Another blogger signed up for Boomershoot 2005

I updated Boomershoot Blogging just a few minutes ago.  All the referral counts are up to date as well as changing “Dipnut at Isntapundit” status to ‘yes’ on attending.  I received his entry yesterday.  No payment because he has well over 100 referrals to boomershoot.org from his site.  I’m tempted to grep through the log file for each of the IP addresses and see if any of them made it to the entry fee page.  From my quick scan only a very few made it past the opening page.  You have to give him credit though.  His post was quite to the point and got the result he wanted.

So far that makes nine bloggers who will be attending.

Friendly fire

As Ry at Mindless Bit Spew points out there exist people in the gun communitity that have some sort of issue with homosexuals (and others with race).  I went to the forum on AR15.com that Ry was complaining about and I sort of lost it.  I posted the following:

Is there some connection between firearms and sexual orientation that I am unaware of?

I try my best to recruit people that traditionally vote against gun rights into the gun rights movement and it only takes a few jerks with a random comment here and there to undo everything. Do you want to engage in a civil war to maintain your right to keep and bear arms? Or would you rather subvert the evil party that keeps trying to take our freedoms away?

Examples of some of my efforts:

Palouse Pink Pistols IPSC match
Palouse Pink Pistol Article in local paper
AP version of above story
Seattle Time Editorial based on interview with me
Palouse Pink Pistols website (I’m a charter member)
Missoulia Montana article on Boomershoot
Newsweek article on Boomershoot
Outside Magazine article on Boomershoot

When I talk to liberal reporters and writers I want to be able to dispel their stereotypes of gun owners being red necked, racist, gay-bashers. They think that if we have guns we will shoot people just because we don’t like the color of their skin or because we saw a couple guys holding hands. I want to be able to say that we just want to enjoy our sports, protect our homes, families, and communities. That we aren’t a threat to anyone except those that would do us grave injury. And I feel like I am stabbed in the back when this kind of crap happens. I can spend hundreds of hours on pro-gun activism and have it all pissed away by ONE person talking trash. People believe what they want to believe and if they hear just one person make a derogatory comment or see just one post that confirms their bigoted beliefs about us then my efforts have just been flushed down the toilet.

If you don’t believe me about how fearful they are (to the point of being irrational) take a look at this email I got from a lesbian friend of mine.

I don’t care if you have strong feelings against gays but please don’t express them in the context of firearms. You just shoot us all in the foot when you do that. Please, please, shape up. We are slowly starting to win this war against us and the people on the front lines do NOT appreciate having jerks sticking it to us from the rear.

It’s been quiet over there for several hours now so maybe I made my point.  I hope so.  I’m still pissed though.  I’m going to be cranky for a few days.

Ry, thanks for pointing that out.  I know you have mentioned it to me before and I didn’t respond.  This time the stars were aligned just so and I got pretty heated up.

Quote of the day–James Burgh

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; also he lives precariously, and at discretion.

James Burgh
Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses
London, 1714-1775