By Dave Workman
Writing Monday at The Outdoor Wire, editor/founder Jim Shepherd made an observation which might be at the heart of what appears to be an exodus of not only business, but law-abiding gun owners, from various states to friendlier environs.
“Both biggies and boutiques are increasingly voting with their feet when facing tax increases, confusing regulatory environments and, yes, an increasing sense of not being welcome,” Shepherd observed.
The statement may say more about the people who already have, are in the process of, or are seriously planning a departure from places including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Washington, California and Oregon.
One Evergreen State native wrote recently on Facebook: “Both of my sons are in Idaho and looking for new digs for me. This, the absurd attempts at restricting firearms and 2A rights in general, and the establishment of a committee empowered to remove elected sheriffs from office is the handwriting on the wall, written in all caps. Without the elimination of mail in ballots, we’re subjects — in the Great Britain sense — and without federal intervention, that’s not going to change.”
Another—an attorney who fled Washington to neighboring Idaho about two years ago—wrote in a message, “We anticipate a huge flood of WA refugees coming here with the income tax and getting rid of elected sheriffs driving people out of WA.”
Both men are/were members of the Washington Arms Collectors (WAC), which used to hold monthly gun shows attracting thousands of firearms enthusiasts. The WAC shows were hammered by the 2020 COVID shutdowns, and passage of legislation requiring a 10-day waiting period on the purchase of any firearms. It is not simply inconvenient to purchase a firearm at a weekend gun show while enduring a ten-day waiting period. Many Washington gun owners believe the extended waiting period was adopted specifically to put weekend gun shows out of business.
Shepherd noted how Smith & Wesson relocated its headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee. This was a few years after Beretta USA relocated its manufacturing operations from Maryland to Tennessee. About seven years ago, Weatherby moved its headquarters from California to Wyoming. At the SHOT Show earlier this year, Montana officials once again made it clear to people in the firearms industry that Big Sky Country is far more pleasant than having to deal with hostile legislatures and governors in eastern states.
It really doesn’t require billboard advertising for Democrats—nicknamed the “Party of Gun Prohibition” these days after being known as the “Party of Gun Control” for decades—to let gun companies and individual gun owners know how low they rate. Support for legislation allowing frivolous lawsuits against gun companies for crimes committed by recidivist criminals (over whom those companies have absolutely no control), rhetoric smearing manufacturers for producing “weapons of war” and passing laws penalizing gun owners for crimes they didn’t commit; it’s all part of the gun ban agenda.
Virginians demonstrated over the weekend at the Capitol in Richmond against legislation now on far-left Democrat Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s desk which will ban so-called “assault rifles” and “large-capacity magazines.” She is expected to sign the bill, a significant change in direction for a state which was far friendlier to gun owners under former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Gun owners in Oregon are still waiting for a ruling from the state Supreme Court on the constitutionality of gun control Measure 114. The Democrat-controlled legislature in Salem has, however, been pushing bills to get around the court, and essentially put in place all of the questionable provisions of M114, anyway.
What it all comes down to is the gradual change of the landscape, from one America to two; one which still fully recognizes the Second Amendment and one which tries to pretend it doesn’t exist. Gun owners trapped in those “blue” states continue fighting and hoping that eventually the Supreme Court will stop kicking the proverbial can down the road and take cases which will determine protections for modern semiautomatic sporting rifles, original capacity magazines, strike down waiting periods, declare unconstitutional laws requiring permits-to-purchase, and assorted other laws which, they contend, both infringe upon and impair the right to keep and bear arms.
