A few weeks ago, when the Virginia gun bills floating around looked like they were going to impose a 10-round magazine limit with no grandfather clause, I discovered that I apparently had the soul of a revolutionary. I was extremely animated about liberty, property rights, constitutional limits, and the terrifying possibility that magazines I had legally owned for years might suddenly have to be disposed of. I had opinions. I had arguments. I had the tone of someone ready to climb a barricade while humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It turns out nothing awakens a man’s inner patriot faster than the idea that his own gear might become illegal.

Now the latest version coming out of Richmond appears to land somewhere closer to a 15-round limit with a grandfather clause for existing magazines, meaning that if you already own them you can keep them, and the restriction mainly affects future sales or imports after July 1, 2026. In other words, the specific apocalypse I was yelling about mostly evaporated for me personally. And in what political scientists will surely identify as a remarkable coincidence, my revolutionary energy evaporated at exactly the same moment.

The barricades are suddenly much quieter. The drums of liberty have fallen silent. The tricorne hat has gone back in the closet next to the Halloween decorations. If you look closely you may notice that the man who was previously giving speeches about freedom now appears to be gently backing away from the microphone while pretending he had somewhere else to be.

This is the moment where principled people usually say that a law is wrong regardless of whether it affects them personally, and that one must continue fighting on behalf of the broader principle. Those people are admirable and probably carved from sterner material. Unfortunately, I appear to have discovered that my political courage runs on a much simpler operating system.

When the proposal looked like it would force me to scrap my own magazines, I was apparently willing to bring a torch, a drum, and a wagon full of righteous indignation. Now that the compromise version leaves my own pile of metal rectangles alone, my passion for liberty has quietly taken a sabbatical. If there were a revolution forming, I would currently be the guy who showed up with clown shoes, realized the fight had moved two blocks away, and immediately wandered off to buy a sandwich.

So yes, if anyone notices that I was very loud when the bill looked like ten rounds with no grandfather clause and am now suspiciously calm now that it looks like fifteen rounds with grandfathering, that observation would be completely fair. I would love to tell you that my shift reflects some deep constitutional analysis, but the truth is much simpler and much less flattering. The threat moved away from my own backyard, and with it went my sudden burst of heroic principle.

Apparently my activism, my courage, and my revolutionary spirit all share the same magazine capacity. Somewhere between ten and fifteen rounds, they run out.