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I guess I'm wondering what the alternative to working within the system is. What's the solution to immigration that doesn't rely on controlling the apparatus of the federal government? What's the solution to state's recalcitrance in respecting the right to bear arms other than trying to control the federal government and judiciary? You don't perceive working within the system as being a viable way to achieve your goals, alright, then what is?
Answering this requires understanding the grievance.
Reds oppose illegal immigration for two primary reasons: first, they think Blues are attempting to import an electoral majority, and second, they think the immigrants place additional strain on our social systems, economy, etc.
You can't stop immigrants and their kids from voting against you, but you can minimize the effect by obstructing and undermining the reach of federal law from the state level, as Blues routinely do regarding immigration enforcement and a host of other issues. If the Federal government escalates against this obstruction, there are a variety of mechanisms by which one can escalate back.
Likewise, you can't stop immigrants and their kids from straining social systems in the area they settle in, but you can expedite their travel to Blue strongholds, at which point it's not really your problem any more, is it?
For gun rights, this means following the route of Marijuana legalization: degrade the public's respect for the law and its enforcers, encourage defiance and violation of the statues, undermine all efforts at enforcement, generate a social norm of scorn and shame for anyone who would cooperate with the pigs. Worry less about writing laws, and more about controlling social consensus. Make it clear that this topic is not subject to the democratic process, that it doesn't matter who wins the elections or what laws are passed, and do it on a scale and to a degree that enforcement is simply not worth the effort from the other side. Continue to advance technology that makes the laws completely unenforceable. If they push for it anyway, escalate, and keep escalating till they cave.
Blues have a workable strategy. Copy the elements that can be effectively copied.
Blue Tribe has demonstrated the capacity to defy our system of law when it runs counter to their perceived interests. I am more interested in securing an equivalent capacity for my own tribe, than in securing levers of power that evidently don't actually control outcomes. If given the choice between the capacity to set federal law or defy federal law, I would prefer the later; I am far more interested in not being controlled than I am in controlling others.
And the problem here is that gun rights people are mostly conservatives. You can easily get 12 conservatives on a jury to send a man down on a felony count for having a 15-round magazine in New Jersey, because they're conservatives. From that point of view, even if they think the law is wrong, they think that you don't just violate it, you follow the proper procedures. The fact that all the proper procedures were followed and gun rights were upheld does not matter; if following proper procedures didn't get rid of the law, you need to follow proper procedures some more until the correct result is achieved. If the people in charge aren't following proper procedures, why, you just follow the proper procedures to remove them, but as long as that law is in place you follow it or suffer the consequences. They can't stop thinking that way because the institutions are corrupted, because that would make them not conservatives, and they can't be other than that.
It seems to me that conservatives, in the sense you employ the term, are growing a bit thin on the ground these days. I don't deny that this tendency is an obstacle; my entire point is that this tendency and and should be beaten down, and in fact we are seeing that beating-down process at this very moment.
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