Alphecca

Aside from the fact that referenda generally usher in unintended consequences, and that thay are also vulnerable to court challenges... I'd much rather see this issue dealt with via the established democratic process.

And I speak as a resident of Washington, which has gone referendum crazy the past several years. Such measures are often feel good responses that produce incomplete results.

The biggest mistake in American history was Univeral Suffrage.

Despite the coastal transplants, I think that the referendum would easily pass in Arizona, a state where open carry is both legal and practiced.

However, I can see the point in the NRA not wanting to spend money on a referendum when it could use the money more profitably elsewhere.

Nothing ventured, Nothing gained. You either trust people to act like adults or you take away their rights and treat them like children. I say if we in Arizona are stupid enough to give up our rights then let it be. I trust my neighbors with a gun, I trust them with a vote. I always use my wife as a good indication of what the general public/soccer mom/democrat would do (she never listens to me about politics so she is relatively outside my republicanism.) She was reading about disaster preparations that you are suppose to have on hand (I think it was in her "O" magazine) and said to me off hand "We need to stock more water, Hey they forgot to put the gun in this list."
A campaign would be easy. One tv spot, that shows New Orleans and how people protected their land and loved ones with guns. I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard to find interviewees. Then you could just show some file footage of Mayor announcing that they where going to disarm everyone because the cops were too scared to go into the city. How much would that cost? No need to over play it. Just run it once a night during the nightly news to hit the old people and once during Oprah, for all the scared woman that want protection and know the gov’t is incompetent.