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So, I'm trying to shock some sense into a formerly close friend who flipped to the other side after the Newtown cluster of spree-killings (it's time to STOP calling them school shootings like they're something special, which plays into the other side's hands, and just lump them in with all the other spree killings), and I need some advice on a draft email. Rules are, keep it intellectual and articulate... I need well-reasoned approaches that I can club a former law-student over the head with and have a good chance of them getting her to see that if she helps DiFi & Co. throw US under the bus today, SHE will be joining us under the tires tomorrow and all we'll have to say is "Told You So".

Here's what I have so far... Phase One revisions in red.
Do give Olson & Kopel, "All the Way Down The Slippery Slope: Gun Prohibition in England and Some Lessons for Civil Liberties in America," 22 Hamline Law Review 399-465 (1999) a read. For that matter, a whole page of law-review articles for my side can be found at Second Amendment Law Library: Law Journals, [strike: "though I don't know why I'm wasting my breath as your mind is made up"]--just remember, the people you're siding with today, after you've thrown us under the bus, they will put you under the wheels with us next... when she was Attorney General, Janet Reno once declared "registration is just a first step, confiscation is the ultimate goal" and NOBODY on your side has repudiated that nor has she retracted it (and that's precisely how [strike: "your idiots in"] Sacramento set the stage for the Roberti-Roos ban that keeps getting expanded every time they find something new to be scared of.). And [strike: "your galpal"] Feinstein has said as much herself, here: Dianne Feinstein caught in a lie - YouTube So I trust you can see why pro-banners' LONG history of broken promises and not letting the ink dry on one set of demands before starting another leads us to see anything as "negotiating in Bad Faith," ESPECIALLY in parallel with the history of Dems saying "give us what WE want now (tax hikes, amnesty for illegal aliens) and we'll give you something (spending cuts, entitlement reform, better border security) later" and then welshing on the deal as soon as they've gotten what they've wanted, or interpreting a "cut" as meaning "we're just not going to increase spending AS MUCH as we planned"... which is like if you normally gain five pounds a month, going on a diet and calling a gain of three "losing weight."

An enlightening little piece out of New York: Gun Restrictions Have Always Bred Defiance, Black Markets - Reason.com How well did Prohibition of alcohol--which, I would remind you, required a Constitutional amendment to do, so by that precedent the 2A with its "Shall Not Be Infringed" is still Law of the Land until itself repealed or amended--work out in its goals? It didn't, and it only caused more harm by giving more power to organized crime. As a thought experiment--I'm not even agreeing to the Constitutionality of this, but just as a discussion, never mind that there would be only negligible compliance and the cost in time and manpower to do it would be far beyond practical, let's assume that you could wave a magic wand and get rid of every semiauto rifle in the country, which includes the M1 Garand Uncle Frank carried in WWII and the M1 Carbine he liberated Mauthausen concentration-camp with... Okay, now that gives a significant firepower advantage to the drug cartels immediately, and then their allies, and finally they will see another moneymaker in contraband and the country will be awash in iron from them and they probably WON'T stop at mere semis but go all the way to full-autos. It would have the unintended consequence of basically bringing Mexico's problems here... oh, by the way, since courts have ruled that police have no duty to protect the individual or any group, currently proposed legislation, if in effect, then would have basically left the Koreans trapped in the LA riots to whatever mercy the rioting mob besieging them may have been inclined to show... those AR-15s on those rooftops SAVED LIVES by being a force-multiplier, and such policy would have (and Roberti-Roos HAS) left them defenseless against any future such threat. What HAS happened before CAN and probably WILL happen again... it's just a matter of the trigger conditions being present.

By the way, the shooter at Sandy Hook was an undiagnosed schiozophrenic who had his family hiding him rather than getting him the care he NEEDED, because they're a Money/Socialite Family (dad is a VP at GE) and didn't want to be ostracized from their precious snob-circuit... and one of the people on Biden's task-force is a cop whose own son is a thwarted wannabe Spree Killer. [Citations included in email, which is on my other laptop.]

On top of which, the genie is out of the bottle: it's actually very simple to make an AR receiver, so there will be many who would just give up one and have ten more made before the confiscating agency's vehicle was even back on the street, and quite a few of those would be likely, once they had made the decision to cross the Rubicon, to go all the way to full-auto. Pair that with the fact that the AR is easily oe of the most common rifles in America and is thus protected under the Heller decision's "Common Use" test...

For the utility of semiauto rifles, Mas Ayoob has an article worth reading at <broken link removed>

I am sorry, but I must withdraw that range invitation--if you honestly believe the average citizen should not have things and are truly honest with yourself, then you will recognize that by that logic you have no business reaping any of the benefits that they offer.

Thoughts? Additional data? Elaboration? This isn't the "Dear Jane, goodbye, have a nice life" letter yet, but if she can't be brought back to her senses (as recently as October, she was telling me that she agreed with me about the importance of the citizen rifle in home and homeland defense, which to me means best-case she's been swept up in the SFO-area hysteria) that may well be the next note she reads from me.

I'm looking for scholarly, intellectual components, I think I've already GOT quite enough of the "Molon Labe!/My Cold Dead Hands/WOLVERINES!!!" stuff in there, so if that's all you're going to contribute please stay out of my thread--this is a last-chance effort to save a failing once-close friendship that had potential to go further, and anything but constructive criticism and help with tailoring my message is a waste of bytes. As I make changes, I'll note them in different colors than the original text.

For the record, I am cross-posting this on a couple other forums as well (have some feedback from THR and a couple other places I'm working on incorporating, like citations on statements). Thanks, guys!
 
Last Edited:
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Numbers and statistics can be tricky to use. They often can be interpreted by the other side as meaning something completely different. That being said, when used in conjunction with other facts, numbers can be positive in the debate. Just be prepared to hear them twisted into different things and be able to counter that.
 
Honestly it seems kind of snarky to me. The overall tone isn't that you are trying to convince her, but kind of more of an FU. All the facts in the world aren't going to make a difference to someone who doesn't want to hear them.

Examples
You probably think anything outside the Ivy League doesn't count
though I don't know why I'm wasting my breath
your idiots
Etc, Etc

I think rescinding the range invitation is a mistake. The more people who get out and handle a gun the better. They will see it as a piece of metal not as evil and maybe even have a good time.

I would just simply say I think you are over reacting in the wake of this tragedy and are believing the unsubstantiated hype. Someday if you want to hear some facts and will let me clear up some of the things that the media is misrepresenting I will be more than happy to. I think you should come out the range with me someday when you feel like it and you can actually see for yourself some of the ways that law abiding gun owners use their guns for sport and see for yourself how silly some of the things they are proposing are. In the meantime lets agree to disagree.
 
Not entirely, it's also that we had a deal about "We don't pick arguments on our Hill To Die On issues" and she welshed on it, plus that it opened up a major trust issue: "You either lied to me in September when you agreed with me about the role of the citizen rifle in Home and Homeland Defense, or you're welshing now, and either way I can't trust you" is what part of my gut says re her.

Let me be clearer... this was one of those "With Potential to Become More Than Just..." friends, if you get my drift... ;)
 
This right here. Get it together. Guns are great, but if you have a friend that doesn't like them you don't just break off the friendship.

Want to bet? Have SIL that is very anti. He knows, if he says anything about my carry, I won't come visit...and how is he going to explain to his daughters the reason grampa will visit Aunt Erika, but not them??? eh? He also allows them to shoot with me when they come visit me, even though he will not participate (yet).

It's called tuff love..and it will fold most people...but if it does not..Oh well. Now ask me if I compromise on my WA A1S24 rights?
 
Oh, one other point: she used to shoot occasionally, has a CA (Bay Area-issued, specifically) carry permit and briefly did exercise it.

Adam, trading snarky humor is one of those things we did between ourselves, and she has occasionally referred to the loons of the Radical Left as "her idiots," so... Another rewrite in progress, will edit OP when done--I've already been thinking and writing on this since last week.
 
one of my lifelong best friends is quite anti-gun. i am extremely pro.
we occasionally debate it, but that's it. we're still great friends. he was there for me in my time of need and vice verse. our differences don't eliminate our friendship.

on that note, i also have a great friend that is super religious. i'm not at all. still friends.

i'm sure i've lost friends, possibly without knowing it, due to my beliefs and actions... but a good friend is something.
 
So, I'm trying to shock some sense into a formerly close friend who flipped to the other side after the Newtown cluster of spree-killings (it's time to STOP calling them school shootings like they're something special, which plays into the other side's hands, and just lump them in with all the other spree killings), and I need some advice on a draft email. Rules are, keep it intellectual and articulate... I need well-reasoned approaches that I can club a former law-student over the head with and have a good chance of them getting her to see that if she helps DiFi & Co. throw US under the bus today, SHE will be joining us under the tires tomorrow and all we'll have to say is "Told You So".

Here's what I have so far...


Thoughts? Additional data? Elaboration? This isn't the "Dear Jane, goodbye, have a nice life" letter yet, but if she can't be brought back to her senses (as recently as October, she was telling me that she agreed with me about the importance of the citizen rifle in home and homeland defense, which to me means best-case she's been swept up in the SFO-area hysteria) that may well be the next note she reads from me.

I'm looking for scholarly, intellectual components, I think I've already GOT quite enough of the "Molon Labe!/My Cold Dead Hands/WOLVERINES!!!" stuff in there, so if that's all you're going to contribute please stay out of my thread--this is a last-chance effort to save a failing once-close friendship that had potential to go further, and anything but constructive criticism and help with tailoring my message is a waste of bytes. As I make changes, I'll note them in different colors than the original text.

For the record, I am cross-posting this on a couple other forums as well (have some feedback from THR and a couple other places I'm working on incorporating, like citations on statements). Thanks, guys!

Most anti's are gonna go after private weapon transfers, i think they see that as the easiest target. This is the biggest thing i see oregon ceasefire going after as well as other anti groups. Yet there is 33 States that do not require private sales or transfers to be subjected to any restrictions(which includes family's passing down their firearms), like the infringement of a background check. I don't think the anti's are thinking about what quite possibly would happen if they did this to 33 states all at once.

Tell her this : "Suggesting to infringe upon an Americans right is akin to taking a persons voice and claiming they do not have a right to speak unless they first pass a background check."

All rights are equal in their limitations & Freedoms. You're not supposed to yell fire in a crowded movie theater anymore than you're supposed to open fire in a crowded movie theater. If it is legal to force someone to a background check for the 2nd ammendment then it is legal to force someone to pass a background check before they use the 1st.
 
Also, if it were just a one-time I'd have shrugged it off... but ever since Newtown, even AFTER I pointed out that what cut off the Clackamas shooting was one of "ours" being ready to drop the hammer and just waiting for clear backfield, she's been carpet-bomb harping on it EVERY BLOODY DAY. Like I said, once or twice, I'd let it slide... that sustained, I'm not sure if I should just ignore her until it dies out, then see about getting a suitable rifle and take her shooting and point out "oh by the way, this is one of the guns that was targeted in various ban proposals."

And by the way, Uncle Frank's Carbine, about which he always said "only three people need fear my Carbine: the Nazi, the Communist and the man who intends harm to me or my family," is included by both name and feature in all of the various proposed bans I've seen and it's one of my "My Cold Dead Hands" guns--the others being his Garand and my 1911; so maybe that is making me a little more "primed" than I otherwise would be. (And even if none of those were at risk THIS round, I would be obligated to oppose it because of the fact that they certainly would be the next, and to riff on Niemoller if I don't stand with others now, then when my turn comes even if there's anyone left to stand for me I don't DESERVE for them too--as the Founders said, we "hang together or hang separately".)
 
Well here is my input to your Ivy League friend:

"Shut up and get back in the kitchen... My beef pot pie ain't gonna cook itself and why are you still wearing shoes anyway?"

Just kidding bud... We need more humor around here.

SF-
 
Let me guess .... she and you are somewhat romantically involved, both unmarried, and she is around 32 yrs old, both of you without kids?

(Guessing that she is reacting emotionally to children being killed as she rapidly approaches the age where she might miss out on having kids of her own).


If so, no ARGUMENT will solve this. Get her a ring and get her pregnant.

OR: I could be WAY off track.
 
Let me guess .... she and you are somewhat romantically involved, both unmarried, and she is around 32 yrs old, both of you without kids?

(Guessing that she is reacting emotionally to children being killed as she rapidly approaches the age where she might miss out on having kids of her own).

OR: I could be WAY off track.

32 years old ? I'd expect these guys to be college age, wasting their time like that...
 
It's an emotional issue; logic might not work at all. The gun-ban side has framed the debate: greedy selfish gun owners refuse to give up their toys and this is what happens. They say that if his mother had not had access to such a scary killing machine, he would not have been able to steal it.

I find that it seems to work best if you empathize with the emotion, and then try to talk some logic. I was pretty darn emotional myself that day. I have young kids, and I can't even imagine what those parents and family have gone through. It tears me up to even think about what happened there. If piling all my guns up in the front yard and burning them could undo a tiny fraction of the evil done that day, I would do it in a heartbeat. The reality is that it won't. There have been shootings like this in many places where gun control is far stricter than here in the US, including Norway, Germany, and France.

Don't fight against the emotion; you can't win. If you empathize with her emotions and carefully direct her to see your logic, you might have a chance.
 
@ Pchewn: I'm 32, she's 27, both unmarried. She's not Ivy League, but based on her having been a Law student I'd expect her to have the standard liberal snobbery toward my Hamline citation about "only Ivy League Law Review journals count". Long-distance, IM/pen-pal relationship (we co-admin a fiction-writing forum together, which got dumped into our laps when the site owner took a disappearing act--basically tossed us the keys and said "you two take over") that has occasionally been flirty and even a bit torrid--I'm starting to wonder if I wasn't the Band-Aid after she ditched an unfaithful ex and this isn't her way of "peeling off the Band-Aid".

I'm freelance, which means most of my day is spent chained to a laptop... gives me a little more flexibility in day-to-day activity, but it brings a risk if I take it easy too long and get too close to project deadline or a scheduled checkpoint... I usually work things as "two weeks of blitz, two weeks relatively easy but still making progress, repeat". Gives me a fair amount of time for perusing the gun-forums and activism efforts on my "easy weeks."

Re ring and pregnancy: like I said, she's a liberal, and thus a fervent believer in abortion-on-demand-right-up-to-moment-of-birth, and right now even if she'd commit to see things through all the way I'm not sure she wouldn't renege on it and I'd rather not have my unborn kid subjected to that risk.
 
You might point out that Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, and many other dictators favored gun registration "in the name of public safety" and then used the registration to confiscate those same arms prior to slaughtering the targeted ones. Ask the Armenians - the Muslim Turks waited a little over 20 years after forced registration before they started confiscation then they did a death march of the christian Armenians out into the desert until they all died of exposure, starvation, and dehydration. Hitler did the concentration camps after disarming the Jews and other "undesirables" (about 12 million of them being slaughtered), Stalin and company disarmed their perceived enemy populace and either worked them to death in the gulag system or outright slaughtered them to the tune of 70+ million. The list goes on. Remember those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
 
You might point out that Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, and many other dictators favored gun registration "in the name of public safety" and then used the registration to confiscate those same arms prior to slaughtering the targeted ones. Ask the Armenians - the Muslim Turks waited a little over 20 years after forced registration before they started confiscation then they did a death march of the christian Armenians out into the desert until they all died of exposure, starvation, and dehydration. Hitler did the concentration camps after disarming the Jews and other "undesirables" (about 12 million of them being slaughtered), Stalin and company disarmed their perceived enemy populace and either worked them to death in the gulag system or outright slaughtered them to the tune of 70+ million. The list goes on. Remember those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

I assume in our case the dictator is Obama ?
 

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