I think many of us are losing sight of what these laws are designed to do. Fifty years ago (yes, it's THAT anniversary, too), we could do according to our own consciences (I can remember back that far, at least...). Then, several prominent figures got taken out and our betters recognized (rightly) that sauce for another's goose could just as easily become sauce for their own particular ganders. They decided right then that there was not going to be any more of that, no matter whose rights and Constitution had to go by the wayside. They realized almost immediately that no caring constituent would support such shenanigans, so they needed a scapegoat, and to enlist the gun owners' own innate love for the rule of law against them.
Why do you think the counterculture sprang up and was immediately conscripted to make the very things it was doing unacceptable. The Big Brother they feared emerged from their own ranks. Like all revolutions, theirs got perverted too. Only the people who get out and do get anything at all, and it's usually far different from what they wanted in the first place. Remember, a committee is a creature with many pairs of legs and no head.
What followed all of this was a crapload of measures and prohibitions that even the moderately loopy could see was simply the Emperor's new clothes and a whole lot more of suchlike. It didn't need to make sense, it just needed to confound the gunowners incrementally; and eventually, totally. Never again were they to be a free and strong political force.
Take the SAFE Act. I think the reason it passed so quickly is that they knew it wouldn't stand, and standing wasn't the goal anyway. It was to confound the gunowners, and build 'tough guy' reps for the implementers; the better to build political advancement upon. And who knows, the courts might drop this ball, too...
When I speak of infiltration, I'm taking about ALL the political entities. It really needs to be across the board to be truly effective.
When I speak of subterfuge, I especially do NOT mean anything either overt or felonious. It is enough that those who oppose our rights are uncertain of their power base, and nobody needs to hit them over the braincase to make this happen.
Let me put this gently...
This all happened for myriad reasons, but mostly, because we lost faith in the system and backed clean out of it.
By infiltration, I simply mean for us to get back in, right up to our elbows. Simply put, I'm talking about resuming our rightful place as responsible citizens and political creatures. Can't sit outside and throw stones anymore; gotta get right in there, right into the midst, and make our presence known. I use words like 'Infiltrate', and 'Subterfuge', but what really mean is 'join', and 'participate'; and I do this because folks have become so gun-shy that they're beginning to believe the Banners' own propaganda, so they think that doing things openly will just bring down the retribution of Big Brother on all our heads.
My answer to that is "NO, we are right, you are wrong; and you've been playing fast and loose with our government's power for far too long". The day that saying such becomes actionable, we really WILL need the guns. Stop being circumspect, what we want is what we always had, and what the pointy heads no longer want us to have.
Yes; we lost our faith in government, and it was that abandonment on our part that made this all possible. We're the ones who screwed the pooch, and it's only us who can make this right.
To get our rights back; first we have to take our government back. Make it so the usurpers, banners, and grabbers are the ones who have to keep looking over their shoulders, like those defeated Nazis who had to scatter like roaches. I know of this because one of my Wife's Uncles was an SS Colonel who booked out to Argentina and was never seen or heard from again, even by his own wife and children.
After the Reichstag fire; all of Germany could have (and should have) risen up and driven Hitler and his storm troopers out of the Reich on a rail. But they didn't and tens of millions of people had to die before the same thing could happen. Sure it's risky, all the really good moves usually are.
All we need to do can take place at the polls and in the local party meetings. So we get our butts out there and PARTICIPATE!!!
Screw 'em, it's our government, too. The only ones who are saying different is US! In the political world, if you want something to happen, you need to go in, get your hands dirty, and make it happen all by yourself. Accept the failures and keep your eye on the prize. They do. Nobody will do it for you. So if clean hands are what you want, just remember the other guy is so not so fastidious.
You don't get freedom by talking others into it, you stand up, you take it, you make them stand up and risk their own necks (and not some minion's), to take it away.
You can talk in parables about your frogs and hot water, but we're past that. We're at the 'put the lid on' stage...
I suspect that if the SAFE ACT emerges from the court with any teeth left, New York will be but the first of many unhappy places across our land.
Greg
PS, Well, so much for the courts...