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Originally, I wrote this as a response to the "If hillary gets elected" thread. However, I think my points here are important enough that it deserves it's own thread. In a lot of ways, this dovetails with things I've been talking to other people about, and it's time we had this conversation here, and it's time we start to act.
I absolutely welcome comments, even negative ones, however before you set cruise control for awesome, at least do me the courtesy of making a well reasoned point. If you are going to implement any of my suggestions feel free to report in here.
Thanks guys,
-Drew
1) If you feel the need to make mention about how bad it is, what idiots the gun control lobby are, whether you will comply or not. It's not useful.
I don't mean to be dismissive or piss in your cheerios without need. But by airing your complaints, I'm sure someone somewhere gets off on it. Worse still, it can be used as a motivation to further cement their opinions and make them even more intransigent against changing them.
2) In a democracy (or republic), voting is violence. It is imposing your will by government power against people who voted differently.
Heinlein made this point repeatedly in starship troopers. The philosophical argument is actually one of the strongest arguments for judiciousness in voting. At this point, the government is simply an all-powerful tool that both sides fight for control over to enact their policies against the other. It's infantile, and annoying, and does nothing to solve the problems. The core strategy here needs to not be one of wresting control away from the other side, but instead reducing the size, scope and power of the government. I realize this is probably as multi-generational a goal as it was to create governments this powerful. However, that power was created because it was expedient to do so. Now we have to go the long way around to undo it.
2a) Violence and open combat favor the organized
I love history, and if there's one thing history in conflict teaches is that the most organized are the most likely to succeed. The Spartans who held Thermopylae held off the core strength of the Persian army for three days (what was required) by choosing their ground carefully, and then fighting in a careful regimented fashion. They chewed up wave after wave, and on the third day they broke ranks and were slaughtered.
The most important thing I will point out about this, is the pro-gun forces too often allow themselves to be drawn into a battle by the opposition. In some ways this is the nature of the fight, however it's too easy and predictable, and when the opposition is defeated, they immediately regroup and attack somewhere else. I will certainly give them this, they are tireless, but in order to succeed we need to stop fighting like a disorganized rabble, choose our ground, and call them to us.
Why has no one started a bill/initiative to repeal I-594 yet? The court challenge is frankly kinda pointless, because it's a brief setback and another initiative is passed. Only to repeat the same process. It's too much of a hail mary that wins the game, and the results are too unpredictable.
2b) The legitimacy to do violence is a powerful force, especially when morality is at stake.
If we pay attention to the gun-grabber's rhetoric it all centers on safety and paranoia. This often gives them the feeling of a moral victory when they are successful "see, we kept guns out of the hands of X... I feel so much better now" until they are again forced to confront that their previous efforts have done nothing but disenfranchise a lot of law-abiding people. This is right up there with the moral crusaders who banned alcohol in the early part of the 20th century, it made them feel great, but ultimately it was a policy that was a national disaster.
The profound moral victory afforded to the hoplophobes at this point is they get to inflict their will on people they consider dangerous and subhuman. That folks, is you and I.
With the above in mind, here's what we need to do:
1) We need to re-establish our legitimacy in the conversation.
1a) This is a serious up-hill battle we face. In large part, the media is constantly looking for sensational stories that is measured in human blood and body counts. Unfortunately, these stories always lead, and somewhat predictably, it's easy for them to prop up someone from CFW to run their point that "this is all because of inanimate objects". What is really needed here is someone with some organizational skills (SAF?) to stand up and issue a press release every time a gun saves a life, and do everything they can to get an interview on how "Countless people were saved because of the presence of a gun". Or especially in the case of gang and other common criminal shootings, point out that "under current law, this person was not allowed to own a gun" and come up with reasonings for how the laws we have are ineffective, and need to be changed.
1b) Civic involvement is something our society is greatly lacking. Have you been to an FoE lodge recently? It's populated entirely by septugenarians. While these are largely non-political fraternal and charity organizations, however they have a long history of being valuable and loud voices in the world of public policy. Most of the people on this board are probably less than 40, the membership numbers here are something most of these organizations could only drool over.
Gun rights groups need to be more visible in terms of charity work. Its very possible to work with other groups to do charity outreach, and an essential part of this is to make this work known.
Lets make a Case Study
What if the gun community organized a blood drive right after a mass shooting?
* This is the gun community showing compassion for fellow humans after a tragedy.
* Anti-gun groups could easily make the argument "this is all your fault"
* Pro-gun groups could easily say "no, it's your ineffective laws, pro-crime policies, and denial of common sense self-defense laws that created this situation"
Organization/Messaging
Right now, we seriously need to get organized. And we need to make every one of these fights local. Putting any effort into executive federal elections right now is a complete waste of time. The push from the anti-gunners is all at the state level, nearly every federal policy and law needs significant state support in order to be effective. Marijuana is illegal federally, yet it's on sale legally in numerous stores all over both washington and oregon. This is why the local fight is the most important fight.
Next Steps
Has anyone contacted the media about doing a story on your cleanup at the North Fork Wolf Creek shooting area? If not, get on this RFN.
I'm currently working on organizing a blood drive locally (for those of you who know, I'm stuck in CA at the moment as my dad has fallen ill and he needs a caretaker). I've done this before, and it's a pain, but there are people I know that can help me with this.
If you're not doing anything right this second, find out where your local Elks lodge, FOE, Grange, or whatever local charity organizations are in your area, Rotary is a great start because they usually have one open meeting a month having dinner somewhere. Go there and make friends. Continue showing up. This might provide the invites you need to join some of the other local organizations. Years ago I was a member of the International Footprinter's association, which is an LE/Business group. Unfortunately it seems they have disbanded, probably because I was the youngest person there by probably 40-50 years. Even if nothing comes of it, you're going to learn a thing or two about organization. Get off your bubblegum and get out there.
I absolutely welcome comments, even negative ones, however before you set cruise control for awesome, at least do me the courtesy of making a well reasoned point. If you are going to implement any of my suggestions feel free to report in here.
Thanks guys,
-Drew
1) If you feel the need to make mention about how bad it is, what idiots the gun control lobby are, whether you will comply or not. It's not useful.
I don't mean to be dismissive or piss in your cheerios without need. But by airing your complaints, I'm sure someone somewhere gets off on it. Worse still, it can be used as a motivation to further cement their opinions and make them even more intransigent against changing them.
2) In a democracy (or republic), voting is violence. It is imposing your will by government power against people who voted differently.
Heinlein made this point repeatedly in starship troopers. The philosophical argument is actually one of the strongest arguments for judiciousness in voting. At this point, the government is simply an all-powerful tool that both sides fight for control over to enact their policies against the other. It's infantile, and annoying, and does nothing to solve the problems. The core strategy here needs to not be one of wresting control away from the other side, but instead reducing the size, scope and power of the government. I realize this is probably as multi-generational a goal as it was to create governments this powerful. However, that power was created because it was expedient to do so. Now we have to go the long way around to undo it.
2a) Violence and open combat favor the organized
I love history, and if there's one thing history in conflict teaches is that the most organized are the most likely to succeed. The Spartans who held Thermopylae held off the core strength of the Persian army for three days (what was required) by choosing their ground carefully, and then fighting in a careful regimented fashion. They chewed up wave after wave, and on the third day they broke ranks and were slaughtered.
The most important thing I will point out about this, is the pro-gun forces too often allow themselves to be drawn into a battle by the opposition. In some ways this is the nature of the fight, however it's too easy and predictable, and when the opposition is defeated, they immediately regroup and attack somewhere else. I will certainly give them this, they are tireless, but in order to succeed we need to stop fighting like a disorganized rabble, choose our ground, and call them to us.
Why has no one started a bill/initiative to repeal I-594 yet? The court challenge is frankly kinda pointless, because it's a brief setback and another initiative is passed. Only to repeat the same process. It's too much of a hail mary that wins the game, and the results are too unpredictable.
2b) The legitimacy to do violence is a powerful force, especially when morality is at stake.
If we pay attention to the gun-grabber's rhetoric it all centers on safety and paranoia. This often gives them the feeling of a moral victory when they are successful "see, we kept guns out of the hands of X... I feel so much better now" until they are again forced to confront that their previous efforts have done nothing but disenfranchise a lot of law-abiding people. This is right up there with the moral crusaders who banned alcohol in the early part of the 20th century, it made them feel great, but ultimately it was a policy that was a national disaster.
The profound moral victory afforded to the hoplophobes at this point is they get to inflict their will on people they consider dangerous and subhuman. That folks, is you and I.
With the above in mind, here's what we need to do:
1) We need to re-establish our legitimacy in the conversation.
1a) This is a serious up-hill battle we face. In large part, the media is constantly looking for sensational stories that is measured in human blood and body counts. Unfortunately, these stories always lead, and somewhat predictably, it's easy for them to prop up someone from CFW to run their point that "this is all because of inanimate objects". What is really needed here is someone with some organizational skills (SAF?) to stand up and issue a press release every time a gun saves a life, and do everything they can to get an interview on how "Countless people were saved because of the presence of a gun". Or especially in the case of gang and other common criminal shootings, point out that "under current law, this person was not allowed to own a gun" and come up with reasonings for how the laws we have are ineffective, and need to be changed.
1b) Civic involvement is something our society is greatly lacking. Have you been to an FoE lodge recently? It's populated entirely by septugenarians. While these are largely non-political fraternal and charity organizations, however they have a long history of being valuable and loud voices in the world of public policy. Most of the people on this board are probably less than 40, the membership numbers here are something most of these organizations could only drool over.
Gun rights groups need to be more visible in terms of charity work. Its very possible to work with other groups to do charity outreach, and an essential part of this is to make this work known.
Lets make a Case Study
What if the gun community organized a blood drive right after a mass shooting?
* This is the gun community showing compassion for fellow humans after a tragedy.
* Anti-gun groups could easily make the argument "this is all your fault"
* Pro-gun groups could easily say "no, it's your ineffective laws, pro-crime policies, and denial of common sense self-defense laws that created this situation"
Organization/Messaging
Right now, we seriously need to get organized. And we need to make every one of these fights local. Putting any effort into executive federal elections right now is a complete waste of time. The push from the anti-gunners is all at the state level, nearly every federal policy and law needs significant state support in order to be effective. Marijuana is illegal federally, yet it's on sale legally in numerous stores all over both washington and oregon. This is why the local fight is the most important fight.
Next Steps
Has anyone contacted the media about doing a story on your cleanup at the North Fork Wolf Creek shooting area? If not, get on this RFN.
I'm currently working on organizing a blood drive locally (for those of you who know, I'm stuck in CA at the moment as my dad has fallen ill and he needs a caretaker). I've done this before, and it's a pain, but there are people I know that can help me with this.
If you're not doing anything right this second, find out where your local Elks lodge, FOE, Grange, or whatever local charity organizations are in your area, Rotary is a great start because they usually have one open meeting a month having dinner somewhere. Go there and make friends. Continue showing up. This might provide the invites you need to join some of the other local organizations. Years ago I was a member of the International Footprinter's association, which is an LE/Business group. Unfortunately it seems they have disbanded, probably because I was the youngest person there by probably 40-50 years. Even if nothing comes of it, you're going to learn a thing or two about organization. Get off your bubblegum and get out there.
