Our failure was promoting gun ownership and conservatism when we should have been challenging O'Malley's broken record "common sense-safety" rhetoric. The MGA doesn't care about rights they don't believe in, and people who are on the fence don't care about rights that they believe are a danger.
Maryland will be just as dangerous as it was before. O'Malley will nonetheless play the hero, and be seen as one, because our side made the debate a question of rights instead of safety. It should have been enough to point to Columbine and VA Tech as examples of what happens with 10 round mags and non-banned guns -- the same thing that happens with standard cap mags and assault weapons.
O'Malley's victory is only as good as people's belief in his law working. The law is a sham, and we have almost lost our chance to show it.
I think those points were made multiple times during all the testimony, it just fell on deaf ears. We were outnumbered from the get-go, and these people don't care about the truth or facts- they don't like guns, and they don't like shooters. In fact they think we are mentally defective somehow. The only way to beat them is to elect our own people to replace them.