I like all the points of discussion and craig's last about clarification seems justified. Tocqueville, Madison and the others weren't activists. They knew not to upset privileged positions. They knew all about amendments---14th and 15th with far more clarity than the 2nd, which has allowed lower jurisdictions to challenge it successfully should they decide to. Trudeau is musing turning federal gun reform from exclusively federal to municipalities.
What surprises me is not hearing much of minorities overturning majorities. I reported here last year that I couldn't find a pulse in shooting organizations about looming gun control, from gun clubs, gun shops, even from my die-hard conservative friends with whom I hunt regularly. In a democratic system, everything should be possible.
Here's an example. Some politically powerful recreationally groups democratically took over our province's Land Resources Coordinating Committee. Legislation permitting access of motor vehicles to all private lands without the owners' permission was at the Queen's Printer. City folk who liked to return home on weekends with mud-splattered vehicles were in heaven. They had more rights than those who paid taxes on their lands. And more votes.
Landowners didn't have to organize for this one. Or petition. Or write letters to legislators who allowed it to happen. It took only a half-dozen phone calls to the right people; first to the Girl Guides and Boy Scouts. "Do you want unannounced leather-jacket crowds at your summer camps?" Then to head of the provincial campgrounds association with similar message, then to the forest community: "Are we letting them run wild in ATVs over our managed lands?"
It took one week at no cost to turn an aroused rural minority into a majority. Government caved; it couldn't stand the heat from urban and rural concerned with social justice. Should the AR lobby want to keep their guns, they need to want them more than those who oppose them. I've seen no sign of it. I'm not getting my knickers in a knot over it.
