For too long, most members of the legal academy have treated the Second Amendment as the equivalent of an embarrassing relative, whose mention brings a quick change of subject to other, more respectable, family members. That will no longer do. It is time for the Second Amendment to enter full scale into the consciousness of the legal academy.
Sandford Levison
The Embarrassing Second Amendment
Yale Law Journal 99.3 (1989): 637-569
[Via Proclaiming Liberty: What Patriots and Heroes Really Said About the Right to Keep and Bear Arms by Philip Mulivor.
And not just the legal academy, but society at large must recognize and respect the Second Amendment. We all have a job to do in making this happen. There are many ways to contribute. Do what you feel most comfortable with.—Joe]
And doing this means having a different approach with fence sitting friends (you have those, right? You really need to…) than with those already “in the choir”. It doesn’t mean your deceptive or that you don’t take your principles seriously (thank you very much). It means that this is important enough to you to craft a message specifically for the people you’re “talking” with.
Thinking of unliking some organizations (that I like very much in real life) on facebook this morning, because the facebook Ads they send my social network will turn some of them off.
Yes. Of course.
Many people don’t really care about what the constitutional principals are. Millions of defensive uses versus ten thousand murders each year is far more persuasive to them.
Others have fun shooting guns in a safe environment. Defensive use, criminal use, and constitutional principles don’t matter that much to them.
I should have phrased that differently Joe, I’m well aware that you “get it”. I wish everyone on our side did as well.
Volunteers are hard to come by. I struggle to get volunteers for Woman on Target classes. I struggle with getting anyone to write a letter. I became a Certified Instructor to teach. I have managed to convert many a true Californian. But there are millions here. I run a shoot at an indoor range. We fill the place up on the 4th Friday of every month. Problem is only 15 lanes. When 40 people show it is overwhelming.
But we are out here trudging and trying.
Heading to a NRA members council meeting tonight. If there were only 50 of me.
I want to chime in here, Joe, to say that YOU, yourself have done a lot to educate folks on “our” side (in reality, it’s the people’s side) about the issue as being one of civil and and moral rights. How can someone who thinks of himself as a liberal believe it right, meet, and proper to leave the poor, weak, small, elderly, and infirm defenseless in the face of predatory violence? Without pointing out that the anti’s are lying on every point, one can leave it clear in implication that that is the case. The thing prevails on the merits.