[Billthedrill]

Thanks for the ping. I'll be watching this one. The NRA is, after all, a DC-based lobbying organization and a very skillful one. There is a somewhat mercenary aspect to this; a professional lobbyist serves the client quite outside any personal beliefs, at least in theory. Results count.

Nevertheless, the latitude for compromise that goes with the job Keene has taken is fairly wide, and within that a single, seemingly harmless compromise such as the 1968 bill can open the door to disaster. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

[EternalVigilance]

"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The hand entrusted with power becomes…the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity."

- Wendell PHILLIPS, January 28, 1852