Less Molon Labe, More Reaching Out

[turkeestalker]

Hard to argue with that.
While we figure out how to reach out effectively, we need to stop giving in.

 

[seeker_two]

What works for me?

Make the argument personal. Forget the general statements and put it in term that relate to each individual person. Help them make the connection between the facts and their lives.

The ones who want to understand will understand. The ones who want to scream and threaten aren't worth your time.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

If I were king or in the NRA leadership, I would use some the money to hire quality PR consultants from many disciplines (psych, sociology, communications, whatever) to do some research into messages that move opinion of those not in the hard core choir. Different messages for different regions, races, political affiliations, religious backgrounds.

Also, in an electoral strategy that would convince the flip floppers (supposed gun folks) who are in the throws of moral panic.

Maybe they are doing that - but I don't see it in application. I've said too many times, their messaging in this period has been counterproductive (except maybe for getting a money bomb).

 

[Tom Servo]

I've said too many times, their messaging in this period has been counterproductive

I've cringed at Loesch and Nugent more than a few times over the last two months, but I also wonder does it matter?

The lines are pretty clearly drawn, and most peoples' minds are made up on the issue. We're on the wrong side of history and progress. We're backwards luddites from flyover country who can't be trusted to know what's good for us. And when we contest their assertions that punishing the majority for the crimes of a small minority constitutes sane or useful policy, we're domestic terrorists.

Then the people who use this sort of rhetoric hue and cry, "why can't we have a conversation?"

(Of course, "conversation" is codespeak for appeasement.)

It pains me that our political discourse has degenerated to that point, but I fear we have to take the hand we've been given. At this point, we need to dig our heels in, support groups to fight this out in the backrooms of congress, and wait until such a time the RKBA isn't in such danger to soften the message.

All the time I've been in the gun culture, I've never seen a situation in which academia, the media, and politicians (even a former Supreme Court Justice) are all so openly and brazenly against the RKBA. This is far worse than 1994, and for now, it really is an us vs. them situation.

 

[In The Ten Ring]

One party does what they say they'll do, "pass healthcare reform" and the other side doesn't do what they say they'll do, "reform NFA." I've been a Republican since I was old enough to vote and this is something I have known since then.

My state is doing great on the personal gun rights side. Constitutional carry, carry in car, carry in woods, employer cannot fire someone for gun in car......politics are local my friends. My state does have a state gun owner lobby group which is very active...does your state have that?

Something else that is going on: discussions no longer take place between people but with fingers....since it is a fact most human communication is body language followed by voice tone, these "discussions" really aren't that and thus, have much less effect.

It will take competition in order to force media to be more open towards gun ownership. For some reason half the county that is pro gun ownership isn't interested in starting new media.

 

[vito]

A big part of the problem is the reality that a goodly portion of the country's population lives in large urban centers, that by and large are anti-gun enclaves. People there have accepted frequent crime as the norm, as they also accept as the norm the idea that few non LEO's can legally carry firearms, or in some cases, even own them. They see the pro-gun agenda as upsetting the apple cart by adding guns into what they see as an already volatile environment, and it scares them. That is why despite the reality that state after state has legalized concealed carry, and the chaos and mayhem predicted has not happened, but they still scream the same fears when something like national reciprocity is introduced.

A real problem for all of us on the pro-gun side is that we are not a united group, while our opponents are pretty cohesive. The NRA gets its power from its 5 million members, but there are another 100 million gun owners who are not even members of the NRA or any other national pro gun organization. Too many hunters could not care less if there are restrictions passed on handgun sales or ownership. There are likely avid target shooters and competitive handgun shooters that would not say a word if hunting were banned tomorrow. How we change this is not something that I have the answer to, but I do know that all of us on the pro-gun forums went out of our way to encourage at least joining the NRA that would help our cause enormously. Maybe the next time you go to buy ammo and see others looking at guns or buying ammo or anything gun related, strike up a conversation and ask them if they are NRA members. If not, explain to them why they should join. Can you imagine if the NRA had 20 or 30 million members instead of 5 million how much more influential it would be?

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

If the gun world is correlated with such social unpleasantess as we saw out of major spokespeople, it will hurt.

They do not have a rationale for ownership of the guns that are under threat, that is convincing outside of the choir. The annoyance of a list member, I will summarize as:

We need AR-15s to keep the kindergarten teachers and college professors from making our kids into socialists.

It is common for gun folks to say - WHO CARES, TO THE TRENCHES!

If the next election swings Congress and state houses, you will get Heller/Scalia restriction analysis rammed down your throat for bans in many states thought safe. Forget SCOTUS.

All the money bombs and long posts with micro analyses of Heller won't do the RKBA a bit of good. If you want some of the 100 million gun owners to join the NRA - maybe some thought to messaging and leadership would be appropriate. Some hunter who thinks that ARs are too dangerous isn't going to join the current crew.

In a way, this parallels the last election when the Democrats couldn't understand why some of their folks who supported Obama, turned against Hillary. The person and message counts. Good analyses of the last election demonstrated that her persona sunk enthusiasm for her candidacy. Want more NRA members, think about it.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

PS - saw this on very techy gun discussion group. Here's the link:

https://www.mediamatters.org/video/...n-handy-and-every-time-you-see-one-you/219877

The member who posted it made the point that this is very counterproductive and that someone who didn't know the issues wouldn't join the NRA is that is their type of people.

 

[zukiphile]

If the gun world is correlated with such social unpleasantess as we saw out of major spokespeople, it will hurt.

They do not have a rationale for ownership of the guns that are under threat, that is convincing outside of the choir. The annoyance of a list member, I will summarize as:

We need AR-15s to keep the kindergarten teachers and college professors from making our kids into socialists.

I confess to being annoyed by falsehood from people who should know better.

Glenn, your "summary", a formula you like well enough to have written here several times before, causes annoyance because it appears to be false. I asked you previously who argued that. You directed me to Lapierre and Loesch very generally, then declined to repeat yourself even though no one had asked you to.

You may think your kindergarten quip merits repetition, but if it is false (which appears to be the case) this repetition only illustrates an unhealthy enthusiasm.

If the next election swings Congress and state houses, you will get Heller/Scalia restriction analysis rammed down your throat for bans in many states thought safe. Forget SCOTUS.

All the money bombs and long posts with micro analyses of Heller won't do the RKBA a bit of good. If you want some of the 100 million gun owners to join the NRA - maybe some thought to messaging and leadership would be appropriate. Some hunter who thinks that ARs are too dangerous isn't going to join the current crew.

What crew would such a person join? A hunter who thinks a Palmetto State semi-automatic AR is too dangerous for a civilian to possess has a substantial disagreement with the text of the 2d Am. and Heller. How many rights do you want to give away to get that fellow to join the NRA?

Let's resist referring to the actual language of Heller as a "micro-analys[is]".

In a way, this parallels the last election when the Democrats couldn't understand why some of their folks who supported Obama, turned against Hillary. The person and message counts. Good analyses of the last election demonstrated that her persona sunk enthusiasm for her candidacy. Want more NRA members, think about it.

I wouldn't blame it primarily on her personality, but properly addressing this may be too political for a mere "list member" to address.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I’ll let the readership decide whether they agree with me. It’s that simple.

 

[zukiphile]

I’ll let the readership decide whether they agree with me. It’s that simple.

That is simple, but not probative. If someone reads a falsehood and agrees with it, it is no truer for the agreement.

Why would you knowingly persist in an factual error?

 

[LogicMan]

^^^I'm with Frank. Again, it's not the hard core anti's we have a chance with, it's those folks that in the past have been neutral to gun ownership. We have already chipped away at the edges with the old rhetorical "Shall not be infringed" arguments, but those still on the fence need something else. They've basically gotten sick of hearing the same ol' rhetoric and it's falling on deaf ears. On top of that, for every anti statement I've seen that is " wrong, misleading, and often flat-out lies", I've seen one from pro-gunners that is the same.

I've not seen anything from pro-gunners that matches what the anti's throw out ("assault weapons," "high-capacity magazines," "cop-killer bullets," "armor-piercing bullets," etc...).

We have to quit doing what we accuse the other side as doing if we want to present ourselves as legitimate. Overall, I see very few newly proposed realistic answers and solutions to violence using firearms from pro-gun folks, just the same ol' memes and quotes. Yes, we need to talk to folks, but we need good arguments directed at the whole congregation, not just the choir. We need to fight the battle we can win(those neutral to firearm ownership) and quit focusing on those anti extremists who will never see things our way. We don't need to defeat them, we just need to keep them in the minority.

You have to focus somewhat on the anti-gun extremists because they are often listened to by the neutrals. As for solutions to gun violence, there aren't a whole lot of them aside from what is already mentioned. One major solution would be a complete 100% ban on all semiautomatic firearms period. But that comes with the caveat of massively infringing on people's rights. Arguing this of course then requires defending why the right to arms is a right and how the proposed gun control of the anti's infringes greatly on said right.

I use the analogy of the right to freedom of speech. If some group holds a Muslim cartoon contest and then next week a radical Muslim plows over a group of school children with a truck, and then we see say a Muslim art mockery show (like how they will do horrible works of "art" regarding Christianity, we see one with regards to Islam), so then we again see a group of people run over with a truck and maybe another Boston bombing. Well the easy solution is to ban anything that mocks Islam in such a situation. But that doesn't make it right and I would not support it because it is a violation of people's rights and puts the blame on the exercise of the right as opposed to the people doing the killing.

 

[LogicMan]

All the time I've been in the gun culture, I've never seen a situation in which academia, the media, and politicians (even a former Supreme Court Justice) are all so openly and brazenly against the RKBA. This is far worse than 1994, and for now, it really is an us vs. them situation.

Well the situation of them being against it hasn't changed IMO, just their being more openly against it, and that is because of the frequency of the mass shootings as of late IMO. But SCOTUS justices, the media, academia, etc...have all long been against the RKBA.

 

[RC20]

The data that the OP stated for gun ownership looks to be wrong.

Gun owners are 3 out of 10 (probably some plus or minus to that). A percentage of those 3 own multiple guns so the numbers may be high but not the overall ownership and guns don't vote, owners do. 70% (more or less) don't own guns.

The reality is that when I was growing up, even where I did, no where near all the people owned guns (white, Native population tended to have at least one gun per household but they were far more dependent on hunting and trapping)

What I saw go from people who had guns and responsible was a push for lots of guns and regardless of responsible or not.

ARs are like the 22 of the day now.

Melenials and the subsequent generation have a different view and they are moving to vote in numbers and those kids are the generation that grew up with school shootings (as rare as they are, the impact is nationwide)

I grew up as a kid in the A Bomb era and I can remember how we felt.

The more guns out there the more get into the wrong hands.

One store was broken into in my city and 30 some firearms taken, 10 have been used in crime.

Legally bought guns are now being used in crime (that was rare to unheard of at one time)

So yes, we can get outvoted.

I am not adverse to discussing a different approach.

 

[Nathan]

Are we supposed to lie?

The purposeful lying of the other side has to catch up with them. I used to think the media reported...now, they have had time to change their wording, but it still remains horribly inaccurate. The trouble is, the media is spewing the Antigun message 24/7. Can they be sued for purposeful ignorance? If they misrepresented a person like this, they would be sued.

The issue with the NRA is deep. We have lost our roots for immediate fear based gains. We need to get back to our roots of firearms education. We need back into schools....clubs, sports, 3-7 days program for health classes with video, interactive, etc...

The NRA needs to buy into 2A4E. This is at the core of the new message. Loesch and Nuggent need to be dismissed. LaPierre replaced by a skilled leader. Get rid of fear tactics. We were winning and can get it back.

The key thing missing from these mass shootings?? Investigation. There seems to be no investigation. Can the NRA/ILA provide some investigative reporting? Is the FBI being fixed? Can the NRA show the statistics? Being shot is the least of kids concerns....texting, driving, drinking, falling....these are the real dangers in life. Who is holding Chicago accountable for their lack of policing in areas of HIGH murder? Trump said he would....What is the progress?

 

[LogicMan]

One major determining factor in gun politics, IMO, will simply be the frequency of the mass shootings. If they stop and die off for some time, then so will the drives for gun control and you will begin likely to even see some various forms of gun control reversed I think in certain states. But as long as they remain frequent, it will remain a heated issue.

 

[Tom Servo]

Gun owners are 3 out of 10 (probably some plus or minus to that). A percentage of those 3 own multiple guns so the numbers may be high but not the overall ownership and guns don't vote, owners do. 70% (more or less) don't own guns.

I'm very skeptical of that statistic. On one hand, the antis claim we have more guns than people in this country. Then they go on to tell us not that many people actually own guns.

They try to reconcile this in two ways. The first is their "data." It seems to come from phone surveys in which they call people and ask questions about gun ownership. Who actually gets called for phone surveys any more? Even then, how many of those people are willing to tell a complete stranger they own guns? In this political atmosphere? No.

So, what their "data" tells me is that 3 out of 10 people who were contacted through a phone survey were willing to talk about their gun ownership admit to owning guns. Can I be sure? No. They don't generally release their methodology or sample sizes, but those guns have to be going somewhere.

The second is the myth of the (I kid you not) "super owner." This comes up when I mention the dramatic upward swing of retail sales and NICS checks. Where did all these guns go? Their explanation comes down to, "well, sure. There's, like, twelve guys in Idaho buying thousands of guns each."

Yeah, um...no. I worked in the business during a few panics, including the post-Newtown frenzy of 2013. The reality was, our regulars stood aside while we focused the majority of our efforts selling to first-time buyers.

The whole thing is an agenda to "prove" some decline in gun ownership. If they do that, they can go to their donors and claim they're having success.

 

[spacemanspiff]

The whole thing is an agenda to "prove" some decline in gun ownership. If they do that, they can go to their donors and claim they're having success.

For reals! For the last few years they keep saying 'gun ownership is declining and is at all time lows!' but turn around and tell us gun deaths is the biggest epidemic and that this country leads the world in gun-related deaths.
It reminds me of when I did my own research back in 2001/2002 after I bought my first gun (thought I was a horrible criminal for buying it from a friend with no background check done or no registration of it; and even thought my landlord would evict me if he knew I had a gun in my apartment) and still held on to some liberal ideas about how evil guns were. The realization that the anti-gun groups were manipulating the data at every turn was a 'Come To Jesus' moment for me.

 

[riffraff]

For sure all gun owners should be NRA, and all NRA members should let others know they belong - put the sticker on, mention it when pertinant. If you know a gun owner who's not NRA shame them, they deserve it over the freakin 30 bucks.

Among anti gunners there's this idea that they are "against" the NRA and some handfull of senior citiczen rednecks. Moderate non gun owners are not neccesarily aware of how many gun owners really exist either - in any way possible we need to show that guns ARE COMMON, we are 30% of the population and not the percieved 3%.

 

[turkeestalker]

I'm going to call 30% way low.
No way to prove it but I'm betting it's twice that.
No way for anyone to disprove it either.