March for our lives too ?
- Thread starter L2R
- Start date
We have created a mystique around in our culture that it takes someone highly trained and special to use one to protect us. Look at the recent rally. The police officers there were armed openly and no one seemed to worry about it. I know that police officers receive training but really its not some impossible degree of training. We have all heard stories of virtually untrained individuals using a gun to protect themselves.
Somehow we have to convince those marching that individual gun ownership is the ultimate tool in regards to individual self defense and perhaps THEIR individual self defense. I know that I have read stories of the NRA giving African-American families shotguns when the Klan was rising to protect themselves though I don't know the validity of those stories.
Austin Peterson once tweeted: "I believe in a world where gay married couples are free to protect their marijuana fields with fully automatic machine guns." It is probably a little more extreme message than what we want to use but somehow we have to show the link between individual freedom and the right to effective individual self defense in order to identify some common ground with those that are being used as pawns in a message against us.
Teach them about guns, show them that THEY could use a gun if they needed, and teach them that it is just one more step towards individuals independence.
Somehow we have to convince those marching that individual gun ownership is the ultimate tool in regards to individual self defense and perhaps THEIR individual self defense. I know that I have read stories of the NRA giving African-American families shotguns when the Klan was rising to protect themselves though I don't know the validity of those stories.
Austin Peterson once tweeted: "I believe in a world where gay married couples are free to protect their marijuana fields with fully automatic machine guns." It is probably a little more extreme message than what we want to use but somehow we have to show the link between individual freedom and the right to effective individual self defense in order to identify some common ground with those that are being used as pawns in a message against us.
Teach them about guns, show them that THEY could use a gun if they needed, and teach them that it is just one more step towards individuals independence.
Evan Thomas
Inactive
Glenn and SonOfScubaDiver are right about the unwisdom of resorting to claims about gun control in Nazi Germany. This isn't necessarily because any argument involving Nazis raises the level of emotion, although that may well be the case.5whiskey said:
It is, however, guaranteed to make us look bad. The reason is simple: the claim that the general German population was disarmed by the Nazis is false.
When the Nazis came to power, gun ownership was already regulated by the Weimar government, which in 1928 loosened a total ban imposed by the Allies in the aftermath of WWI, replacing it with a system of registration. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they used that registry to seize guns from their political enemies, but the actual numbers confiscated were rather small. Through the mid-1930s, there was a large number of guns in the possession of German citizens, who quite notably did not use them to resist the Nazis.
In 1938, the Nazi government did forbid Jews to own guns and other weapons, but the same set of laws actually loosened the restrictions on ownership by the general population. By 1938, the persecution of the Jews was very well underway; they were by then deprived of essentially all civil rights and state benefits. The confiscation of their weapons was one of the final acts leading up to Kristallnacht (the Night of the Broken Glass), in November of that year. (There's a useful timeline of that state persecution here.)
There's a short version of this history here, and a much longer scholarly paper here.
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Now that I've thrown my cold water for the day
, I'm putting on my mod hat to add that this is a great, thoughtful conversation. It's great to see people actually listening to each other and responding with respect -- kudos to you all, and keep up the good work!SonOfScubaDiver
New member
That is a very good question that I wish I had a very good answer to. It's so frustrating because I can see the problem but not a solution that would work on a macro level. For now, on a micro level, I'm just doing what I can to tell my story to all my non gun owning friends. I make a point of telling them about all the good people I've met since becoming a gun owner. I don't know if it's making a difference or not, but it's better than doing nothing. I've tried to not be the kind of gun owner who only shares his love of guns and shooting with others who love guns but, rather, one who shares it with anyone who will listen.
Evan, your comments on Weimar and NS history do indicate two points for which the comparison is correct. First, registration as a precursor to confiscation isn't peculiar to the anglosphere. Second, disarming (and violating a number of other rights of) jews not in service prior to liquidating them indicates the importance of rights for minorities generally. (Because of the continental culture of the period, I have reservations about whether disarming them was more than symbolic).
That most privately held arms weren't used against the german government doesn't indicate that arms wouldn't be useful if the government had been unpopular.
That's tremendously valuable. You are likely to be more effective in your genuine enthusiasm amongst your friends than would be a pre-packaged message aimed at 300 million people.
Some of the reason the problem as you pose it may seem unsolvable may be the way you've phrased it.
Are gun owners a community? I don't think so. People who imagine a group or club model for arms owners invite a faux sense of control and responsibility that isn't useful. Are artists embarrassed by that fellow who put a cruxifix in a jar of his own urine? Are writers embarrassed by Thomas Friedman? Since artists and writers aren't members of a community, they aren't tied to the failures of an individual good judgement - those individuals have rights to make their own choices.
Similarly, a fellow who dresses oddly for the range shouldn't embarrass you. He gets to make his own (bad) choices. Sometimes, it's even important to defend people's freedom to choose poorly.
That most privately held arms weren't used against the german government doesn't indicate that arms wouldn't be useful if the government had been unpopular.
SonofaScubaDiver said:
That's tremendously valuable. You are likely to be more effective in your genuine enthusiasm amongst your friends than would be a pre-packaged message aimed at 300 million people.
Some of the reason the problem as you pose it may seem unsolvable may be the way you've phrased it.
Are gun owners a community? I don't think so. People who imagine a group or club model for arms owners invite a faux sense of control and responsibility that isn't useful. Are artists embarrassed by that fellow who put a cruxifix in a jar of his own urine? Are writers embarrassed by Thomas Friedman? Since artists and writers aren't members of a community, they aren't tied to the failures of an individual good judgement - those individuals have rights to make their own choices.
Similarly, a fellow who dresses oddly for the range shouldn't embarrass you. He gets to make his own (bad) choices. Sometimes, it's even important to defend people's freedom to choose poorly.
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In my opinion, I think that the marches were organized to obtain news footage of the marches. Most of the marches are just singing to the choir.
They know only a small group of fringe counter protesters will show up.
Otherwise, why not find a gun range to picket, or in front of cabelas, or blockade an ammunition factory/gun maker?
The protesters that I respect (even ones I disagree with) tie themselves to bridges, camp in a tree for a month, stand in front of tanks and bulldozers.
Marching around in places friendly to your cause for a few hours with a two bit poster that took no effort to make don’t impress me much.
Causing economic disruption or something like that would get my attention. Spray painting “revolt” on an overpass in the safety of darkness just makes you a petty criminal.
This only for political gain and to get the media some footage to use.
They know only a small group of fringe counter protesters will show up.
Otherwise, why not find a gun range to picket, or in front of cabelas, or blockade an ammunition factory/gun maker?
The protesters that I respect (even ones I disagree with) tie themselves to bridges, camp in a tree for a month, stand in front of tanks and bulldozers.
Marching around in places friendly to your cause for a few hours with a two bit poster that took no effort to make don’t impress me much.
Causing economic disruption or something like that would get my attention. Spray painting “revolt” on an overpass in the safety of darkness just makes you a petty criminal.
This only for political gain and to get the media some footage to use.
Glenn E. Meyer
New member
Here is an interesting piece. https://www.politico.com/story/2018...dont-fully-appreciate-second-amendment-488561
It demonstrates that 2nd. Amend. support can be found and encouraged across classic party lines. Such candidacies should be supported. While this is a touch political, that is not my intent in posting it.
It demonstrates that 2nd. Amend. support can be found and encouraged across classic party lines. Such candidacies should be supported. While this is a touch political, that is not my intent in posting it.
I think there are two lessons here:
1) We should not automatically assume that someone is for or against rights because of the letter behind his or her name
2) There are arguments we can make that can align with the values of those who may oppose us that can be convincing. We must be careful that our rhetoric does not drive these individuals away from us. Politics is not "us vs them" and many people who may vote for candidates who don't necessarily support gun rights are voting based on other issues. Simply put they are not prioritizing gun rights. Making sure these people note this to the candidates they might have supported who are for gun restriction can help us. "I voted for you despite your stance on gun rights" can be an important message if it is what happened.
stonewall50
New member
It has been found in here an important part of the message...
Feelings matter. My generation and the younger ones place more value on them (sadly in some cases). So understanding that simple fact teaches you how these little gremlins respond to the left wing democrat politicians. Appeals to emotion. Debates aren’t won with logic. Only emotion. Better to shout down the opponent. And then you will have it repeated as a victory in the echo chamber.
So what has to happen? You have to shatter the echo chamber. You have to make them FEEL something for your side. You have to be on social media and on vine. On Facebook. Celebrities. Doesn’t matter. You get into their echo chamber.
You invite THEIR celebrities onto talk shows. You bring them to YouTube channels. You have debates and talks with THEM in an environment where you can control the crowd.
You have the discussions on their grounds. You force them to come to reason by pointing out their extremism. You confront it with signs that claim NRA members are terrorists. You put NRA members in front of them.
And finally? You must be willing to be reasonable and have a discussion as well. Remember that you live in an echo chamber as well. And some of it is very stupid.
Tl;dr
You get back in their face by calling them out. And when they refuse you call them out for not being open to discussion. And when you hear an idiot going on about crisis actors? Posting something about that Hogg kid not being there? Call those people out for being stupid.
The beauty of the left is that they are purely emotional. You can beat that with logic if you know when to apply emotion.
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Feelings matter. My generation and the younger ones place more value on them (sadly in some cases). So understanding that simple fact teaches you how these little gremlins respond to the left wing democrat politicians. Appeals to emotion. Debates aren’t won with logic. Only emotion. Better to shout down the opponent. And then you will have it repeated as a victory in the echo chamber.
So what has to happen? You have to shatter the echo chamber. You have to make them FEEL something for your side. You have to be on social media and on vine. On Facebook. Celebrities. Doesn’t matter. You get into their echo chamber.
You invite THEIR celebrities onto talk shows. You bring them to YouTube channels. You have debates and talks with THEM in an environment where you can control the crowd.
You have the discussions on their grounds. You force them to come to reason by pointing out their extremism. You confront it with signs that claim NRA members are terrorists. You put NRA members in front of them.
And finally? You must be willing to be reasonable and have a discussion as well. Remember that you live in an echo chamber as well. And some of it is very stupid.
Tl;dr
You get back in their face by calling them out. And when they refuse you call them out for not being open to discussion. And when you hear an idiot going on about crisis actors? Posting something about that Hogg kid not being there? Call those people out for being stupid.
The beauty of the left is that they are purely emotional. You can beat that with logic if you know when to apply emotion.
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stonewall50
New member
One more thing to be short...what you can do as an individual? Show them the light. Invite them to shoot. Tell them you want them to learn safety. Come from a point of reason. I’m currently taking a liberal friend to shoot a revolver.
You can also not be afraid to have the discussion. And be reasonable.
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You can also not be afraid to have the discussion. And be reasonable.
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SonOfScubaDiver
New member
I gotta tell this, so bear with me. I was at home sick the day I got involved in this thread. Since then, I've thought quite a bit about it and also how it is that I go about talking with people about guns these days. I realized that I'm using quite a few of the skills I learned back in my church' goin' days when I was out there trying to win people for the Lord. You know--don't be judgemental, don't be argumentative, listen to and respect what the other person is saying, find things you can agree on, etc., etc. I'm a home daily truck driver, so while I was thinking about all this yesterday, I suddenly realized that I have become a gunvangelist! LOL! I starting laughing so hard I thought I was going to have to pull the truck over!
At any rate, I really enjoyed participating in this thread because a lot of times I don't feel as if the board is really open to the kind of honesty that I shared with y'all that day. So I want to thank those of you I was engaged with. I really do think we had a nice exchange.
At any rate, I really enjoyed participating in this thread because a lot of times I don't feel as if the board is really open to the kind of honesty that I shared with y'all that day. So I want to thank those of you I was engaged with. I really do think we had a nice exchange.