“One should be careful not to underestimate the power of the opposition. It’s true that the National Rifle Association poured money into last year’s election only to see President Obama — and many other NRA targets — prevail. But rumors of the NRA’s demise are greatly exaggerated. It remains a potent force, with strong grass-roots organizations across the country and big campaign coffers that it will continue to use in state and federal elections. Calls for leaders to show “political courage” in the face of this strength are not enough. Unless we create a counterweight, gun rights advocates trying to ride out outrage over Newtown may succeed.” – John McCarthy and Glenn Ivey in The path forward on gun violence [via washingtonpost.com]

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12 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve been politically active for a long time, for a number of causes, but never have I been engaged as intensely as now. Educated through exposure to firearms and a desire to understand the law from a layman’s viewpoint has raised my sensitivity to freedom and liberty issues.

    I look around and consider there must be many like me, who have seen the light and are fired up to fight.

  2. I look at this as a good sign. Their confidence is starting to wane. If there’s a takeaway here though its that the defense of the 2a is a permanent struggle. They are in it to win it, and so are we.

  3. It’s incredulous that the gungrabbers “think” that the NRA is some kind of monster, when in reality, if not for the 4 million or so ordinary people who make up the organization, it wouldn’t exist.

    So remember, every time an anti makes any kind of negative reference regarding the NRA, they are making those references right to you.

  4. They said, “Unless we create a counterweight, gun rights advocates trying to ride out outrage over Newtown may succeed.” Like that would be a bad thing.

    So this is it. THE fight over the 2A. That’s bad news. The worse news is that these assaults on the Bill of Rights probably won’t stop until each is shredded and meaningless. And I am quite sure that will not be an age of peace and tranquility.

    Must be very inconvenient that after decades of educational dumbing-down there are still people who think for themselves. My current worry is that pro2A people will not be persuaded by their logic so we will be persuaded by other means. For our own sake and the sake of our country.

    Note the terms of engagement. We’re debating “reasonable” (their term) gun control. Sounds quite… reasonable. So the debate needs to change. We can’t keep using their terms or its over. We need to make the point — in terms everyone can understand — that this is NOT reasonable gun control. Only I don’t know how to do that.

    As the author Margaret Atwood predicted in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, people are demanding freedom FROM, not freedom TO. People want freedom from the dark side of human nature, and they’re giving up the freedom to act individually.

    • The problem is SMYF, is that the mind set of anti’s is not
      based on logic, fact or reality. They are completely delusional and in denial, if one person believes in something different than the “norm”, they are called “crazy”, when a whole bunch of people believe in something, it becomes the “norm”, even when it’s delusional,

      They see people who believe in the 2nd as completely nuts, we see them as delusional, in denial and some as down right nuts.

      In the end, we will never convince them of thier delusion, we can only defeat them, hopefully through the ballot box, cause then we only have one box left and that’s a nightmare any sane person would never want to open.

  5. The NRA failed because robme was a failure. Same old bushit with another coat of paint. Some choice we have, vote for the war mongers who will kill your kids or vote for the party that says you can’t defend yourself & will let criminals kill you. The way I see it Life Liberty & the Pursuit of happiness starts with Life & I needed to vote dems out in Wis to be able to defend my life. Nationally its more thorny although if the dems are bent on taking my life they will need to go, I sure hate corporate control though, Randy

  7. I’m just shocked an anti was able to string together a somewhat coherent and even respectable paragraph declaring opposition to the NRA. rather than the usual comedy of frothing, wild-eyed madness and sociopathic threats. Must be one of the hive minds.

  8. I still dont know why you post such antigun post like this RF. I agree the NRA is our biggest ally but all the rest of this article was a Brady Campaign speech. Come on enough posting them RF!!!!!!

  10. i posted this on their site (going to send it to my congress critters, too):
    “well, at least the first thing you recommend is tying mental health records to gun purchases.
    that’s probably the only suggestion likely to make a difference. you’ll also need to include a plan to comb through whatever records there are to see which dangerous mental health patients already possess or have access to guns.

    but as is frequently the case, you trip right over to banning assault weapons and magazines.
    FBI statistics show that AW’s and their “hi-cap” mags are a vanishingly small factor in the murder rate.
    4 times as many people are murdered with knives as with AW’s.
    4 times as many people are murdered with bats and hammers.
    2 times as many people are simply beaten to death with fists and feet.
    finally, murder-by-gun is overwhelmingly most often committed using a handgun – 72%, in fact.
    (source for above is 2011 FBI Uniform Crime Report, freely available on line at the FBI’s website).

    If we are objective and honest – and we really, truly care about reducing murders and violent crime – we will go after knives, hammers and bats well before we restrict assault weapons.”

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