Mid-Term Election Results Could Pose Threat to Gun Rights
The U.S. Mid-Term elections were a “Blue Wave” with the Democratic Party taking control of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. The newly-elected Democrats want to make major changes in Federal gun laws and ATF firearms policies (though President Trump retains veto power). In addition, avowedly “anti-gun” Democrats earned more seats in many state legislatures. NRA Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) Executive Director John Commerford issued the following statement in response to Tuesday’s Mid-Term election results:
“[The election] results put progressive majorities in control of Congress and additional state houses across the country, leaving the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans under direct and immediate threat. The NRA is ready to stand and fight in Congress, the courts, and in every state where those rights are at risk. This is not the time to sit idly by and lick our wounds—it’s the time to stand up, engage, organize, and join the fight to protect the Second Amendment. The only way we stop this radical gun-grabbing agenda is if gun owners get activated to defend their rights and work tirelessly to elect pro-gun politicians in 2028.”
From article in NRAILA.org
While the complete picture from the 2026 midterm elections is still emerging, the results, to say the least, were not what gun owners wanted. Anti-gun forces took control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. They will also wield trifecta control of state government in the former pro-gun stronghold of Arizona and even in Wisconsin. The governorships of Georgia and Texas, as well as their respective houses of representatives, may also be poised to flip into anti-gun hands.
Virginia is a good example of what can be expected. Abigail Spanberger ran as a moderate, rarely pressing the issue of firearms. Once elected, however, she presided over the single largest binge of gun control the Old Dominion had ever seen. This included a ban on … the AR-15. It also included a law specifically designed to allow anti-gun activists to sue law-abiding gun industry members for the acts of unaffiliated third-party criminals. None of this was responsive to or necessitated by Virginia-specific problems. Rather it reflected a national agenda driven by a small handful of wealthy and elitist donors and interest groups.
So now, for the first time since 1988, Texas will send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in the person of James Talarico, who openly backs a ban on AR-15s and similar semiautomatic rifles. Likewise, Michigan’s open senate seat went to Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat M.D. who suggested trading in the Second Amendment for a right to universal healthcare and who argued the right to keep and bear arms, if it protects any individual liberty, is limited to muskets.
