By CTSheepdog
Greetings from The Constitution State, though at times over the past year I have questioned whether that proud name is valid any longer. For those who live outside Connecticut, you may think challenges to our state’s residents’ natural, individual, US and state Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms are something that only popped up in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown in late 2012. However, serious restrictionist gun control goes back over 20 years, the most visible example – an “assault weapon” ban – put into place in 1994 . . .
That law, and much of the state’s restrictionist legislation has been promoted and lobbied for by Connecticut Against Gun Violence or CAGV. While representing itself as seeking “common sense” gun violence reduction, CAGV’s efforts invariably have more impact on law-abiding gun owners than on suicides or illegal gun use – causes that are responsible for over 95% of all gun injuries and deaths in Connecticut.
Does that sound more broadly familiar? If so, as you might guess, the majority of the gun restrictions promulgated by CAGV inevitably impact lawful, non-urban gun owners with little to no impact on those major causes of gun violence. As for CAGV’s idea of what constitutes “common sense”, in early 2013 they published their own gun law proposal that would have prohibited possession of all “assault weapons” as well as magazines of more than 7-round capacity with no grandfather provision. It would required existing firearms and mags to be either sold out-of-state, surrendered to LE or destroyed, with no compensation to owners. Do you now have a sense of what CAGV represents?
So now we need your help. In the wake of Newtown, a myriad of anti-rights organizations have arisen in Connecticut with the March for Change being the most visible, particularly via social media. The media-smart moms of March for Change brought social media sophistication to CAGV’s efforts that was previously lacking, but more on that in a moment.
As some of you may know, on Saturday April 5th, a massive gun-rights rally will be held in Hartford. This rally has caught the attention of CAGV/March for Change who plan to mount a virtual counter-rally via social media. Naturally, they know better than to call for a real, on-site counter-rally as they will be far outnumbered by Second Amendment supporters. Instead, they plan to bombard both Connecticut state legislators with phone calls as well pollute social media with messages in support of their anti-civil rights cause.
From an email this week to CAGV supporters:
| Things are heating up – and we need your help to respond!!Gun rights activists are holding a rally at the Capitol on Saturday, April 5, to protest the requirement that they register their assault rifles and high capacity magazines. They are demanding that the historic law we passed last year be repealed by May 7 or state-provoked chaos and violence could result; and they are targeting for defeat all legislators who voted yes on that bill.
They are even going so far as to encourage their supporters to attend the rally carrying handguns. |
Yes, the hoplophobes at CAGV are concerned that 2A rally attendees might actually exercise their right to carry handguns. They apparently haven’t counted on how many will have rifles slung over their shoulders, too. Evil “assault weapons” out in the open – oh my! The key point is that CAGV is asking their minions to use a particular social media tool to send out the following social media message all at the same time via use of this tool, Thunderclap:
Yes, yawn, a few thousand tweets and FB updates are nothing compared to the thousands of live human beings who will physically rally in Hartford that day. Usually such “noise” can be ignored but after I posted about this in a local CT forum, another forum member and outspoken supporter of gun owners’ rights decided two can play the social media game. Thus, to counter CAGV’s effort, Connecticut gun owners rights advocacy group, Connecticut Carry, has taken this idea and turned it on its head by starting its own Thunderclap.
As posted by Rich of Connecticut Carry:
Anti-rights groups have announced that they will protest a gun rights rally planned for April 5th using social media and creating a ‘thunderclap’.
Our response is to counterattack. We will need help from every single person reading this to make a thunderclap that makes their efforts look petty and silly.
First:
Go to the linked site and choose to ‘support’ this campaign with any of the following that you have an account for: Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr.
This costs you NOTHING. All you are doing is granting permission for the well known, secure site to post the message you see on that page to your social media account on April 5th at 12:00pm. It is easy as a few clicks to embarrass the anti-rights cultists that are hurting gun owners in Connecticut.
If you don’t have an account on one of these sites, please consider starting one. Social media is a very important tool for us.
Second:
Spread this link as far and wide as possible. The supporters currently say ‘of 250’. We do not plan to stop there. We will be increasing this number as we progress. There is no upper limit to our campaign.
People do not need to be in Connecticut to support this campaign, invite all of your friends, family and organizations in whatever states they might be in to crush these collectivists. Share this post with everyone on your friends list, and email to your contacts.
Your rights-supporting brothers and sisters in Connecticut really appreciate your encouragement via the Stand Strong Connecticut effort. Now I ask TTAG readers to consider further reinforcing us by clicking the links above and getting involved in this effort. For those of you who are not on social media, at least share these links with the like-minded who may be. Let’s make this viral as a show of nation-wide support for those of use who are dealing with the indignities of gun restrictionists’ laws in “The Constitution State”. Many thanks.