Groups on both sides of the gun debate describe themselves as nonpartisan, but the truth is that guns tend to be a pretty partisan issue. Democrats have been very hostile toward gun ownership for decades now, and while there have been the odd outliers who are pro-gun Democrats, as well as anti-gun Republicans, the trends are what they are and everyone knows it.

Further, there have been plenty of polls telling Democrats that their position on the issue is the popular one.

Yet it's hard to notice how little that helped in this year's election. Vice President Kamala Harris walked back her own anti-gun rhetoric as she entered the race, for one thing. For another, she lost, so it clearly didn't help.

Now, we've got a lot of people who would normally avoid guns walking into gun stores.

A while back, an elderly lady popped into the Cape Gun Works in Hyannis — a school lunch lady, it turned out.  “I don't like guns,” she said. “How do I get one?” Looking for answers to this and other questions, I went to visit Toby Leary, the owner and president of Cape Gun Works. If you're thinking of purchasing a firearm around here, this would be the place to do it. They also have the only public indoor gun shooting range in southeast New England.

Liberals like me talk about guns, but this was my first conversation with somebody who actually knows a lot about them. We need to have more conversations like this.

That's actually a good thing. They should talk about guns with people who actually know about guns. It's also interesting that he acknowledges that he talks about guns without knowing what he's talking about.

But, let's not get too excited. There's a lot of leftist indoctrination still at work here.

When I was a boy, lots of kids learned to shoot through the Boy Scouts. They could take gun safety courses through the NRA, which had not yet reinvented itself as a lobby for gun manufacturers. That's how Toby got into the sport, as a Boy Scout. If you want to take a gun safety course today, they have a variety of classes offered at the Gun Works.

Now, talking about gun education is a good thing, but look at what he says about the NRA. You could take a class. Past tense.

The thing is, you still can. The NRA certifies hundreds of new instructors who teach basic firearms safety courses each month throughout the nation. While there is testing involved, none of it involves political litmus testing or anything like that. Those courses are still around. So are things like the Eddie Eagle firearm safety program for kids, which works.

What happened is that the author has been told that the NRA is just beholden to firearm manufacturers, when it's not. In fact, it's a little too soft for some gun makers. However, if you tend to focus on what anti-gun folks say, you're not likely to know that.

Then, of course, we have this:

“Some people shouldn't buy guns,” said Toby … “temper, judgment.”  But gun ownership is a constitutional right. Here in Massachusetts, there is a system in place to screen out at least some of the folks for whom gun ownership is problematical. The process takes a couple of months.  At least someone can't stalk into a gun shop smoking mad, buy a gun, walk out and shoot someone. The state requires a four-hour mandated safety class and soon, a mandated eight-hour shooting range training.

Now, there are, in fact, some people who probably shouldn't buy guns. These are people who have been determined to be such based on due process of law.

We also have an instant check system to see if people fall into that category. It shouldn't take months for someone to exercise a constitutionally protected right, with the exception of voting, but mostly because elections aren't whenever you feel like voting for or against someone.

However, let's also understand that if someone walks into a gun store pretty much anywhere in the country "smoking mad," the dealer isn't going to sell them the gun. They reserve the right to say "no" to anyone who gives them the wrong feeling. Someone who is that mad is going to signal it to the dealer, who isn't going to complete the sale.

So it's good that previous anti-gunners are starting to cross the lines and actually talk to gun owners, there's also reason to not get too excited. Decades of propaganda have to be undone, and they're more likely to seek out "reasonable" gun stores dealers who are generally supportive of gun laws rather than try to get a deeper understanding of the right to keep and bear arms and why these laws don't work, for one thing, and are really an infringement that shouldn't be tolerated.

But, baby steps, I guess. Something is better than nothing, even if that something is less than perfect.