Conversions

Uncle discusses, “How do we win this political gun battle?”, asks for some help, and gets this suggestion. Then Sebastian offers this.

There is some good stuff there but there were a few items left out.

  • Join pro gun groups. The first group you should join is the NRA; even if you think they compromise too much. They are the 800 pound gorilla in the legislative kitchen and just the raw number of members causes the politicians to think twice before cooking up an anti-gun scheme. Other groups serve useful purposes and should be considered as well. Some of them are 501(c)(3) corporations and your donations are tax deductible.
  • Come out of the closet. In the early days of the gay rights movement there was a phrase, “Silence equals death!”. Getting people to come out in the open about being a gun owner helps the anti-gun people realize we aren’t red-necked, knuckle dragging, Neanderthals, who beat their wives, complain about the “coloreds” lusting after our women folk, and whose idea of a good time is shooting our empties while chugging beer from the tailgate of our pickups. It worked for the gays and it can work for us.
  • Closely related to the previous item is to speak up when someone says something hostile about gun ownership. Know your facts, know the anti-gun position fallacies, and don’t be afraid to share them when someone tries to push that failed agenda. Come up with sound-bites and don’t belabor things. People will “turn off” if your viewpoint takes more than about 30 seconds to explain. If you don’t have anything more directly to the point, ask Just One Question.
  • Invite the media to your pro-gun events and put announcements of your events in their “whats happening” section. Most media outlets are starved for material. If you are having a special event invite them to come, watch, and report on it. Write a decent news release (such that they can easily and quickly plagiarize it for their own use) and you increase the odds of attendance and positive coverage considerably. See, for example, Boomershoot coverage.
  • In the end game, which we may just be entering, we need to drive them to political extinction. You don’t get there by saying, “They have a valid point and everyone is entitled to their opinion.” We must make their position as socially uncomfortable as that of the KKK. See this post for how to do that.
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7 thoughts on “Conversions

  1. Closely related to the previous item is to speak up when someone says something hostile about gun ownership. Know your facts, know the anti-gun position fallacies, and don’t be afraid to share them when someone tries to push that failed agenda. Come up with sound-bites and don’t belabor things. People will “turn off” if your viewpoint takes more than about 30 seconds to explain.

    That’s the hardest position for us. “GUNS KILL PEOPLE” is easier to say and has more emotional impact than “Guns are just tools, no different than screwdrivers or pneumatic drills. It is the wielder that is the problem.”

    I’ve found that Jingoism and Bumper Stickers lend themselves to the simplistic conclusions better than the true, well thought out ones. Unfortunately, the anti-gun bigots rely on that and have that to their advantage.

  2. You can add me to your list of fired/discarded because of my belief in the second ammendment. I was called to my supervisors office and escorted from company property by two large Police officiers. The only reason I was given was that “someone” had stated that I was gun owner, and they were afraid of me!!!!!!!!! Legal action, changed my firing, to an early retirement, but I still get upset about it, if I think about it to much.

  3. Which is absolute horseshit. If they really were afraid of you, they wouldn’t have given you a “reason” to come back in and shoot up the place.

    Bigotry, pure and simple.

  4. Also, we don’t have to actually sell people on the idea of owning guns, per se– just the idea that it is a personal choice, protected by the Constitution for very good reasons. One does not need to actually own a house to advocate property rights either, for example. You don’t have to be black to advocate equal rights, etc..

    My wife hates guns, but she’s come around to the idea of gun ownership as a right (and lets be real– when she’s startled by thatoccasional “bump in the night”, she’s glad I’m there, you know, with my guns. There’s no denying that).

  5. My wife doesn’t care for guns either was quite upset when I bought my first gun ($120 for a SKS) without telling her. I didn’t understand the big deal. It wasn’t that much money and it was just a simple rifle.

    She still doesn’t shoot but there have been several times “in the big city” when she leaned over to me and quietly said, “You have your gun with you, right?” as we both went on alert over some unpleasant looking people and/or unsafe circumstances.

  6. Joe,

    I think that you are uniquely positioned to help this concept move forward, becuase of your history as a technologist and an organizer.

    I suggested to SayUncle that a Twitter/TwitterFeed arrangement would be a low development cost solution. Bloggers pipe their RSS to twitter, other bloggers follow this stream, ultimately at the top of the pyramid you have one stream of all related blogs.This would be relatively robust and open. Twitter isn’t the perfect app, but it is already that app that is written and free.

    Thanks for the link too. Drop me an email sometime.

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