Anti-gun range protest a bust

[Gary L. Griffiths]

I really think that 9/11 was probably the turning point.

I agree, but not entirely for the stated reasons. 9/11 was a major wakeup call for those who believed that if we were unoffensive and unarmed, that we would be left alone. All of a sudden pacifism was seen as a path to destruction, not a path to moral superiority.

 

[MTT TL]

I see the internet as being a valuable supplement, but not the lynchpin to the change.

I disagree.

The whole anti-gun movement was built upon a mountain of lies supported by hyperbole. When the lights started to come on in the mid 90s and people began to figure out they had been lied to for years there was no where for the anti-gun movement to go. As more and more people started to figure it out it grew more. The media machines were left reeling and viewed as untrustworthy and have never recovered. The internet is now the primary source of news for most people.

I honestly believe that boards like this one with rational, frank and honest discourse played a huge role in educating people who wanted to be educated. Do not down play your own role. Educating thousands and thousands has been a significant contribution. You will never know how many people may have read a few things here and gone on to set someone else straight. Don't expect any public awards or rewards either, sometimes satisfaction is the best reward.

I also believe that Charlton Heston played a huge role too. As a civil rights activist who maintained his convictions while the country changed around him his stance caught a lot of the left completely off guard. His class and grace convinced a lot of people that gun owners were not all crazy for wanting to keep their guns. He also took away the shame that the left had tried for years to imbue into gun owners with their crazy lies and assertions. His in your face activism made the anti movement quake and left their agents such as Michael Moore looking quite hapless.

 

[rbernie]

I really think that 9/11 was probably the turning point.

I agree, but not entirely for the stated reasons. 9/11 was a major wakeup call for those who believed that if we were unoffensive and unarmed, that we would be left alone. All of a sudden pacifism was seen as a path to destruction, not a path to moral superiority.

I absolute believe this to be true. The facade of being 'safe' (and being able to make your world safe via legislation) was destroyed for a lot of folk on 9/11. Unlike local crime, the terrorist threat could not be addressed by the usual social engineering platitudes and remedies. I know of many folk that suddenly came to grok things in ways that they had never done before.

 

[SIGSHR]

Father's Day? Now that is something Jesse Jackson is well acquainted with.
If he was a real man he would acknowledge that fatherless is behind much of the gun violence problem.

 

[USAFNoDak]

1994 and the republicans taking control of the US House of Rep. for the first time in like 40 years or so. The reason? The assault weapons ban. Bill Clinton admitted that many of his democratic congressmen lost their seats as a result of voting for the ban. This was the wake up call that the federal govt. was indeed going to ban a whole new class of firearms. Also, the underhanded way they went about it probably had something to do with it. We saw our own government misleading and creating confusion over semi auto vs. full auto so that they could ban semi autos. The american people seem to get the hair up on our backs when the federal government lies to us in an attemp to fool us. That doesn't seem to always sit too well.

 

[MTT TL]

I absolute believe this to be true. The facade of being 'safe' (and being able to make your world safe via legislation) was destroyed for a lot of folk on 9/11. Unlike local crime, the terrorist threat could not be addressed by the usual social engineering platitudes and remedies. I know of many folk that suddenly came to grok things in ways that they had never done before.

If that were true than why does NYC now have the most oppressive gun laws in the country?

 

[Tom Servo]

Tom, just for the record, the reason that Y2K was a non-event was that there was all the IT staff plus consulting companies across the country working very had to make it a non-event.

I remember vividly. I happened to remember enough COBOL to do quite well for myself

Now, as to the actual "awakening" we've seen, I think it would be disingenuous to attribute it to any one source. It's also easy to look at history selectively. The AWB was not the only reason for the change in ranks in Congress in 1994. Nor was 9/11 a sudden watershed of sympathy and understanding for the 2nd Amendment.

Many of these events are significant mileposts, but I submit that our current situation is a culmination of a number of factors.