I think that the guy I would least like to be in the whole world right now is Al Gore. 300 votes. Whoo. And he has to walk around pretending that this doesn’t bother him, but then, he's good at creating illusions. He should have known better. It's not nice to fool with Mother NRA. It is likely that guns and Elian cost him the presidency.

Win, lose or draw, it’s a tragedy for the American people. Whichever party that takes the White House will have an extremely difficult time creating any kind of consensus to govern. Personally, I’d rather see Bush in the Oval Office, but I would have rather seen him there by a commanding majority rather than by the hair-splitting of political operatives in Florida. The saddest fact of the whole mess is that while the media trumpeted a huge turn-out, barely 50% of the eligible voters in the United States showed up to the polls for this election. There were approximately 95 million votes cast. There are reportedly 80 million gun owners in this country. Did 50 million gun owners vote for Gore? I kind of doubt it. We can therefore guess that approximately half the gun owners in this country didn’t even bother to vote in an election in which their very right to own a gun was in question. We can do better than this, people. We must.

In the long run, there may be a silver lining to this dark cloud above our democracy. No one who has lived through the election of 2000 will ever look at an election in the same way. Our jaded apathy toward the political process has received a stunning dose of shock treatment. Perhaps we will take a hard look at our stupid ballots and voting machines, and how easily a close election can be hijacked by unscrupulous individuals who care only for their own personal power. The next time someone complains that the vote of one citizen doesn’t matter, we will need only point to election 2000. In this light, perhaps our democracy will be made stronger and cleaner. Perhaps we will remember and grow as citizens and free people.

Here in Kentucky, gun rights played a pivotal role in two House races. In the 4th District, Democrat Ken Lucas courageously distanced himself from the Gore machine and even refused to attend the Democratic convention because of his opposition to the Democratic positions on the 2nd Amendment and tobacco. In the 6th District, pro-2nd Republican Ernie Fletcher handily defeated Democrat Scotty Baesler. Independent Gatewood Galbraith, a strong 2nd Amendment proponent, garnered 12% of the vote, leaving Besler with a measly 35% of the vote. This victory was particularly sweet since the political veteran Baesler had campaigned on a gun control platform and had received significant funding from Handgun Control, Inc. and their allies.

Congratulations Ernie, Atta-boy Ken, Honorable Mention to Gatewood and IN YOUR FACE HCI!