There are millions of firearms freedom fence straddlers out there, somewhere. Americans of all colors, religious and sexual orientations who might someday be persuaded to cherish their right to keep and bear arms. But don’t expect them to wake up one morning, head to their LGS and vote their guns . . .
But do keep trying to win converts. Do it by shattering the stereotypes the anti-gunners seek to perpetuate, as they work ceaselessly to demonize law-abiding gun owners out of existence.
You know the template: gun owners are OFWGs (Old Fat White Guys). They love them some NRA, vote Republican, “cling to their bibles” and pray for the day the South will rise again. Because they’re selfish racist rednecks.
This media-perpetuated caricature is the left’s ultimate “enemy of progress”: the selfish, brain dead armed opponents of life-saving “common sense gun safety” measures. The inconvenient truth: while some American gun owners tick some of those boxes, most don’t. Not even close.
Besides, [at this point] what difference does it make? All Americans have the same individual right to keep and bear arms. The vast majority of armed Americans — yes even OFWGs — know that. They would never dream of denying their neighbors their gun rights.
Besides, who really fits the antis’ stereotype?
Not me. I’m a woman. A mother of young children in good physical shape who carries wherever it’s legal to do so. I live in Wyoming, not the deep South. I’m not a racist. Nor am I a Republican. (Some would probably call me a Libertarian but I prefer the term “voluntaryist.”)
There’s no shortage of armed women like me in America. Unfortunately, there’s also no shortage of unarmed women eagerly claiming victimhood — that females are being kept down by the patriarchy. If true, that should provide more reason for women to arm themselves.
Rather than declaring their freedom and taking responsibility for their own agency and self defense, these self-styled “feminists” demand that men lower themselves to beta male status and disarm — in the name of equality! And if you don’t embody their ideal of what a woman should be, you’re discounted, degraded, and demonized.
But I digress. Man or woman, liberal or conservative, young or old, all American gun owners have something on our side that the civilian disarmament advocates don’t: the facts.
But facts aren’t enough. By our words and deeds, by our very existence, we have to show gun muggles that owning a gun doesn’t make a citizen a violent sociopath any more than owning a car makes someone a drunk driver.
The fight to overcome the negative stereotype of gun owners will never be “done.” No matter how much progress we make, there will always be people happy to cast the first stone at the Second Amendment.
If we stand up against them, visibly, we may yet win enough hearts and minds to protect our gun rights for generations to come.