“The ranks of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association nearly doubled over the past year amid outrage to New York’s gun-control law, but the group doesn’t plan to hold major protest rallies this year,” democratandchronicle.com reports. “Thomas King, the group’s president, said the membership increased from 24,000 to 41,000 over the last year, and the group has raised $200,000 for its lawsuit to overturn the controversial SAFE-Act . . . ‘My opinion is that the time for protests are over,’ King said. ‘It’s a time to concentrate on overturning the legislation in the courts. That is where we will be putting most of our support.'” Maryland’s beleaguered gun owners disagree. What’s your opinion?
Wouldn’t this be a state by state decision (by and large) since the attitudes and situations are highly variable?
The 2nd amendment applies to all citizens and is a right the state shall not infringe upon.
The question isn’t about the 2nd Amendment, it’s about strategy. Are there locations where holding a rally hurts the cause more than helps it? I don’t know, but it needs to be considered.
I agree. But, there are places that will likely never be pro gun ny, NJ ect. Those states simply don’t have enough pro 2a voters to change policy. But holding a major rally sends a message to the politicians seeing huge crowds gathering in support of a single issue is a powerful thing and if we don’t Constantly remind the pols that we WAY outnumber the antis and that when it comes to our rights we are United and single issue voters then the pols might be pushed into supporting anti gun laws
“But holding a major rally sends a message to the politicians seeing huge crowds gathering …”
Politicians don’t give a $#!t how big crowds are unless those crowds represent a giant voting block that is guaranteed to unseat them. Even then they are so smug that they will probably do whatever the Hell they want anyway. Look at the recent activity of politicians in Colorado. In states like California and New York, that voting block (Second Amendment supporters) is not a large enough voting block to unseat the politicians.
therefore it is imperative that we support the NRA and/or GOA.
That was the argument for slavery…
Slavery is a touchy subject.
It was condoned by enough of the Founders that it had a place in the Condtitution.
For the right reasons and the greater good, those who eventually ended slavery did so by bypassing the Constitution.
Unfortunately, that set a dangerous precedent, and now we see the Constitution being bypassed for less laudable reasons.
Best we not draw too much attention to that, lest the antis take strength from it.
What Constitution?
Actually the state of South Carolina was the impetus for removing the anti-slavery section of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson had written it in but the delegates from SC insisted that it be removed or they would vote against the declaration. They had also moved that the Declaration vote had to be unanimous, over the strenuous objections of John Adams. The final vote was actually 12 for and one abstention (New York)(why doesn’t that surprise me).
The 3/5 person for negro slaves (actually, all other person, not counting Indians) was insisted on by the slave holding states in order to allow them to ratify the Constitution. The adoption of the 13th Amendment mooted that provision.
“It was condoned by enough of the Founders that it had a place in the Condtitution.
For the right reasons and the greater good, those who eventually ended slavery did so by bypassing the Constitution.”
Oh for… No, and No; in that order.
Article I Section 2 of the constitution where it states that “those bound to Service for a Term of Years” will be counted as 3/5ths of their population for Representatives to the legislature is NOT evidence of gross acceptance of slavery by the constitutional convention. Quite the opposite. Think about it for just one moment: pretend you are a slave-state delegate to the constitutional convention. You’re hammering out allocation of legislative power based on population numbers. You have a significant body of people whom you can have vote (or simply vote for them) *exactly in the manner you tell them to*….and you’re going to demand the the voting power of that bloc be discounted? No!
You’re going to demand that the slave population be counted right along with the free one since they still need all the things that free people do – and that’s exactly what a portion of the slave-state delegates did. It was the *Free* states that demanded slaves not be counted in congressional seating.
Far from condoning slavery, enough of a majority of the delegates *condemned* slavery that they declared in the text of the constitution that they couldn’t get the economically-powerful slave owners to vote for their own impoverishment via ratification, but that Slave and Free states were going to be given an exactly equal voting power (according to current populations) such that it would *continue* to be “an issue” until rationally ended by public debate -which is exactly what did happen.
Slavery was *the* issue right up until the 1860s. Think social security, abortion, and gun rights all rolled into one. It affected *everything* congress did, from the Nullification Crisis to the Missouri Compromise to selection of diplomats. The slave states finally seceded from the union with the election of Abraham Lincoln along with other members of the new Republican party -they had finally lost the debate in Congress and within their own borders (resulting in wartime partition of Virginia, Missouri, etc.)
And The Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t an end-run on the constitution. Slavery was ended within the constitution with the 13th Amendment in 1865, the year the war ended. The Emancipation Proclamation was a statement of intent, political theater, regarding a region over which the US government did not have actual control over at the moment. But it explicitly framed the war in terms of what the slave states were seceding for (preservation of chattel slavery) rather than how they did it (declaration of States’ self-determination).
As to it being a touchy subject, the US didn’t institute slavery, they inherited it from their colonial-founders. Now show me another nation in history (any one) that publicly voted to free a subject population *to their own economic disadvantage*. Never mind one that went on to lose *600,000* dead -more than any war before or since- in order to make that vote stick.
The closest you’ll be able to find is Britain using its naval power to stamp out international trade in slaves between the African slave sellers and the buyers in North/South America and Arabia. But that only happened *after* the bottom had fallen out of the sugar market and the larger islands (Hispaniola/Haiti) had rebelled and were beyond reclamation.
Shameful history? It’s a principled and proud one.
There’s nothing touchy about slavery.
The pro-slavery secessionists had far less respect for the Constitution than the Unionists did. They were willing to subvert federalism to protect slavery, then they were willing to destroy the nation (bypassing the Constitution) to secede without consent of Congress — hell, without even attempting to bring it up for debate.
I have seen it written that the Constitution is not a “suicide pact.”
I have read the Constitution and I can find no provision in that document that states that once any geographical partition has voted for and been accepted as a state in the union it is now forever bound as a slave to that union.
Therefore, as much as I abhor the concept of slavery in any form, the War Between the States was an unconstitutional conquest. It may have been justified in the cause of freeing the millions of souls enslaved there, it cannot by any means be justified on the grounds that secession was somehow illegal or unconstitutional.
I quote here our OTHER founding document, The Declaration of Independence, with which we justified our revolution against England:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Each and every state has the absolute right to secede from this union. The other sates may or may not attempt to re-conquer that territory, but they cannot justify it on Constitutional grounds. JMHO.
“He (the king) has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. [determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold,] he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold]: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
–Thomas Jefferson, in his draft of the Declaration of Independence.
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1776-1785/jeffersons-draft-of-the-declaration-of-independence.php
Slavery was accepted, so far as I know, only out of political expediency. Without slavery, half the colonies would not join the revolution, if they did not join the revolution they would have to support the monarchy, if they supported the monarchy, the revolution would fail. There is plenty of evidence that many of the founders thought of slavery as morally reprehensible and acknowledged its incompatibility with the Natural Law philosophy, even those that grew up with slavery.
My argument isn’t that the 2A isn’t always worth fighting for, but that different environments call for different tactics.
Nailed it. Go with whatever works on your local politicians. If you have to sue them, do it. If political organizing and protests work, do that.
POTG need to be publicly visible in person, online, and on social media.
So yes, protest and protest with as many people as you can.
Absolutely this! If POTG stop protesting in public, stop open carry rallies, stop being a pain in the ass, the anti-2As will assume they have won by default.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
+1
Silencing the rallies and online protests would be an antis wish. Carry on! The truth is spread to many this way. Otherwise, pro-RKBA people appear as fringe or extreme minority in our society.
Why can’t you do both?
+1
And protest rallies don’t cost much money. You can and should do both.
I don’t think protests do much of anything – protests are only as good as how well the media covers them and for pro-2nd amendment protests, that is nil.
The way we will win the culture war is through social media and a visible online presence.
We need more Colion Noir.
Hell, we need Colion Noir and people like him on talk shows. Think of what Fate of Destinee could do after seeing a speaking coach, taking some debate classes, and going on The View
Culture wars these days are won and lost through personalities and the internet. It’s one of the greatest reasons why I feel Wayne LaPierre should step down immediately.
This, exactly this….protests at the capital have very little impact. It was only through action that CO ousted the politicians who voted the stupid gun bills. It will only be action that will count again in 2014/2016
Gun must donate to grass roots organizations, become politically active in primaries, work phone banks and other political events.
Yup, TheBear, because the one thing we really need is more talk.
If I gave the impression I am against legal action that was not my intent.
Also, the legal war and the culture war are two distinctly separate battles.
I mean hell, even after the supreme court ruling, I still hear ignorant fence sitters regurgitate the old argument about “militias”.
Very few people (at least of the people I know) know what SCOTUS rules on any given issue. Even fewer understand the implications when they make a ruling.
Most of the time your lucky to get people that understand the “biggies” they talk about in elementary social studies…
My opinion is a very firm yes. And no.
I think the organized groups like the NRA, NYSRPA, et. al. should stop holding rallies and focus on litigation and lobbying. For one, that’s where they are most effective and most (not all) of their members aren’t able to navigate the legal morass. It also robs the anti-constitutionalists (still need to work on that, doesn’t roll off the keyboard like “gun grabber”) of the opportunity to demonize the rally because of the group(s) backing it.
While the organizations should stop rallying, the MEMBERS should not. The flip side of the same reason that I mentioned above: there isn’t a “gun group” associated with the rally. The rallies then become nothing but a true grass roots assembly of freedom loving citizens. They become harder to marginalize with the standard “Because. NRA.”
How about anticons?
I like it, but it sounds a little transformer-y.
As opposed to uni-cons?
I agree. We do not to raise anti-gun ire. We need to keep our cards close to the vest. Stealth is the best way to fight a war. Telegraphing ones punches is the quickest way to lose a boxing match. We need to keep our heads low, our commitment strong, and out mouths shut.
We incur the antis ire by merely existing. And a group get-together without a sponsor is termed (in most cities) a “riot.”
Not really. You don’t need a sponsor to hold a rally. You (in most cities) need someone to actually apply for and put their name on the permit, but what I’m really getting at is that can be a person. It doesn’t have to be a “gun rights group.”
I call (do people still call?) a dozen or so friends, set up a meeting time and place, get a permit, hold said rally. The NRA or other evil gun group never gets involved.
Well, I’m glad it works for you locally. But don’t try that in NYC, Boston, Chicago, or LA. You may get by in DC because there’s pretty much a demonstration every day anyway.
I will stand corrected, I am admittedly ignorant of the process in Chicago, New York, and Boston. Out of plain curiosity (really, not looking to pick a fight) is it that it’s prohibitively expensive or just the simple fact that they don’t approve rallies that might disagree with them?
Both. And they tend to jail first and arrest later.
The gays (a minority special interest portion of the population once or currently frowned upon by academics -hey that sounds like us!) pulled an in your face rally strategy and managed to get the courts and legislators across the country to ‘discover’ a “constitutional right” to marriage and special treatment.
Why shouldn’t gun owners and civil rights supporters follow the same strategy to get the courts and legislators across the country to notice what is plainly and EXPLICITLY written in the BILL OF RIGHTS?
The gays (a minority special interest portion of the population once or currently frowned upon by academics -hey that sounds like us!) pulled an in your face rally strategy and managed to get the courts and legislators across the country to ‘discover’ a “constitutional right” to marriage and special treatment.
That’s because the left and all their organs pushed acceptance for generations. Gun owners can’t do that kind of thing. We don’t have the institutions for it nor are do we have moles in the existing ones that can eventually convert them to our cause.
We have to work from the ground up. Take someone to the range, teach them about guns and get them to enjoy shooting. If they buy a gun, get them to join the NRA.
The more people that own guns, enjoy shooting, and know the truth about guns the stronger our side will be.
Homosexual groups had media, political and ‘cultural’ figures carry water for them.
In order to get that, we must be perceived as underdogs and oppressed.
Still working on that one…
A good rally outside the capitol during regular session.
Or if getting people out of work is a problem, combine it with a “virtual rally” of picking a day/time to send/call in to their legislators.
Rallies and protests are bad!
Rallies and protests killed off the black civil rights movement, the gay marriage movement, the Vietnam antiwar movement, the impeach Nixon movement — in fact, every movement from the dawn of time has been killed off by it’s own rallies and protests.
So go back to your rooms, STFU and let your duly-elected rulers and their quislings do what they want to you. You can trust them!
You left the sarc-lock on….
+1
More rallies, not less.
Do they get ignored? Sure – but only at the beginning. Consistent rallies that are well attended will eventually be noticed. It’s happened throughout history.
Right now, there are a lot of politicians who are thinking (or at least hoping) that the latest gun rights movement is just a flash in the pan. If you really want to change things – to get laws repealed – and get them to back off, get in their face over and over and over again.
Fighting in the courts? Meh. That’s what you do when you lose.
So, how well did they work for the Occupy crowd?
The “occupy crowd” was mostly comprised of idiots. If you can stomach it (I know I have a hard time) watch some of the MSM interviews with the protestors. If you ask 30 of them what they’re protesting, you’ll get 25 different answers and the other 5 just plain won’t have an answer.
“What are you protesting?”
“WALL STREET IS EVIL!!!”
“How are you trying to change it?”
“Umm…..WALL STREET IS EVIL!!!”
2A rallies are a little different in that we have an actual cause, not just some vague idea that we’re right and they’re wrong.
how well did they work for the Occupy crowd?
Just fine. In fact, better than fine. Did you ever hear of Occupy before they started to, well, occupy? No? But you’re still talking about them today. Did anyone ever use that goofy “1%” blather before Occupy popularized it? Now it’s everywhere.
If you want to post an example that cuts against protests, Occupy is not it.
I’m with Ralph here.
The relative intellect present had little bearing on the popular dissemination of their “listed ideals” (void where inapplicable, sadly frequently).
Mostly those ideals, when disseminated, got twisted by a game of ‘telephone’ that made my first grade class look like damn rocket scientists or otherwise spun at the demands of 1%er corporate owners to portray the demonstrators as “hippies and communists and quite possibly anti-American terrorists” rather than a broad group of increasingly marginalized relatively young people who had and have legitimate concerns about our (mine, yours, theirs) shared national and international future.
I’ll argue that the fact that most people in the protests were idiots (I know because I was there) was a reflection of the general population (i.e. we as Americans no longer actually try to have a society of intelligent, well-informed people), not the other way round.
It’s not a simple issue, and I don’t think anyone does themselves (or the people/issues they care about) favors by dismissing the Occupy movement. For the most part, I saw it (of course much-simplified) as a broadly humanist movement; our love for firearms is also as much humanist for the most basic reasons as it is anything else.
You know, I REALLY hate to point this out, but our blood must be spilled in order to get the media (and by extension, the brainwashed sheeple) behind our cause. Examples:
Gay Equality: the Stonewall Inn Riot
Viet Nam: Kent State shootings
EEO/Voting Rights: the Mississippi murders
Occupy: The Oakland shooting; NYC kettle mace work
2A Civil Rights: ???
Ruby Ridge and Waco were just too long ago to resurrect, and were sold by the MSM as insurrections. So continue the protests where they have an impact and hope nobody gets hurt.
Do tell? What was “their” objective, what accomplished or to what result, where are “they” now, what current activities.
80% of the Occupy “males”, as the drug generation “antiwar” types were present to get drugs and meet easy broads/get laid. In both the idiot shemales are the true believes/the problem.
Fixed it for you.
https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/t1/1656218_10200613065009490_1254706608_n.jpg
Heh. Perfect.
Not perfect. The arrow should be pointing a bit further down.
That part is not a problem as far as i was concerned.
Her sign isn’t wrong. No guns signs = gun free zones = one of the problems.
Um…yeah. Her sign was Anti-Anti-Gun. I don’t see what needed fixing.
Then her sign is confusing. The “Gun Free Zone” sign is a red circle and slash over a black gun. Having a non-red circle the same color as the arrows and gun indicates the gun (not the No Guns) is the problem and the red slash suggests the intention of getting rid of “the problem”.
I know its nit-picky, but I am a free-lance logo and typography designer – so I have to think about these things. hehe.
That’s right. Nothing needed fixing. She’s on our side.
Rallies, if heavily attended AND truthfully covered by the media, are a very effective way to sway public opinion via out-grouping the opposition. The sheeple, for whatever reason, respond to the threat of being on the outside looking on with regard to matters of popular opinion. Just look at the growing trend of marijuana law state-by-state.
We need action in the courts, but without showing the country (and the world) that gun ownership is not a fringe activity and gun rights activists are not just a small, yet loud, minority, we run the risk of jumping right into the die the Bloomberg et al have tried to cast us in, which is a “lobbying” group funded by “industry” trying to change the law to serve the interests of the merchants of death.
The media is no longer capable of covering anything without a spin, one way or another.
The time to rally shall never pass.
We need to make our voices and faces known to as many people that will look at us, for better or for worse. We’re already having to deal with “Free Speech” Zones and protest “permits”. It’s yet another right that both hinges on and also strengthens the right to keep and bear arms.
The advent of “Free Speech” Zones and protest “permits” is the point at which we became full-up Police State, IMO. And I do NOT use that term lightly. Those were blatant Civil Rights violations on their face.
Yep.
Uh no.
Large rallies are living proof a lot of people want to see stuff like the safe act overturned.
If you don’t hold rallies in addition to going through the courts people will think just a small fringe group don’t like the safe act and continue to make horrible legislation. You need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the people do not want this.
Chasing unicorns?
That sign says that gun control is the problem. Note the circle slash.
Maybe she made the sign herself, and can even do arithmetic.
Unlike the person over whom I’m wasting my time replying.
Edit: Well, the original post went bye bye, but it was moronic anyway. Now my reply is an orphan.
Poor, lonely li’l comment.
The girl in the picture is protesting gun free zones, not guns. So she is one of us.
But even the Reuters article got that wrong. They put this as their first picture and claim this was the 2 person strong counter protest. Didn’t expect any different from MSM.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/20/us-usa-guns-rallies-idUSBRE90H17A20130120
That’s what I got from the sign too–gun free zones are the problem.
Interesting. So who cropped the photo? Even if the Reuters article implies there were only two people at the protest, at least their photo makes it clear what the girl’s sign is really saying. This one, not so much.
Thank you for clearing that up. I wasn’t sure from the photo.
If they organize it, we will come.
Wait, let’s rephrase the question…
Should American citizens who exercise their 2nd Amendment protected right to keep and bear arms stop exercising their 1st Amendment protect right to peaceably assemble….
yeah, that’s gonna be a no.
Like the name and admire the accomplishment.
I don’t have many regrets, but not making eagle scout is one of them.
Rallies and protests are a tactic, so their use should be situational. Sometimes they’ll be more helpful or a better investment of resources than others.
Generally, I think that the most effective way most of us can protect our right to keep and bear arms is to evangelize, and I think the best way to do that is to take people shooting and try to ensure that they have a good time.
Y’know, very rarely can someone change someone else’s opinion on the intertubez…..you’ve just done that. “Evangelize” is not something I had ever associated with what we’re doing here, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more succinct way to put it….
“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far,”
President Theodore Roosevelt
Speak softly and carry a Winchester.
“You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.”
― Al Capone
That’s it, that’s who we, responsible gun owners, want to quote, Al Capone…what a nimrod you must be in real life…
@ WI Patriot: Capone and TR were more alike than you may think… at least in the sense that they both tried to take what they wanted and laws be damned. Google TR’s “New Nationalism” speech. Contrary to popular history, both TR and FDR were two of the most progressive men to ever occupy the White House. Most of the original shit-stains on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights can be traced back to the butt cheeks of a Roosevelt.
If I may paraphrase Sir Winston. “We shall fight the in courts, we shall fight them in public rallies and speeches, we shall fight them at the ballot box, and in the halls of education and in the ambushes and avenues of the public and private media. We shall NEVER surrender!”
The most important area is our lawmakers let them know no more gun controls at all and that we are watching the votes and will keep in mind come election time , and keep fighting all fronts , letters to news papers do get printed , so do it , and make lots noise on the internet also….and take a friend shooting !
Adapt tactics to the environment and the behavior of the enemy in the short view. Adapt strategy to the according to the emerging value of various goals and objectives in the long view.
IMHO, protests and rallies are great for swaying the opinions of legislators who are considering passage of anti (or pro) gun legislation. After it has already passed, as in NY state, the time has generally passed for those rallies to do much good – unless there’s an opportunity to influence additional legislation to repeal or ease restrictions. So in NY, it’s time to head to the judicial system, and rallies on the courthouse lawn aren’t likely to do much good there.
Elsewhere, as recently the case in Washington State, rallies during the public comment period on proposed legislation show a huge and visible demarcation between the handful of MDA members that show up and the hundreds of pro-gun participants. So in my state, rallies are a productive tool.
We should not stop until the MDA coffie clubs stop “rallying”. They get outnumbered by the press 3 to 1 and are mentioned on the national news. They cant ignore 500 people on the capital steps with guns.
With that said, i would like to see the rallies focus their message and drop references to God, abortion, IRS, Bhenghazhai (however you spell that city) and everything else that we may be agreeved by but are not on point regarding the gun issue itself. We should be laser focused on our message and we should be inclusive.
Regarding the inclusivity, we should reach out to people who are not conservative. Individuals in our movement may not like their lifestyle but Gays are gun rights activists’ natural allies. They are members of a group that is constantly attacked and beaten. They need to have the means to fight back. At the moment, they have their own small groups and are at the fringes because elements in their culture point to the conservatives and say that they are the same people who attack them in the streets; be that true or not. If we rallied with them, the left could no longer point at us and claim “redneck”, “homophobe”, “nut”… We could be seen as “mainstream” at some point.
Can you see yourself standing sholder to shoulder with the GLBT crowd to preserve your (and their) rights? If not, do you truely believe in your cause or are you, as I have been accused, just a person who “likes guns”?
Yesterday was 2A Tuesday in Annapolis. While there was a rally, many of us met with our local representatives first and afterwards, as well as participating in seminars about how to work with the MD legislature, how to handle voting against anti-2A candidates in the upcoming primaries, and going over the legislative outlook for this year and onward.
Giving up isn’t going to change anything, and the federal cases against the FSA2013 will take years and years to resolve.
This will be an annual event.
Politicians can only count two things, votes and money. Rallies make them think about vote counting.
This is from the linked article:
“How do we change things?” asked George Durst, of Maryland Shall Issue, a gun-rights nonprofit, and Take Back Maryland, a political action committee dedicated to electing gun-rights candidates. “We’ve got to change the face of the General Assembly. . .It’s going to take years. It’s going to be an evolution, not a revolution.”
Immigration (illegal or not) the growing welfare state, and general un-Americanism of certain states, make this a ridiculous pipe dream and a waste of time, money and effort. Time and money freedom does not have.
Non compliance, passive and open resistance are the only way to restore freedom. Most 2A victories have come as a result of criminal cases brought before the courts. that should tell you something right there.
In my opinion, these organizations would be better served by using their funds to defend otherwise law abiding citizens who chose to defy unconstitutional laws, rather than funnel money to politicians and attorneys to write shitty challenges that will never be argued in front of the court.
Einstein defined insanity as “Doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result”, All the state organizations are more or less following the same playbook, and the results are mostly the same. Defeat, or small mostly meaningless victories that change nothing. The system will not change because it does not want to be changed, It is up to the people to change the system.
The SOP need to change, because rally, lawsuit, write your congress critter, vote for X candidate wash, rinse, repeat is…insane.
It’s going to be an evolution, not a revolution.
It’s true, and more’s the pity.
I’ve never understood that “definition” of insanity…which it isn’t, yet thought of as by a lot of people who use it. Coming from Einstein its really odd seeing as scientific theories had to be recorded being done in controlled and exacting environments ad nauseum to look for discrepancies in their results. If they are being done, the prospect that different results could be recorded is probably expected…or at least up in the air. Also, I know of a multitude of things that can have different results even when one does the same exact same thing which aren’t the result of insanity. I prefer the textbook/legal definition of insanity which is “extreme unreasonableness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality” – which describes the people which we are talking about here in that context just the same. Rant over.
Um, no.
The 2nd amendment was included in the bill of rights to ensure the security of the populations’ 1st amendment rights; without the theoretical ability of that self-same populace to address a list of grievances perpetrated against them against the ruling tier of society (today, that pesky 1% that none of us POTG on TTAG belong to), then the right to free speech is meaningless without the right to enforce by violence the necessary and beneficial change that is sometimes needed in any modern society to ensure liberty and justice for all. I’ll cite “World History 101” as my example here.
We quit showing up to say we care about our firearms, and (intelligently) why, we get steamrolled.
See the Reconstruction South for an example of (natural) rights for a single population group that were curtailed when the will and effort of the general populace to expend political capital and/or time on a serious, meaningful level defending those rights was abandoned.
No no no no no no. Courts are un reliable and defer to legislators. Legislators look at rallies as signs of enthusiasm. Not only should there be rallies, but make sure people are registered and vote.
YES!
That’s a key part of the spectrum of the actions that we should be taking. And vote early. Sheeple tend to vote for the winner, and it’s easy to create the perception of being the winner early in the game. Make our opponents play catch-up for a change.
Rallies are valuable for putting a real face on the movement to counter the caricatures put forth by the gungrabbers. That same friendly face also reassures with flesh and blood warmth fellow 2A supporters who, it’s easy to feel, might otherwise consider themselves akin to Gary Cooper in “High Noon”: outnumbered in a big way.
The better question isn’t whether we should continue to rally, but rather whether we should just rally. I’d actually like to see annual Gun Pride Parades in cities across the nation. Remember, man is a political animal, who thrives in community. Social networking is great for organizing, but ultimately it is to community what Internet pornography is to sex: not without value, but still a distant second substitute for the real thing.
funny, i thought the sign meant the prohibition of guns [gun w/red line thru it…] was the problem, silly me, [mostly] eternal optimist 🙂
It is what it means. Click on the photo and you’ll see she’s on our side. Reuters caption underneath has it wrong. The expanded photo clears it up.
No way, More ralleys with peacefully gun owners interacting with the public in a friendly way. Very early on even Sherrif Clark said he wasn’t going to have his officers endangered by CC carriers. Peacefully gun owners won Clark & cops over right fast. The grabbers don’t want to see guns or ralleys & I don’t give a flying F what the grabbers want, Randy
Hey Fellows,
It IS time for another COLORADO fest .. THAT is what they will listen to. Bloomberg only has ONE VOTE, soros only has ONE VOTE .. gather all of the gun persons together and VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE. It is time to get back to LESS GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL .. make it smaller .. VOTE THEM OUT ..
Robert Seddon
Hmmmm, let us see… what would the Left want us to do? What SHOULD we do?
NY firearms owners don’t need to necessarily rally. but they do need to get the governor’s and the legislature’s feet to the fire and keep them there till they get what they want. Let me find that book… Sun-Tsu? no. Musashi? nah. Rommel? nope… ah, here we go,
Alinsky, Saul.
Go outside the experience of your enemy, make the enemy live by their own rules, ridicule is the most powerful tactic known to man, make sure the tactic is one your people enjoy, and a tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
Payback’s a bitch.
Only $200K? That’s $5 per member. Shameful.
Though my original post has been removed I am still convinced she has a nice rack
And she’s been letting that rack do her thinking for her, clearly.
We can not let up… ever.. imagine 42,000 on the lawn out front of the capitol of cuomostan….
Yup, I think that they have to keep rallying. “Out of sight, out of mind” which does nothing to keep their plight visible.
Yes, they need to keep rallying. “Out of sight, out of mind”. They need to stay visible to keep their plight in the forefront.
Silence is acceptance in the eyes of the politicians and the uninformed. The antis wont stop pitching their agenda why in heavens name should WE.
Both are needed until we attain a satisfactory level of Legislative Backing for RKBA. Realistically, you can probably pull-off one Public Rally a month, but you can work to elect Legislators who respect The Second Amendment every day. Pretty simple, really.