The election was a great night for Republicans but a terrible one for gun rights.

Guns bought in a buyback in LA. IBT/Reuters

As you all know by now, last night was almost a complete victory for Republicans. The party gained control of enough Senate seats to control it, picked up and defended several governors offices (including my state) and  increased control of the House by several seats. In theory this would be a great day for gun rights supporters because the Republican party tends to support gun rights. Unfortunately, in one state the rights of the people to keep an bare arms was viciously attacked by a voter referendum. 

I am of course referring to Washington State. I do not live in Washington, and I have never been there so I can't begin to under stand how the anti-gun Washington Initiative 594 passed and how the pro-gun Washington Initiative 591 failed. Initiative 594 bans all sales of private firearms unless they go through a background check. The only exceptions would be for inheritances, transfers between family members and for antique guns. As always this is a dirty trick by anti-gun advocates. The wording of ballot initiative, restates the classic lie that there is a "gun show loophole" and that guns can be bought online without a background check. Neither of those things are true. 

So why did it pass? I have a few theories...

1. Voters didn't understand the implications of the bill or thought that the "gun show loophole" existed. This is plausible I guess. People rarely seem to research these initiatives, so it is very possible that they just didn't understand.

2. The recent school shooting in a Washington High School could have had a major effect. How background checks would have stopped a shooting where the gun was stolen is beyond me, but people tend to react emotionally to these shootings despite the fact that they are incredibly uncommon. 

3. Gun rights groups were just outspent. According to this IBT article, pro-gun groups were vastly outspent. 594 managed to get 11.2 million dollars in funding will the pro-gun 591 was only able to raise 1.4 million dollars. The discrepancy is huge and is due in large part to massive donations by billionaires like Bill Gates and famous enemy to all freedoms, Michael Bloomberg. 

Of the three options only the last one scares me. If people are being influenced by terribly misleading adds paid for by millionaires then how can we possibly fight that?  Bloomberg alone has more money then any lobbying group. He's worth $33 billion, and that goes a long way to buy influence. I hate to be pessimistic about things because it's clear that the country is changing course and is tilting right, which is good news for gun owners, but I just can't believe this passed.

 I also can't believe that Governor Hickenlooper is still in the running in Colorado. As of right now that race is too close to call despite the fact that he supported massive draconian gun control laws in Colorado that led to the ouster of a couple of state legislators. If things were right in the world he would be blown out by his Republican challenger on the issue of gun rights alone, but we don't live in a sane world. 

Perhaps I am being to pessimistic but I really am upset that 594 passed. It seemed for a while there that gun control was dead in all but the bluest of blue states. Washington is admittedly very blue but I thought that this wouldn't happen. At least my state is safe from any new gun restrictions, and national gun control isn't going to happen for at least another two years, but who knows what happens after that? 

I know that this is more then a rant then a traditional blog post, but what can I say? I'm very disappointed with the people of Washington now and the state of the American Republic.