March for our lives too ?

Evan I think you clearly articulate the world view of those who believe that government has the responsibility to provide for our needs and protect us from evil. I am guessing there are untold millions who share that view, and I agree they are not interested in hearing the truth that no government has ever been able to do either one.

How do we make our case to people who expect to be taken care of from cradle to grave? I think we have to be honest enough to explain that history shows this has never worked. We have to help them see that those who would take our liberty are either unknowing or interested in advancing their own power and position. We need to help them see that while liberty comes at a very high price, it is a real bargain compared to the cost of putting our lives in the hands of government.

I'm not saying that my liberty is more important than your safety. I'm saying that without liberty you have no safety. I understand that may not resonate with Feinstein, Pelosi, Bloomberg, and others. They're not our target audience. It is the millions of undecided Americans who are not afraid of the truth, but need to hear it from someone they trust. This battle will be won or lost by in our backyards, neighborhoods and polling places, not by marches in my view.
 
in material quoted in this thread as from NRA TV said:
In another NRA TV clip posted Thursday, Noir had harangued the Parkland survivors, saying “no one would know your names” if someone with a gun had stopped the shooting at their school.
Click to expand...

I just saw the clip on Chris Matthews program. That is a misrepresentation of his words. He actually said that he wished someone had been there to stop the killer so that "no one would know their names".

That's quite different.

K Mac said:
I'm not saying that my liberty is more important than your safety.
Click to expand...

I am.

Risk is a part of every life.

To assume the power to remove all risk is an inherently totalitarian goal. Of course, it is also nested in a deception that the person who assumes power ostensibly to remove risk from life would use it for that purpose.

Freedom means that someone will hit his wife, drive drunk and kill an innocent, smoke and get lung cancer, invest poorly, skip school, burn down his house, sell bad food, or get the flu. That same freedom means that someone will be able to invest well, develop new medicines, write a brilliant book, help someone who needs help, lift someone who has given up, learn, feed the hungry and tend to the sick.

No promise of mere safety is worth giving away the best of humanity.

Just so no one misconstrues this, the observation above isn't an accusation than anyone here thinks life can be free of risk.
 
Counter protests are happening. Even here in good old liberal NY we had one . The local paper covered it. They said it was much smaller than the March for our lives protest. The problem is it wasn't organized. I didn't know. I would have gone. Many of my shooting friends would have gone. Someone needs to take the lead on this and it should be the NRA or the state associations. Some of you are suggesting to sit back and let it ride well guess what the democrats are on the attack. [Sen. Schumer] my local favorite, spoke to his republican colleagues and informed them that their jobs are in jeopardy because of this new movement. His proposal is: Raise the age to purchase a firearm.universal background checks and my favorite ,a complete ban on so called assault rifles. By the way he wants this done in a month. I'm writing to my local reps even though I know its useless but I have to do something.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Zukiphile I agree with you. My point is that our safety is contingent on liberty. Evan's point is that my liberty to keep and bear arms comes at the cost of putting you at risk in the view of many. I passionately disagree with that position. My rhetoric may be flawed, but I am confident my conclusion is not.:D
 
This afternoon I watched a short video clip of Dana Loesch (sp?) and the buzz-cut young woman from Parkland debating at the march. The audience was clearly mostly juveniles, and their reaction to Dana was not even polite. They were pre-primed to reject anything she had to say before the words even passed her lips. She had to keep asking them to allow her to complete her statements.

You can't debate people like that. All you can do is ignore them and focus on affecting the people who actually write laws. On the national level, it's easy:

https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

They ALL have an e-mail contact form on their web sites, and you can access them all through the link I just provided. Like the old joke about voting in Chicago, "Write early, and write often." My understanding is that the congresscritters and the President are extremely UNlikely to actually see your e-mail, so KISS. Don't write a lengthy treatise that tries to spell out every point. It'll get lost. It's MUCH more effective to make a list of your points, and then write one, short message for each of them. They do keep count of how many messages come in on each side of a question, so five or ten short messages are more effective than one, long message.

Do the same for you home state's legislators. They all probably have e-mail contact facilities, too, but you'll have to chase those down on your own.
 
It may be a fair question, but it's one which entirely misses the point Glenn is making: this is not a fight over whose public policy ideas are "sounder," it's a fight in which the primary weapon is emotional messaging, and we are losing it -- thanks in large part to the idiotic tactics of the NRA, which Glenn accurately described as "flat out stupid messaging."
Click to expand...

People will forget what you did
People will forget what you said
No one ever forgets how you made them feel.
 
I agree with Evan Thomas, with caveats. A lot of this IS emotion, and a lot of people are catering to it. Of course the ones who give the outlet for these kids (the funders, the media who airs their speeches, CNN for organizing the "town hall," et al) are using the kids because they have held the view that Americans shouldn't have guns for a long time. Its just convenient that 17 year olds (ineligible for any federal office by quite a few years) who are "hip and cool" have made a hashtag about it, so anti-gunners are exploiting it.

With that being said, I am convinced that if the generation who communicates 140 characters at a time would sit down and actually read some of the arguments and points made in this very forum thread and ponder them a moment, a great many minds would be changed. Freedom and liberty can absolutely be an emotional plea. The problem is, few have an inclination to take the time to read a few pages of text, separate the wheat from the chaff, do a little contextual research, and reason through what they read. Our problem is not that we can't make an emotional plea, it is that we can't communicate our message in a soundbyte, hashtag, or a tweet. I hope the NRA is seeking out some of the best and brightest marketing people as we speak to develope a delivery method for our message that may resonate with the younger generation. For the rest of us... Donate money to a RKBA group and take every opportunity to expose the next generation to the shooting sports.
 
These kids are being lied to. They are being used.

It isn't about wether or not this person or that person has this gun or that gun or any gun at all. It's about the ability of a person to defend themselves in a confrontation. Even when that confrontation is nothing more than a fist fight. They can be given facts and even facts as they relate to recent history (the 911 events where planes were taken down with box cutters). They can be given the truth about just who it is backing them in this movement. The fact that these are the same people that push to keep them defenseless (largely by gun free zones). But they cannot be shown any of this by any adult that is themselves caught up in the lie that is social media. They will see right through the Hippocrates. They are young and inexperienced but not necessarily stupid. They simply are getting forced into war of ideology that can have drastic impacts on their own futures (but such situations are not exactly new).

Be the adult and loving parent for the kids. It's reasonable to suggest that years of living without much (if any) guidance creates a vacuum that ultimately gets filled by hollywood, drug pushers and pimps, and the streets. They simply ARE getting locked in a dark room every night with killers, the criminally insane, and those that are so self absorbed and self loathing that they just don't care......THIS is what pushes people into ISIS/militant jihadism/anit-American hatred. We have (or atleast should have) heard all this before. Yet this problem gets worse. There are an awful lot of people out there that just don't care. Kids are being taught by all the wrong people. With divorce at all time highs and single parent homes. With an entire major US city's worth of people being aborted. Then having so many years of Obama's 'santa clause'. What would you expect out of these kids? I'm sure many of them honestly feel like there is NOTHING that can be trusted or believed in anymore. I'm sure that many of them genuinely feel like they have no future. Why do ya think so many of them feel no desire to own homes or cars?

They are crying out in anger because they know they need but they don't really know what they need....but they sure know they have been let down. By all kinds of people that claim to be on their side.
 
Florida passed a shall issue concealed carry law in 1987 - at the beginning that effort to pass one was ridiculed. Afterwards over decades all 50 states finally had carry laws - some better than others.

We had a national assault weapons ban and 10 round magazine limit - it is gone.

At one time for years on end most a large portion approaching a majority of Americans favored a handgun ban - that is no longer the case and hasn't been now for decades.

We won in the Supreme Court establishment of the RKBA as an individual right.

We won these fights by perseverance, by building and supporting national and state gun rights organizations, by expanding the shooting sports, by teaching people about guns by taking them shooting and by rationally explaining our beliefs based on logic and facts. We pushed our side to vote, to call and write our legislators, to organize marches, and more recently after Sandy Hook to get on social media platforms and engage in debate, post facts and statistics, and memes.

We were down and on the ropes after Sandy Hook, there was a million womans March for gun control. But slowly we once again won the debate because we stayed engaged day after day and year after year. And we turned around the polls - NRA positive, Gun Rights more important than Gun Control, from so called Assault Weapons needing to be banned to they shouldn't be banned.

This latest March was projected to be 500,000 to 800,000- per CBS they got 200,000. It was supposed to be a young persons march - they had per MSNBC about 20,000. More people joined the NRA than attended the March, Feb this year was the 2nd highest Feb ever for gun sales.

We got hit with 4 high profile shootings in a short time frame with the last at a school. And the gun control crowd had a plan to roll out that they had been working on since Sandy Hook. The elites, MSM, and Hollywood were enthusiastic to help the roll out.

Yes we got hit hard, yes we are wounded, but we just keep doing what works and we will win back again. Every day that the gun control movement fails to gain momentum, every day they fail to get legislation, every day they can't turn their emotional appeals into tangible results and gains they lose.

It's a war and it's never over and we can't say we've won because then we will lose because we'll have stopped fighting.

We haven't suddenly been out fought and we aren't being inevitably beaten by superior tactics and organization. We've had a string of awful tragedies that by themselves have shocked people. And then we've had the gun control movement use that emotional outrage and shock to their advantage.

We win again by doing what we have done so successfully before these tragedies as discussed above in this post and we stick to it. And people need to maintain some perspective on this and realize that.
 
These kids are being lied to. They are being used
Click to expand...

That really is the bottom line. They are being used by political/special interest groups that are pathetic at best. I question the parents but then again, I imagine they have similiar views as the trash that is influencing these kids.
 
Mack59 said:
It's a war and it's never over and we can't say we've won because then we will lose because we'll have stopped fighting.
Click to expand...

That's a hard message to convey to people who see limitations on government as necessary to its correct function. Some people imagine that if we could have a clear win on an issue, we could stop fighting a political war and metaphorically go back to our homes, a focus on family, community and our private lives.

People who seek an expansion of government are more likely to appreciate the "govern" in government. For them a victory is an element of a foundation on which implementation of their expansion will rest. Their demeanor is better suited to exercising force over time.

There are no final victories in a fight to be left alone.
 
Have any of you ever researched how old the Founding Fathers were in 1776? What you find will probably surprise you. Many of them were teenagers! That's right, teenagers. Don't make the mistake of writing these marches off because they're being led by teenagers.

I didn't realize it until these high schoolers rose up in protest, but we now have a whole generation of children whose entire school experience has been marked by active shooter drills. Starting in kindergarten, today's kids are taught that someone could come into their school and start shooting. Stop and think about that while you're busy criticizing them, claiming they're only acting out of emotion, being led by the nose by the media, or simply playing follow the leader to get out of class. The school shooter threat has been a very real thing for them their entire school career. Ask yourself what we, as a society, have done to prevent these shootings from happening. The answer is very little. They're rising up because we, the adults, have failed to protect them. If anything, we should be proud of them for standing up like they have. Maybe they don't fully understand why we have a 2nd Amendment. Maybe they don't understand why we have guns like the AR-15 in this country. But they do understand what it's like to go to school every day wondering if their school will be the next one to get shot up, and they want us to do something about it. Don't write them off. The only way we can understand the world they live in is by listening to what they say to us, and right now they're saying they want us to fix this problem.
 
They're rising up because we, the adults, have failed to protect them.
Click to expand...

While I get your point and I get the emotion behind the feeling the risk of being the victim of an active school shooting is relatively low. One of the issues is we report every event that might even remotely be considered a gun issue in school as if it happened right next door in Mayberry. It didn't. We ignore where protections have worked.

To me this is part of the issue. You are fighting emotion that is based on a suspect premise and left without being able to point out what it is in a way that is not taken as offensive.

"There really haven't been that many school shootings if you consider the size of the US, the amount of schools, and the amount of students"

"Tell that to the 17 families in Parkwood"

This has become the "stranger danger" of today. We spent a lot of time, money, and energy in the 80's and 90's teaching children of the danger of people they do not know when most kidnappings and abuses were being perpetrated by people they did know.
 
It has been well known for years by people who study such things that:

1. A vivid instance causes people to overestimate the probability of occurrence.

2. We have a biological based heuristic to protect the young.

That's why this case is so horrific and having so much impact.

Nice to know some basics of how folks process information.

#2 probably also explains why attacking the kids personally is a losing PR strategy.
 
One of the biggest issues is that most gun owners and republicans aren’t the protesting injustice type that the media eats up. We really need to organize. I’ve heard of people looking to rally here in Florida. I’d gladly go to a demonstration as long as it features concealed carriers. There also needs to be a walkout organized for kids who disagree with the walkout. Ultimately our side is fighting very organized propagandists who use things like their teacher’s union to screw around.
Click to expand...

The problem, in my opinion, is in who would show up to these rallies. I can just picture all the Rambo wannabes in their tactical get ups toting their strapped on ARs marching. It would do nothing to further the cause. As gun owners, we've allowed that image of the ready to go to war sharp shooting tacticool man's man to take center stage. That's the image people have in their minds when they think of gun owners. It's because that's who shows up to such events. That's the image I had in my mind of gun owners, prior to becoming one, and that's the image people I've talked to about guns have in their minds.
 
I guess the question is: what do you we do and what do we demand our "voices" do? I agree with you that attacking the kids, indeed even questioning them directly, may be a losing strategy.

"We" need a strategy that shows that we are concerned about the safety of the children and addresses it in an effective way that is not just "ban guns" The problem is "we" (the collective we) are left talking about crayons. "Our" answer to "make our schools safer by banning guns" is not being well articulated and we are not offering a way out of the dilemma.

Face it a good number of people believe banning guns would instantly make our schools safer. We disagree but we do not seem to be making our point effectively.
 
Something I should note. My father introduced me to guns. He also introduced a good share of my friends to them. It was not at all uncommon when a friend was over that we would go out shooting and no one would care.

My 18 year old have a 17 year old friend over the other day who has never shot a gun in his life let alone held one. They wanted to. I settled on getting out one of the air rifles as "least objectionable" and they enjoyed it. By that age if we went shooting with my dad we were using an AK and a case of ammo with no worries about what anyone would say. I still half expect an irate phone call from a parent over the air gun.

This is part of the problem. I know of at least a half dozen people who support gun rights and understand what a gun is because my father educated them while they were at the house and they had a lot of fun. No one asked their parent(s) if it was ok it was just assumed it was. As a parent today that is simply not happening.
 
Have any of you ever researched how old the Founding Fathers were in 1776? What you find will probably surprise you. Many of them were teenagers!
Click to expand...

Three points...

1: The youngest main influential founding father in 1776 was Alexander Hamilton at 19 years old. The rest were at least in their mid-20's, and many in their 30's and 40's.

2: Hamilton didn't begin drafting public policy at 19 years old, he fought in the revolutionary war. He was quite skilled in this trade as he was elected the captain of a company at 19 and led his unit in several successful engagements. His success, and subsequently serving as staff to General Washington, likely springboarded him to his political career and played a large part in why he held the influence that he did.

3: The constitution was written largely by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton (with Madison actually penning the original rough draft) in 1787. 11 years after 1776. The bill of rights were ratified 12/15/1791. 15 years after 1776. All of the mainstay names of Framers were over 30 when the constitution was drafted. Most were well into their 40's and 50's. Hamilton was the youngest (household name) present that actually had a pen to paper, and he had earned that right by fighting in the war.

So... the point is while at least one of the primary founding fathers was a teenager in 1776, he didn't draft public policy until years later. A good argument could be made that he had earned that right by being a successful commander in the American Revolution. So it's kind of apples/oranges.

I didn't realize it until these high schoolers rose up in protest, but we now have a whole generation of children whose entire school experience has been marked by active shooter drills. Starting in kindergarten, today's kids are taught that someone could come into their school and start shooting. Stop and think about that while you're busy criticizing them, claiming they're only acting out of emotion, being led by the nose by the media, or simply playing follow the leader to get out of class. The school shooter threat has been a very real thing for them their entire school career. Ask yourself what we, as a society, have done to prevent these shootings from happening. The answer is very little. They're rising up because we, the adults, have failed to protect them. If anything, we should be proud of them for standing up like they have. Maybe they don't fully understand why we have a 2nd Amendment. Maybe they don't understand why we have guns like the AR-15 in this country. But they do understand what it's like to go to school every day wondering if their school will be the next one to get shot up, and they want us to do something about it. Don't write them off. The only way we can understand the world they live in is by listening to what they say to us, and right now they're saying they want us to fix this problem.
Click to expand...

You make a very compelling point and argument here. I cannot contest this in the least. Well, I can contest that they are absolutely being used by the media, but that's not a criticism of the teenagers participating in the marches.
 
My 18 year old have a 17 year old friend over the other day who has never shot a gun in his life let alone held one. They wanted to. I settled on getting out one of the air rifles as "least objectionable" and they enjoyed it. By that age if we went shooting with my dad we were using an AK and a case of ammo with no worries about what anyone would say. I still half expect an irate phone call from a parent over the air gun.
Click to expand...

I am with you there. And this has been a quick change too. My son and his friends did go shooting with me on occasion, and that was only 6 or so years ago. It was as simple as "call your dad and ask him, he can talk to me if he wants." Now my oldest daughter is 13. She has not asked to take her friends, and I am mostly grateful. There is maybe one friend whose parents I know well enough to be comfortable discussing it with, although I suspect I know their answer (no) in advance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top