MicroBalrog
New member
Isn't there a late 19th century state court ruling to the very tune?
And yes, I have said it, and I will say it again:
There only is right-to-carry in 2 states.
What's the NRA doing for CCW?
- Thread starter kesserman
- Start date
Isn't there a late 19th century state court ruling to the very tune?
And yes, I have said it, and I will say it again:
There only is right-to-carry in 2 states.
MicroBalrog
New member
What about resolving the NFRTR problems?
Talking about stuff like 922[o]?
Because in the real world of limited resources, the NRA cannot afford to fight unwinnable battles. They have to pick and choose their fights carefully.
It's smart to get already elected democrats to support RKBA. But the fact is, the majority party sets the agenda and chairs the committees, if CA had a majority republican legislature, then CCW would be a non-issue.
The odd pro-gun democrat still counts towards their party's majority status, and clearly the democratic leadership, both state and federal, are hard core anti-gun. It's the leadership who sets the agenda and twists arms to get the votes they want. If your so-called pro-gun democrats were offered a powerful committee seat to vote for an anti-gun measure, could you be so sure they wouldn't vote for it?
The simple fact is, if you want a pro-RKBA state, you have to work for a republican majority. If you want a pro-RKBA America, you have to work to maintain and extend the republican majority. Any talk of "bi-partisanship" with the viciously anti-gun democrats is foolish and counterproductive.
Helmetcase
New member
If they rule that way, we're all screwed regardless, because carrying unconcealed--or even owning a handgun at all--will be ruled militarily insignficant. We have to keep reminding the courts that the 2A is important because it ensures that our citizens will know how to use weapons in the first place. A well regulated militia isn't going to happen if people can't shoot.
That seems to be what they're saying here in MD; we don't think we can win, so we're going to focus on other stuff. Since they're working on supporting generally progun candidates, I'm not anti-NRA by any stretch, I'm just pointing out that if the question is "what is the NRA doing for CCW in your state", the response here is "Zilch."
If we get enough pro gun candidates of any stripe, we can pressure the committee chairs to get the job done. Here in MD, the relevant committee is chaired by Brian Frosh, who is vehemently antigun. He won in his district with 72% of the vote. Getting him out is impossible; so what we have to do is make it look so politically unpalatable for him to block a CCW bill that he won't dare. He can slough off a bunch of Republicans, but if we have a substantial number of his own party also agitating for the bill we have a much better bet of getting action.
The reality is that once the bill is out of committee, it's decided by a vote, and people, not parties, vote. I don't care what party someone is at this point, I'm going to do what I can to get more progun votes in our local legislature--we can use them to leverage the relevant committees and ultimately win the vote.
BTW, I see what you're up to Rebar--you no doubt recognize what many Republican strategists realize, that the worst thing that could ever happen to the Repubs in this country would be for the Dems to abandon gun control.
MicroBalrog
New member
This perhaps is a good reason to re-post this excellent article.
The Big Dog Gun Site
Home
Am I the NRA?
by L. Neil Smith
This coming August I'll have been a Life member of the National Rifle Association 22 years. If you're not a member yourself, it may surprise you to learn that, by the standards of that organization, born just after the War between the States, this isn't particularly long. I know people who've been in the NRA twice as long as I have, and one or two who've been members three times that number of years.
It is long enough, however, to make me wonder, as one does upon occasion in any long-term relationship, whether, knowing everything I know today, after 22 years, I'd do it again. Lately, the answer seems to be and I'm sure the NRA will be devastated to learn this that I'd have to think about it.
Knowing everything I know today, I'd want assurances this time that the NRA is willing and able to perform the task that brought me to it. I'd been in Junior NRA as a Scout, but the course of my life had taken me away from shooting (it seems hard to believe now) until just before that surrealistic year of 1968 when, as a newly-fledged handgun owner (we'd had an incident in the neighborhood) I recall sitting in front of the TV watching the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, knowing the proclivity of liberals to blame everyone but the perpetrator, and thinking, "Boy, we're gonna get it now."
And so we did.
And so I joined the NRA, although it took me five more years to get the cash together for Life membership. Since then, we've lost one fight after another until today, the infringements we deal with on an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right that was supposed to be absolutely guarantee dare beyond anything most members of the NRA 22 years ago would have believed.
I was one of a few who saw the ugly future ahead, even then. Four years after I became a Life member, I wrote my first science fiction novel, full of dire predictions. I also wrote letters, not just to politicians, but to editors of gun magazines, even to the NRA's top banana, the guy who looked so much like Nikita Khrushchev, urging them to stop fighting the Battle of the Second Amendment as a holding action, a tactic we have seen was bound for inevitable defeat, and adopt an offensive strategy.
Those editors (with a remarkable exception whose good judgment I'll repay by NOT associating his name with mine) laughed me off as an alarmist. I never heard from the bald guy at the NRA. And why should I? Who was I? Just some nobody, worried over what was about to happen to his unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human rights. For that matter, who am I today? Just a 22-year Life member wondering whether he'd do it all over again, remember?
As I say, I'd want assurances this time, sort of a prenuptial agreement, before I slipped the metaphorical ring on my trigger finger. My 22 years of experience have taught me a few things a dozen of them, roughly about defending the Second Amendment. For the life of me, I don't understand why they haven't taught the same things to the NRA.
FIRST, I'd want the NRA not to write any more legislation. It's said the NRA leadership wrote the Gun Control Act of 1968 (before my time, if you'll recall). I know they wrote the Maryland Handgun Ban because they were afraid that something worse was in the works. Fear seems to be their principal motivation, not anger or determination. Invariably it steers them toward a submissive, repulsive "strategy" of doing the enemy's work before he can do it himself.
SECOND, I'd want the NRA not to trade away any more rights it "thinks" are less important for those it "thinks" are more so. The leadership would find, if they ever asked, that their membership often disagrees with them. The "cop-killer" bullet fiasco comes to mind, where we got trivial reforms in a devil's bargain letting them make some bullets illegal that serves our enemies so well today that one particularly repellant and evil Senator has based the sunset of his career on it.
THIRD, I'd want the NRA to stop supporting government activities irrelevant, even harmful, to the Second Amendment. Increasingly, gun owners see that the War on Drugs, to name an example, was meant from the outset as a calculated assault on the Bill of Rights, especially on the Second Amendment. It must end if there's to be anything left of the Constitution in the 21st century. That isn't the NRA's job, but it should butt out of the debate. Its "Operation Crime strike", celebrating patently illegal incursions against individual rights is nothing more than a sustained, humiliating grovel like having to watch another kind of civil rights advocacy crawl up on the verandah and whine, "See Messiah, what a good boy Ah is?"
FOURTH, in the same context, I'd want the NRA to disconnect all future discussion of the Second Amendment from the totally unrelated topic of crime. My rights have nothing whatever to do with anything anybody else does, right or wrong. If the crime rate were only 1/10 that of today, my rights would be unaffected. Likewise, if the rate were TEN TIMES what it is, it would have nothing whatever to do with my individual right to own and carry weapons.
FIFTH, I'd want the NRA to reject all future argument about the "sporting use" of weapons why look like an imbecile, pushing the AK-47 as a deer rifle, when it meets the Founding Fathers' ACTUAL criteria so elegantly? in favor of frank and frequent public reference to the original Constitutional purpose for an armed citizenry, which is to intimidate the government.
SIXTH and this may be the most important point I'll make, so pay attention I'd want the NRA to adopt as its principal and publicly-acknowledged objective the repeal or nullification of every weapons law, at every level of government in America. The Second Amendment is explicit about this and requires no esoteric legal interpretation. Check the dictionary meaning of "infringe" if you doubt my word.
The Big Dog Gun Site
Home
Am I the NRA?
by L. Neil Smith
This coming August I'll have been a Life member of the National Rifle Association 22 years. If you're not a member yourself, it may surprise you to learn that, by the standards of that organization, born just after the War between the States, this isn't particularly long. I know people who've been in the NRA twice as long as I have, and one or two who've been members three times that number of years.
It is long enough, however, to make me wonder, as one does upon occasion in any long-term relationship, whether, knowing everything I know today, after 22 years, I'd do it again. Lately, the answer seems to be and I'm sure the NRA will be devastated to learn this that I'd have to think about it.
Knowing everything I know today, I'd want assurances this time that the NRA is willing and able to perform the task that brought me to it. I'd been in Junior NRA as a Scout, but the course of my life had taken me away from shooting (it seems hard to believe now) until just before that surrealistic year of 1968 when, as a newly-fledged handgun owner (we'd had an incident in the neighborhood) I recall sitting in front of the TV watching the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, knowing the proclivity of liberals to blame everyone but the perpetrator, and thinking, "Boy, we're gonna get it now."
And so we did.
And so I joined the NRA, although it took me five more years to get the cash together for Life membership. Since then, we've lost one fight after another until today, the infringements we deal with on an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right that was supposed to be absolutely guarantee dare beyond anything most members of the NRA 22 years ago would have believed.
I was one of a few who saw the ugly future ahead, even then. Four years after I became a Life member, I wrote my first science fiction novel, full of dire predictions. I also wrote letters, not just to politicians, but to editors of gun magazines, even to the NRA's top banana, the guy who looked so much like Nikita Khrushchev, urging them to stop fighting the Battle of the Second Amendment as a holding action, a tactic we have seen was bound for inevitable defeat, and adopt an offensive strategy.
Those editors (with a remarkable exception whose good judgment I'll repay by NOT associating his name with mine) laughed me off as an alarmist. I never heard from the bald guy at the NRA. And why should I? Who was I? Just some nobody, worried over what was about to happen to his unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human rights. For that matter, who am I today? Just a 22-year Life member wondering whether he'd do it all over again, remember?
As I say, I'd want assurances this time, sort of a prenuptial agreement, before I slipped the metaphorical ring on my trigger finger. My 22 years of experience have taught me a few things a dozen of them, roughly about defending the Second Amendment. For the life of me, I don't understand why they haven't taught the same things to the NRA.
FIRST, I'd want the NRA not to write any more legislation. It's said the NRA leadership wrote the Gun Control Act of 1968 (before my time, if you'll recall). I know they wrote the Maryland Handgun Ban because they were afraid that something worse was in the works. Fear seems to be their principal motivation, not anger or determination. Invariably it steers them toward a submissive, repulsive "strategy" of doing the enemy's work before he can do it himself.
SECOND, I'd want the NRA not to trade away any more rights it "thinks" are less important for those it "thinks" are more so. The leadership would find, if they ever asked, that their membership often disagrees with them. The "cop-killer" bullet fiasco comes to mind, where we got trivial reforms in a devil's bargain letting them make some bullets illegal that serves our enemies so well today that one particularly repellant and evil Senator has based the sunset of his career on it.
THIRD, I'd want the NRA to stop supporting government activities irrelevant, even harmful, to the Second Amendment. Increasingly, gun owners see that the War on Drugs, to name an example, was meant from the outset as a calculated assault on the Bill of Rights, especially on the Second Amendment. It must end if there's to be anything left of the Constitution in the 21st century. That isn't the NRA's job, but it should butt out of the debate. Its "Operation Crime strike", celebrating patently illegal incursions against individual rights is nothing more than a sustained, humiliating grovel like having to watch another kind of civil rights advocacy crawl up on the verandah and whine, "See Messiah, what a good boy Ah is?"
FOURTH, in the same context, I'd want the NRA to disconnect all future discussion of the Second Amendment from the totally unrelated topic of crime. My rights have nothing whatever to do with anything anybody else does, right or wrong. If the crime rate were only 1/10 that of today, my rights would be unaffected. Likewise, if the rate were TEN TIMES what it is, it would have nothing whatever to do with my individual right to own and carry weapons.
FIFTH, I'd want the NRA to reject all future argument about the "sporting use" of weapons why look like an imbecile, pushing the AK-47 as a deer rifle, when it meets the Founding Fathers' ACTUAL criteria so elegantly? in favor of frank and frequent public reference to the original Constitutional purpose for an armed citizenry, which is to intimidate the government.
SIXTH and this may be the most important point I'll make, so pay attention I'd want the NRA to adopt as its principal and publicly-acknowledged objective the repeal or nullification of every weapons law, at every level of government in America. The Second Amendment is explicit about this and requires no esoteric legal interpretation. Check the dictionary meaning of "infringe" if you doubt my word.
MicroBalrog
New member
Continued...
SEVENTH, in support of that objective, I'd want the NRA to print ads, half a page in every issue, in all its periodicals, reminding members of the duty and power of an American jury to nullify any law it believes unjust or unconstitutional. Alcohol prohibition died this way. Gun prohibition could, as well. All it takes is eight and a third percent of the population, one twelfth, to carry it off.
EIGHTH, I'd want the NRA to establish programs to educate the police in their absolute obligation (given the Nuremberg trials after World War II) to enforce only those statutes and obey only those commands that are lawful, i.e., constitutional. For many decades, the NRA has spent a lot of resources in what can only be described as sucking up disgustingly to the military and the cops; it's past time we got something out of it. (I'm an ex-reservist, my brother's a deputy, and we both grew up in the Air Force, so don't give me a hard time this is the truth, and we all know it.)
NINTH, I'd want the NRA to give up the self-defeating notion that you can keep guns OUT of the hands of the "wrong" folks, while simultaneously and miraculously keeping them IN the hands of the "right" folks. Each of us is somebody else's bad guy. In the last century, laws were passed to keep guns from Italians and the Irish. Earlier this century it was blacks and now it's those who believe in the Bill of Rights. Get it straight: the latter could never have happened if the former hadn't been possible. No more background checks, NRA, no more prior restraint. History, ancient and recent, clearly shows that if the bad guys have guns, the only way to handle it is to make sure as many good guys have guns as possible.
TENTH, while we're on the subject of prior restraint, I'd want the NRA to abandon its strategically idiotic enthusiasm for government-controlled concealed carry illegal under the Second Amendment in favor of uncontrolled and legal "Vermont Carry". If it won't, I guarantee that in years to come, someone will say: the NRA wants your name on this piece of paper BEFORE you'll be allowed to exercise your unalienable individual, Constitutional, civil, and human rights. The NRA wants your age, address, phone, sex, race, social security number, photograph, and fingerprints as a cost of doing what the Framers meant you to do without all that. In short, it wants to impose the very system of gun and owner registration we've been fighting more than 60 years!
Huey Long, virtual dictator of Louisiana in the 1930s when Mussolini was making the trains run on time, was asked by the press, "Will we ever have fascism in America?" "Yes," Long replied with a grin, "but we'll call it Antifascism." I can guarantee that someone will say all of this, because if nobody else does, I will. And to the advocates of licensed carry, I say now: don't you realize how pathetic you look, lying there with your OWN foot on your neck?
ELEVENTH, I'd want the NRA to make endorsements based on the candidate's respect for the Second Amendment, regardless of his affiliation or its estimate of his chances. It's suicidal if only because it denies us leverage we'd otherwise possess over the Republicans to say a third party candidate can't win, and on that self-fulfilling basis, withhold endorsement that could give him, and us, a victory. If "NRA" stands for "National Republican Association" let it be said plainly and stop what amounts to a consumer fraud. If not, then if a candidate's unwilling to be photographed for public consumption firing a machine gun, a semiautomatic rifle with a long, curved magazine, or a pistol with a fat, two-column grip, he can't be trusted whatever his affiliation, and shouldn't be endorsed.
TWELFTH, I'd want the NRA to reduce its Board of Directors to no more than 20, so they can lead instead of turning things over to a tiny, often misguided elite. One director I know told me the NRA is in trouble precisely because its huge, unwieldy board flounders helplessly, leaving policy in the hands of a "troika" with its own agenda. It's time for that to end.
In general, I'd give the NRA the same advice I give everybody else. Never let anybody keep you from enjoying your rights to the fullest, not for a day, not for a minute. Never let anybody stand in your way. Never accept even the most reasonable-sounding excuse for why you can't have everything you deserve. Never accept compromise.
Worse than thieves, murderers, or cannibals, those who offer compromise slow you and sap your vitality while pretending to be your friends. They are not your friends. Compromisers are the enemies of all humanity, the enemies of life itself. Compromisers are the enemies of everything important, sacred, and true.
So, would I join the NRA all over again, after 22 years, knowing everything I know today? I guess I'm still thinking about it.
Give me a reason, NRA.
SEVENTH, in support of that objective, I'd want the NRA to print ads, half a page in every issue, in all its periodicals, reminding members of the duty and power of an American jury to nullify any law it believes unjust or unconstitutional. Alcohol prohibition died this way. Gun prohibition could, as well. All it takes is eight and a third percent of the population, one twelfth, to carry it off.
EIGHTH, I'd want the NRA to establish programs to educate the police in their absolute obligation (given the Nuremberg trials after World War II) to enforce only those statutes and obey only those commands that are lawful, i.e., constitutional. For many decades, the NRA has spent a lot of resources in what can only be described as sucking up disgustingly to the military and the cops; it's past time we got something out of it. (I'm an ex-reservist, my brother's a deputy, and we both grew up in the Air Force, so don't give me a hard time this is the truth, and we all know it.)
NINTH, I'd want the NRA to give up the self-defeating notion that you can keep guns OUT of the hands of the "wrong" folks, while simultaneously and miraculously keeping them IN the hands of the "right" folks. Each of us is somebody else's bad guy. In the last century, laws were passed to keep guns from Italians and the Irish. Earlier this century it was blacks and now it's those who believe in the Bill of Rights. Get it straight: the latter could never have happened if the former hadn't been possible. No more background checks, NRA, no more prior restraint. History, ancient and recent, clearly shows that if the bad guys have guns, the only way to handle it is to make sure as many good guys have guns as possible.
TENTH, while we're on the subject of prior restraint, I'd want the NRA to abandon its strategically idiotic enthusiasm for government-controlled concealed carry illegal under the Second Amendment in favor of uncontrolled and legal "Vermont Carry". If it won't, I guarantee that in years to come, someone will say: the NRA wants your name on this piece of paper BEFORE you'll be allowed to exercise your unalienable individual, Constitutional, civil, and human rights. The NRA wants your age, address, phone, sex, race, social security number, photograph, and fingerprints as a cost of doing what the Framers meant you to do without all that. In short, it wants to impose the very system of gun and owner registration we've been fighting more than 60 years!
Huey Long, virtual dictator of Louisiana in the 1930s when Mussolini was making the trains run on time, was asked by the press, "Will we ever have fascism in America?" "Yes," Long replied with a grin, "but we'll call it Antifascism." I can guarantee that someone will say all of this, because if nobody else does, I will. And to the advocates of licensed carry, I say now: don't you realize how pathetic you look, lying there with your OWN foot on your neck?
ELEVENTH, I'd want the NRA to make endorsements based on the candidate's respect for the Second Amendment, regardless of his affiliation or its estimate of his chances. It's suicidal if only because it denies us leverage we'd otherwise possess over the Republicans to say a third party candidate can't win, and on that self-fulfilling basis, withhold endorsement that could give him, and us, a victory. If "NRA" stands for "National Republican Association" let it be said plainly and stop what amounts to a consumer fraud. If not, then if a candidate's unwilling to be photographed for public consumption firing a machine gun, a semiautomatic rifle with a long, curved magazine, or a pistol with a fat, two-column grip, he can't be trusted whatever his affiliation, and shouldn't be endorsed.
TWELFTH, I'd want the NRA to reduce its Board of Directors to no more than 20, so they can lead instead of turning things over to a tiny, often misguided elite. One director I know told me the NRA is in trouble precisely because its huge, unwieldy board flounders helplessly, leaving policy in the hands of a "troika" with its own agenda. It's time for that to end.
In general, I'd give the NRA the same advice I give everybody else. Never let anybody keep you from enjoying your rights to the fullest, not for a day, not for a minute. Never let anybody stand in your way. Never accept even the most reasonable-sounding excuse for why you can't have everything you deserve. Never accept compromise.
Worse than thieves, murderers, or cannibals, those who offer compromise slow you and sap your vitality while pretending to be your friends. They are not your friends. Compromisers are the enemies of all humanity, the enemies of life itself. Compromisers are the enemies of everything important, sacred, and true.
So, would I join the NRA all over again, after 22 years, knowing everything I know today? I guess I'm still thinking about it.
Give me a reason, NRA.
Helmetcase
New member
DING DING DING!!!! We have a winner!!
Helmetcase
New member
Noted without comment (mostly cause I've already made that point a few times now).
MicroBalrog
New member
Thanks Helmetman. I note that the NRA never endorses third-party candidates, even in races where there's only one "major" party candidates, for example in that Florida Race in 2004 when there was a Libertarian and a Republican, no Democrats.
Helmetcase
New member
Interesting observation, is that actually their policy? I know from talking to their lobbyist for my region, they are loathe to put any money where they know they don't have a good chance of winning, understandably so. Perhaps as such their current policy is no 3rd Party candidates. Hopefully that will change as 3rd parties get stronger 
.
.Whenever an election is over, and they post the results with the number of voters casting ballots (vs. registered voters eligible to vote) it makes me wonder if nobody really cares what happens. It appears that less than half of the registered voters actually vote. With that in mind, is it any wonder that we have a group of liberals in power in states like CA? The largest voting segment is that with their hands out for the entitlements that Liberals like to buy votes with. The word that comes to mind is "Welfare". It is kind of a catch-all word that includes all handouts to those that don't feel like working for a living. Several studies have shown that special interest groups are most likely to vote more often than the average working class.
If we, the "Average Joes", that works hard for what we have, and are tired of the Social Engineering instituted with our tax dollars, would vote as consistently as the special interest groups, maybe we would have a bigger voice in government.
(I have tried to avoid any ethnic references but the "Special Interest" I refer to tend to run along ethnic lines in various parts of the country.)
My Dad told me over 50 years ago "If you don't Vote, You Can't Bitch".
The NRA, itself, has no vote. Collectively it represents thousands of votes but they only count if they make it to the ballot box. If anyone didn't vote int he last election, what was the excuse?????
If we, the "Average Joes", that works hard for what we have, and are tired of the Social Engineering instituted with our tax dollars, would vote as consistently as the special interest groups, maybe we would have a bigger voice in government.
(I have tried to avoid any ethnic references but the "Special Interest" I refer to tend to run along ethnic lines in various parts of the country.)
My Dad told me over 50 years ago "If you don't Vote, You Can't Bitch".
The NRA, itself, has no vote. Collectively it represents thousands of votes but they only count if they make it to the ballot box. If anyone didn't vote int he last election, what was the excuse?????
Lol, I'm more afraid of bug-eyed aliens landing and stealing my dirty socks.
The democrats have been getting more anti-gun, more left wing, more anti-tradition and anti-religion, more moonbatty as time goes on. So far I've seen no signs that this trend is reversing or slowing down. On the contrary, they're racing towards the lunatic fringe as fast as they can. They're going to nominate Hillary for pete's sake.
I also find it amazing, that you're railing against the NRA for not doing "enough" for CCW, yet you defend the very party that made CCW illegal in the first place. Quite a contradiction, in not downright illogical.
IndianaDean
New member
Concealed carry might indeed be militarily insignificant, and thus not a 2nd
Amendment concern.
Open carry on the other hand would have military connections, so why can't US citizens carry openly everywhere in the US?
Amendment concern.
Open carry on the other hand would have military connections, so why can't US citizens carry openly everywhere in the US?
Helmetcase
New member
A lot of that is hard to substantiate, but we can all agree that we'd be better off if they get less anti gun. As for anti-tradition, I'm not sure what that means. Some traditions are good, some are bad. Anti-religion? No, just anti-you-using-your-religion-as-law-Mister-American-Taliban. If you want to live where religion dictates law, Iran is taking applications.
Holy non sequitor batman! I'm not defending a party, I'm defending individuals who happen to be pro-gun within the party.
You find it hard to substantiate the extreme anti-gun bias of the democratic party? Really?
And if you'd like to live where any religious reference is squashed by the PC police, North Korea has a nice rice paddy waiting for you.
Thereby giving that party more members for their majority, a majority that the anti-gun leadership will use to further squash the RKBA. The reality is, party matters. And the democrats are the party of anti 2nd amendment bigotry, as well as many other bigotries. Like the anti-religous bigotry on display right here, for example.
MicroBalrog
New member
http://www.mrcranky.com/movies/ray/78.html <- this guy, Gonzales, ran agains Diaz-Balart in Florida, no Democrat in the race.
At the time, I was researching the story and trying to write an article about it for a magazine (didn't happen). I spoke to the NRA coordinators in Florida trying to figure out why Gonzales was not mentioned AT ALL on the NRA site, but Balart was endorsed. They started saying that 'the Democrats could win', to which I replied 'but there ARE no Democrats in that district'.
Gonzales lost, of course.
Helmetcase
New member
Nice try there Slick Willie. You're dancing like it's Star Search. I freely admit that they bear the brunt of the anti-gun problem, though not all. But I also conceded that many times before, on my blog, even here in this thread. I was addressing the ridiculous red herrings you threw out like "anti-tradition" (whatever the hell that is) and "anti-religion" in my previous post. Don't introduce distractions and red herrings, and we won't have that problem. This thread is about the NRA and it's failings vis a vis the CCW rights.
Good thing I wouldn't want to live in such a place. I like living in a place where you're free to keep whatever religious practices you like; I just don't favor using public resources to cram YOUR beliefs down MY throat. If that offends you, well too freakin bad.
That doesn't make any sense, for reasons I've already addressed. For example, here in MD, I'm supporting progun Democrat Giannetti. If we lose him, he might lose him for another of those suburban NIMBY Republicans who are weak on the gun issue, an anti-Dem in a primary race, or an unproven entity. The reality is that many important votes are decided by people who break from the party line. Why are you ignoring that? I'm not going to give up a pro-RKBA Dem for a wishy washy Repub or an antigun Dem. That's unpragmatic and downright stupid.
The reality is also that this "majority" you speak of won't be a majority on the gun rights issue anymore if we get the right candidates elected; party matters but not nearly as much as you're insinuating.
The other part you're conveniently ignoring is how politicians behave when they know they can take your vote for granted: the reason we have so many Republicans who are weak on the gun issue is that they know they don't have to do much beyond lip service around here, they believe (rightly so) that they can count on the progun vote. If we can get more progun Independent and Dem candidates to the forefront, they'll actually have to start competing for gun votes and have to actually act to defend their right to ask for those votes. In the end, that's good for all of us.
A Democratic majority in an urban state that rejects the religious right (you know, people like you who are deluded enough into thinking they're being persecuted because Pat Robertson said so) is reality, and will be for a long time; we can't change that, but we've seen evidence that we can work from within to change the way enough people within that majority think.
Anti religious bigotry? Here? What the **** are you talking about?
Why wear your seatbelt every time you get in the car? I never had an accident while driving until a couple years ago. I'm glad I was in the habit of wearing my seatbelt when it did finally happen.
Why lock your doors at night? Nobody's tried to break into my house yet, but I'm not about to give them the opportunity.
Why have a fire extinquisher in your house? I haven't had a house fire yet, but I preferred to be prepared in case it happens.
Why carry all the time or most of the time? Because life is unpredictable and I like to be prepared. I'm boring and live a boring life. I avoid known dangers when possible. Stuff still happens and sometimes bad things happen even when you actively avoid them.
My life and my family's lives are worth something to me. That's why I wear my seatbelt, lock my doors, have fire extinguishers in our house and cars, and carry a gun.
Why is your life not worth protecting?
Not that I expect you to read this...
Chris
BerettaCougar
New member
+1 Chris.
WildAlaska, so you're no longer carrying?
Not to step on your toes here, but may I please explain why not?
I know you live in Alaska, which for the most part has a low crime rate, but, theres still a crime rate.... I don't see the gain in owning firearms and not being able to use one for defense when youre out of reach of your "home" guns....