Blogger and 2nd Amendment Rights Activist Joe Huffman took a trip in the wayback machine to an event from January 2000 when he testified at a King County Board of Health meeting on “Firearms as a Public Health Issue”. The meeting went about as expected, even though his comments did make it onto the radio. But it was this revelation that caught my attention:

At that time many gun rights leaders thought we were just fighting to slow them down as best we could. They didn’t say that in public of course. But in private, when no one was within earshot they would tell the insiders, the people whose loyalty wasn’t in question and asked the right questions. They told me it wasn’t going to be possible to stop them or reverse the tide. We were fighting a lost battle they said. Another 10 years and it would all be over except for the shouting. The courts wouldn’t help us and the 2nd Amendment would just be a vestigial organ that in another 10 or 20 years after that no one really knew what it had ever meant.

They though we were going to lose the war! But look where we are at now – we have 46 states where you can get a concealed weapons permit, 2 more that obey the Consitution, and only 2 left! No, CPL isn’t the end, but it is an indication that the people are on the right side and that they can convince their politicians to do the right thing. I’m not going to be hapy until I see the 2nd Amendment respected in all 50 states (ie. no permit required), but we are making progress in that direction.