How about contacting the media??

[dancinghippos]

About a year ago, I posted a ton of "letter to editor" length letters and invited people to take them and reuse them as their own. You can still find them by searching with my name dancinghippos. At this point, you may also want to print some material and drop it in gun stores and ask people to use it. And teach voters to shoot.

This is a useful site for gun facts:

Gun Facts | Gun Control Policy Insights

Gun Facts is an ongoing project to bring honesty into the debate about guns, violence and control.

www.gunfacts.info

 

[dancinghippos]

People often accept others' opinions that "sound good" without really thinking it through. There are a lot of opinions being promoted these days vilifying gun ownership as somewhere between silly and evil. Please read this material. Think it through. Use this information in Letters to the Editor, conversations with friends, and anywhere else you can. You are one election away from having your right of self-defense seen as a threat to society. It is on you to get the voters to see the truth, because the press is supporting the other side.

 

[dancinghippos]

MYTH: "Incidents like the Parkland shooting demand gun control"
Deaths from mass shootings get all the headlines, but they are extremely rare compared to other violent crime, even now. There have been 1135 mass shooting deaths since 1966 (Washington Post). The ice.gov website enumerates 2038 homicides committed by illegal immigrants they deported in 2018 and a similar number in 2017. So border control would stop more deaths every year than the total number of mass shooting victims. But that doesn't match the gun control agenda, so it is ignored.

The Douglas High shooting was a textbook case of failure of "the authorities" who want to confiscate your guns and their so-called policies. The authorities tell us: "See Something, Say Something". Local residents called the Broward Sheriffs to the shooter's home 45 times. No arrests, because the Broward County Sheriff chose to take money from the PROMISE program to divert teen offenders to counseling instead of arrests. Residents called the FBI twice. No arrest, even after Cruz posted a video saying he wants to be a school shooter. With no arrests, Cruz passed the background check to buy the murder weapon.

The authorities say the police will protect us. Yet the four Broward County deputies who were on the scene when Cruz started shooting kids stayed outside. The Sheriff ran to a CNN "Town Hall" event to blame the NRA for the murders his deputies let happen. This sequence of real events would fail the smell test for a TV drama.

The Parkland Sheriff, a well-known Democrat political type, did not lose anything except his job. He has his pension and some speaking engagements with anti-gun activists. The people who were killed by his policies, ... you know the rest

 

[dancinghippos]

MYTH: "The violence is because guns are so easy to get now"

Until 1968, modern guns like AR-15's, semi-automatic pistols, even mortars and bazookas, could be bought by mail. Teens in rural areas stored their hunting and competition guns in school lockers. Yet there were no school shootings then. Guns are harder to get now, with background checks and many restrictions in state laws. There is something else in play.
It is not the change in gun availability, it is the change in what angry young men are willing to do. Why else are we witness to London's murder rate exceeding NY City, and their need to ban possession of knives? This is 20 years after they banned all guns in the UK.
Consider also that Chicago blames Indiana for all the gun murders in Chicago, as if their home-grown gangsters would be playing chess if guns did not crawl across the border and tempt them to murder someone. If that was true, why does Indiana have lower gun murder rates than Chicago? Maybe Mayor Pete's hometown has a lot of crime (it does), but most of Indiana doesn't.

 

[dancinghippos]

The people who live behind fences in gated communities with armed patrols lecture us that fences are evil and you don't need your own protection. They tell you to rely on calling the cops, while they have security everywhere. How does that work on the street? Cellphone? When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away. And they cannot be sued for failing to arrive. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN until cops show up. Are you a baby boomer? Can you still fight off two angry young men with your fists? A gun evens the odd between a 120-pound woman and a 220-pound attacker. What if it isn't just the purse he wants?

 

[dancinghippos]

MYTH: "You can't defend against a modern army, so the Second Amendment is not relevant to today's conversation"

An armed citizenry makes the cost of an invasion unacceptable. Remember the 2003 Iraq war? Saddam's military fell in 41 days. But the fighting lasted until a new US president withdrew the troops in 2011.
How are things in Afghanistan?

 

[dancinghippos]

If you doubt the notion that fear of guns deters crime, you can do your own experiment: Post a sign in front of your residence:

THIS HOME IS PROUD TO BE GUN FREE
Let us know how that turned out.

 

[dancinghippos]

"Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, 'Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.'"

1 Samuel 13:19 This issue has been around for a while now. You would think we would have learned.

 

[dancinghippos]

As a close relative of an "out" LGBT person, I am interested in their ability to protect themselves and their family against bashers and other violence. Things like that still happen in modern day Oregon. People who ignore laws against violence are not inclined to obey more gun laws. So I must ask what the real benefit of these laws you say will make us "safe". I feel that they hurt the innocent more than they deter the predators.

If reducing crime is the reason for new gun legislation, how about consulting real experts? Ask street level police officers, not chiefs or political appointees who must "agree" with a mayor. I have. Every police officer I know or have asked since 1994 have said that additional gun laws do nothing to affect crime. Two popular police organizations recently polled their membership. These are the results:

In 2016, The National Association of Chiefs of Police polled 20,000 police officers and sheriffs. 76% said that armed citizens help law enforcement reduce violent crime. This links to their survey results

https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/NACOP-surveyresults-2016.pdf

PoliceOne, an organization of about 380,000 active and 70,000 retired officers, surveyed 16,000 members on gun control policies in 2013.
71% of respondents said that a ban on so-called "assault weapons" would have no effect on violent crime. 20% of the respondents said it would make crime worse. This is a link to their results
http://ddq74coujkv1i.cloudfront.net/p1_gunsurveysummary_2013.pdf

Police are the experts on guns and crime. These are the guys I believe. Law enforcement officers know more about crime and violence than any other group, and they overwhelmingly oppose these kinds of gun laws.

When professional organizations poll Americans, they poll 1000-2000 people and extrapolate to 320 Million. These two polls were 20,000 and 16,000 officers respectively. They extrapolate to around 900,000 sworn state, local and federal officers. So the confidence level is higher than any normal public polling data.

 

[Boss]

My local paper, Sunday circulation of about 16,000...yesterday - 1 of the 3 letters printed was a very well written pro2A submission regarding the proposed 10 rd. mag limit.

Helping inform/educate all the folks outside the firearms-specific forums (ie. the occasional recreational shooters/law abiding gun owners) to help build the base, is a good step in the right direction.

Long story short, letters to editors, opinion sections, etc. are a worthwhile endeavor. And keep writing your legislators too.

Git 'er done.

Boss