I know what you're thinking: of course they'd be easy to pass in very "blue" Oregon. But that wasn't necessarily going to be the case. The liberal/conservative divide in my state not as one-sided as people think: rural Oregon and most of the larger towns/small cities are pretty conservative. Moreover, because this is the West, a lot of Democrats and other liberals are gun owners (like me).
Yet UBCs turned out to be surprisingly easy to enact...and I'm proud to have worked on the effort. I even wore my "Gun Owner for Background Checks" t-shirt to a gun show. No, seriously...I did. 
Got a surprisingly positive response, and those who disagreed were quite polite about it and some good conversation ensued. I'd have probably gotten more guff if I were a guy, I suspect (despite me not exactly filling out the shirt very impressively...). =P
I do, however, think that it's very speculative to state that successes with UBCs indicate that gun control in general isn't a losing issue for Democrats. UBCs and some other proposals meet with significant levels of gun owner approval...but a pretty wide range of other such proposals emphatically do not. It remains dangerous ground for Democratic candidates.
Edit history
Recommendations
0 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):
= new reply since forum marked as read