind.  We have to be smart about this.