doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Heading Off Gun Control - Take Action!

Instead of endless talking let's do something now about heading off gun control in the Obama Administration.

There are about 4 dozen "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House of Representatives whose seats could be in jeopardy in the next election if they oppose our 2nd Amendment rights, plus a number of moderate Democrats in the Senate. But thanks to the machinations of the Democratic caucus it may still be possible to pass such gun control legislation as a permanent assault gun ban, gun show ban, so-called "child-proof" guns and huge taxes on guns and ammunition.

The following letter is designed to head off any gun control effort by sending a message to the Democrats that their majority in Congress may be in danger if they advance a gun control agenda. It's a lot easier to stop such an agenda before it gets started than after a new President makes it a priority.

Believe it or not this approach does work as politicians really hate to get people who appear sensible and may be influential and/or generous with campaign funds mad at them.

Below is a letter form for your representative and senators. It is oriented toward Democratic legislators but will work OK for Republicans if you take out the next to last "vote against the party" paragraph. Just fill in the blanks with the legislator's name, including his title, and your name.

Names and addresses are available from: http://www.capwiz.com/nra/dbq/officials/
If any of your legislators are newly elected the addresses should be available through their campaign websites.

email works pretty well in my experience but not as well as a snail-mail letter as some legislators either aren't computer literate or are too computer literate and just generate a canned meaningless response designed to make you think a human actually read it.




Dear __(Representative/Senator)____________________


With a new administration due to take office I am writing to you to express my concern that there may be attempts to pass new gun control legislation, and specifically to reinstate the failed Assault Gun Ban, part of the Democratic Party Platform.

Not only did the ban have no effect, according to an FBI study, but among the banned rifles were those which have become the most popular target, hunting and self-defence rifles in America. I cannot see how anyone, especially a President-elect, could square a supposed devotion to the 2nd Amendment with reinstating a firearm ban based on nothing but cosmetics and a bad image in the entertainment media.

If you vote for reinstating the Assault Gun Ban or any other gun control measure which harrasses innocent gun owners, interfers with their enjoyment of their sport and their right to self defence, interfers with their purchase of firearms or reinstates the Assault Gun Ban I will have no choice but to support your opponent in the next election.

I am well aware of the horse-trading that goes on in party caucuses to allow members with endangered seats to avoid voting on contentious legislation while still arranging to have enough votes for passage. If the majority of your party votes for and passes any of the gun control measures I described or for an Assault Gun Ban I will support your opponent in the next election regardless of how you, personally, voted.

I sincerely hope you will win my future support and that I hear your views on this subject.


Yours truly,

______________________


(don't forget your address and telephone number)

jjk308:
First I am NOT disagreeing with your intent here but would like to point out the following.
Your more effective IMO if you draft something yourself rather than use a canned letter. Many of the forum members here have the writing skills to do this. N.B. If anyone here does so how about posting a copy so others can see the approach you've taken?
Additionally; Don't be bashful about emailing you Representative or even calling them on the phone. You will often be surprised at the personalized responses you'll receive.
The main point here, and I for one support it completely ,is that we've got to get the message thru to our congressmen that we won't roll over and play dead on these issues.
Jim

I agree completely, but:
Lots of people aren't very effective in putting words on paper.
And lots of people do not have time to compose an effective letter.
So consider it an outline.

Jim's right about form letters and writing to encourage your member's reasoned representation. I'm involved as a pro-gun advocate. What sets us back is ill-considered action by zealots and the well-intentioned. Try to get it right on the first shot. Skills count when we haven't the numbers.

I agree with Kings' second point here and will expand upon it a bit as follows:
If you come across as some sort of redneck lout it will have a negative effect on the recipient. Don't make ill advised comments about the opposition,don't abase them and for goodness sake don't even think about using any swear words or slang in your correspondence.
If you want to post a proposed letter here before sending it I'm sure you'll get excellent help in wordsmithing.
I will be preparing a new letter to send to my congressional representative who is a moderate Democrat and who I hope to swing over to our way of thinking. Fortunately I reside in a State where being anti-gun is usually political suicide so I'm optimistic in this case.
Jim

I don't disagree with the letter idea, either. However, having about 20 million new NRA members(of the 75-80 million gun owners, who are NOT NRA members now) would send a message that would scare their pants off. I guess Barney F. would like that.
If we were 25 million strong, these bureacrats would call NRA headquarters every morning to see if everyone was happy over there. "Are there any new anti-gun proposals you don't want passed? Are there any old anti-gun laws you want repealed?" "OK, sir. Thank you very much, sir." "I'll check back with you again, tomorrow, sir."

At some point in coming months I will be writting to my Democratic representation in Congress. Last time I did this, on a very different topic, letters seemed to count for more than e-mails, telegrams (remember them?) outweighed letters and phone calls were a hit-or-miss measure. Well worded, rational but forceful messages, were SOP, HOWEVER, it was widely assumed (apparently correctly) that it was really total numbers of such messages that carried the needed weight.

Niklas

We have John Boehner. He is pretty much pro gun. So is our Senator. We are good here, but writing the people who represent you is a good idea.

In caucus and around the cabinet table, what politicians listen to is the guy who starts with "You should see the mail I'm getting on this."

I agree that we all need do as much as possible to get our point of view out. Do write or email your representatives, this does make a big difference. Like them are not, the NRA is the only voice that’s heard these days, the more members the better. Please, please go out and say what you have to say someplace besides gun forums. A few years ago the Brady Handgun web page stated a blog and many of us pro-gun folks started posting there and it was not long before it became a pro-gun Blogs, of course they shut it down. Search out anti-gun web pages and post respectfully there.