U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- For victorious Virginia gun owners, “payback” is the dish best enjoyed on the morning after handing anti-gun Democrats a devastating defeat, providing critical votes to elect Republican Glenn Youngkin as their next governor, along with Winsome Sears as lieutenant governor and Jason Miyares as the next attorney general.
It was a race most pundits expected former Gov. Terry McAuliffe to win.
Topping that off, Republicans have apparently narrowly recaptured the House of Delegates in Richmond, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. This could open the door to a rollback of extremist gun control policies adopted by Democrats and anti-gun Gov. Ralph Northam in 2020. More than 20,000 Second Amendment activists descended on the capitol in January of last year, but Democrats—having captured the majority in November 2019 due to a dismal voter turnout that year—essentially ignored them and pushed through the changes.
Sears is the first Black woman to win a statewide race. A Marine Corps veteran, Sears previously served in the House of Delegates. Born in Jamaica, she emigrated to the U.S. as a child and grew up in The Bronx, New York. Sears famously posed for a photograph while holding a semi-automatic modern sporting rifle.
As noted by the National Review, Tuesday’s election brought a crushing halt to eight years of Democratic rule in the governor’s office.
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms released a statement observing, “Virginians made their choices loud and clear Tuesday, and we are optimistic the incoming governor will exercise good judgment and common sense where gun ban zealotry and social prejudice against gun owners have guided the agenda for the past four years.”
“We are hopeful the new leadership will quickly reverse the extremist policies adopted by the previous radical Democrat administration,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “If Republicans capture the Assembly, as it appears they have, they should move immediately in January to repeal Northam’s one-handgun-per-month law, and restore state preemption for gun law uniformity across the Commonwealth.”
Gottlieb said the election outcome “gave every gun owner in America a reason to be excited about the upcoming 2022 midterm elections.”
The huge voter turnout also signals a return of citizen interest in elections, which was woefully absent in 2019 when only about 40 percent of Virginia’s registered voters turned out, allowing Democrats to win. Any impression gun owners might be apathetic ended Tuesday with big voter turnouts reported across the state, including districts thought to be dominated by Democrats.
Prior to the election, anti-gun Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris suggested the Virginia election would amount to a referendum on the Biden administration, which holds office just across the Potomac River from the Old Dominion. In the aftermath, Democrats and liberal pundits seem to blame Virginia parents, suggesting racism played a role in their voting, choosing to deflect public attention that it was such a referendum after all.
But Democrats awakened Commonwealth gun owners when they pushed through a one-handgun-per-month purchasing limit, so-called “universal background checks,” and gutted state preemption allowing local governments to adopt their own gun control restrictions. Republicans now have an opportunity to reverse those actions.
The election outcome also demonstrates how appearances by party leaders, including Biden, Harris and Barack Obama was not a winning strategy for McAuliffe. A majority of Virginians just sent a message to all of them that their policies no longer pass the smell test, even in such close proximity to the nation’s capital.
It also signaled that running a campaign against Donald Trump is a scheme that has outlived its usefulness. Terry McAuliffe continually tried to portray the Virginia campaign as opposing Trump policies, and he more frequently mentioned the former president than he did Youngkin as his actual opponent until the final days of the campaign.
There is one other thing. Youngkin is a Virginia native, McAuliffe is not, and he also had a record from his previous stint as governor. A majority of Virginians have memories about those days four years ago. They evidently did not want a rerun, and they were particularly miffed when McAuliffe contended they had no business involving themselves in what local school districts teach their children. It is bad enough to infuriate Second Amendment voters, but when you combine that with a swipe at parents, who also happen to be taxpayers and voters, you are leading with the chin, as McAuliffe found out.
Scores of Virginia communities and counties, beginning in early spring 2020, became “Second Amendment sanctuaries” but McAuliffe and other Democrats chose to ignore the symbolic message those communities were sending. Virginia gun owners decided they would not sit out another election, and when parents became involved, it became a losing combination for McAuliffe, Attorney General Mark Herring and their Democrat cronies.
Meanwhile, the governor’s race in New Jersey remained too close to call Wednesday morning, with incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy and Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli locked in a neck-and-neck race to the finish. Ciattarelli early Wednesday had a razor-thin lead over Murphy, and if he wins, it would be a double-whammy to Democrats nationwide and the Biden administration for allowing then party to stampede too far to the left. It would also bolster predictions that the 2022 midterm elections could be a repeat of 1994, when Republicans took over Capitol Hill and essentially made Bill Clinton a lame duck for the next six years, even though he was re-elected in 1996. Congress remained under GOP control as George W. Bush moved into the White House in 2001.
Depending upon the vote outcome in New Jersey, there will almost certainly be a recount.
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About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
