doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Your sporting shotguns are just as much at risk

You can call this anything you want but it's POLITICAL SOCIALISM pure and simple. If you reside in one of these "Progressive" State and you just roll over it will get worse A LOT WORSE .
Just look at what's happening in California and most of you know what happened in Great Britain and Australia when sensible gun laws" were enacted.
I don't know how many members we have on this forum but judging from the typical response to this type of threat most think it can't happen to them.
Well: It's time to get your collective heads out of the sand and recognize that ignoring the incursion that's being made on your 2nd Amendment rights isn't going away.
Jim

Gee whiz Jim. We give money to the NRA, vote with only one issue one our minds, do whatever public service things we can to introduce young people to the shooting sports; sorry my wife won't let me establish a public shooting safety course for attractive young women. What else do you think we ought to do? Join a militia and camp out on weekends to practice fire and maneuver troop movements?...Geo

Yes George I do all those things and I sure you do as well. The one item I don't see on your list is contacting your elected officials and letting them know where you stand. I believe that will be particularly important in this Novembers' elections as so many people are upset on several fronts that I won't get into here and I don't think it's going to take much to push some of the marginal elections our way.
My comments were directed at those who sit there with the smug impression that I only own and shoot sporting guns like shotguns so I'm safe and to Hell with everyone else and they're on their own.
The anti's have used a "divide and conquer" approach since day one and they will surely prevail as long as one firearms owners group could care less about what others collect and use.
The 2014 election IMO will be pivotal in defining what the future will be in regard to our preserving Constitutional rights. Apathy on our part will ensure we continue down the regressive path of the past 5 years.
I could state a LOT more but this area of the forum isn't supposed to be "political" so I'll just stop here.
Jim

The problem is... you can write to your elected officials until you're out of paper and postage, and it won't make a damn bit of difference.

It's not what you think that matters to them. It's only what they think is best for you that drives these idiots.

You can tell what they believe in by looking at their voting record. Don't listen to what they say, look at their voting record.

Then, if you agree with them, vote for them again. Otherwise, vote for someone who does stand with you.

Writing, phone calls, ads and posters are all a giant waste of time and resources.

You will not change an elected official's mind. Only money does that, and it's temporary.

I guess I'm fortunate in that my own Congressman David Schweikert(R) apparently does care. I have received personal messages back from him on firearms related issues and twice I've received calls from his staff. He ran and was elected as a staunch fiscal conservative and a strong supporter of our 2nd Amendment rights and hasn't disappointed any of his supporters. I may not have changed his mind on anything but at least he knows some of us are grateful for his support.
Unlike many in Congress who are lawyers he has a business background and his education was in finance.
It would be easy at this point to just give up and take the old position "My vote or opinion doesn't count". I don't believe this for a minute and will continue the fight to preserve our Constitutional rights as long as I'm capable of doing so. GOD BLESS AND PRESERVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Jim

You're preaching to the choir, Jim.

You've got a good guy in there, and it's nice of you to tell him thanks. But can you imagine me trying to convince the two clowns the people of Michigan sent to the Senate to change their minds about continually voting against my 2nd amendment rights?

All I can do is try to vote their communist asses out.

At least Levin is too old to run again... 'Liberal Debbie' (and she's a flaming idiot), we're stuck with for life.

"Writing, phone calls, ads and posters are all a giant waste of time and resources. You will not change an elected official's mind. Only money does that, and it's temporary."

What we can be very effective at is changing the minds of many who vote, and alerting many more who don't, to the infectious nature of government in all our lives. A farmer with his 870 often doesn't consider himself in the same category as a pistol shooter, but now he is and we can show him that. People start seeing the light when the perspective is brought to them personally. Be it light bulbs or phosphates in detergent or health insurance, it is about government making decisions on their own without consent from anyone. We need to be willing to be inconvenienced to get our story out, to talk to people, to send opinions to local newspapers, to speak at public meetings. The rights we have will never be unassailable. It always needs us to defend what we have. It is our responsibility.

If you should choose to speak out you will learn you are not alone. It might seem like it at first, but you're not. As example one only needs to look at what is happening in Colorado since the passage of laws that shooters their can't stand. Irregardless of any argument about the moral value of their new laws the actions of that state have galvanized many people. They are galvanized because they see those actions as transcending guns and becoming more about the assumed power of government. While the laws remain, some of the people in government who were responsible for them have been removed. In my own state we have actually gained ground in terms of gun rights. It was not simple and no one did it alone. It took years.

I hope you will excuse my rant, but the older I get the more I fear for the future of my country. I hate to die thinking we just became so complacent that the elite ruling class took it all without a fight.

Jim, if anything has got through here loud and clear is that bad things are happening all the time, and they don't have to look far to see it. Brian has put this in the proper forum. There's nothing I've read that suggests it's a subject for Misfires, where we often express opinions in less than a respectful way. Our discussion is about action, what to do.

Social action, community development, organizing grassroots coalitions to speak effectively to power is my day job. It begins with an honest assessment of reality. We're behind the eight ball in a Disney world of emotional responses prevailing over reason. Turnarounds come from constant proselytizing, personally and through your NRA or our NFA. Education must advance on the broadest possible front.

Last Thursday I met with our federal justice minister who worked hard to end the long-gun registration. In order to have good leaders, however, there must be good followers from which they can draw strength. Writing, joining, explaining to innocents and disbelievers is part of it. Rallying organizations, Legions, labour, political parties etc into broad coalitions cuts more ice. Veterans with medals in winter on Parliament Hill says something.

What you don't do---as demonstrated continually here---is deliberately, consciously make schisms in the choir, damning those who are naturally drawn to a crusade of reform and vigilance.. Successful campaigns make a big tent for everyone who wants to right a wrong without having to pass a Rorschach Test. Make reason your message. The Second isn't enough.

The regulations Brian has brought to our attention have no relevance to public safety.

We don't call them 'leaders' here KB.

They are, instead, representatives.

They are also sworn to 'preserve, defend, etc' the system into which they are elected to represent us.

That means keep your hands off the rights of the people and your hand out of the cookie jar.

Their job, and their only job, is to represent their electors.

Many of them read much more into the job than is actually there.

The most dangerous branch of the three is the judicial. The will of the people means nothing to them, absolutely nothing, and there does not seem to be a defense against them.

Sonia and Elena know what's best for us. Send 'em a valentine next year if you want.

Organized and effective protest isn't valentines, shotgun. Your politicians are as vulnerable as ours: voters decide whether they keep their gigs. In order to change things, you have to name things, make publics come to grips with reality. Registration---fingerprints, no less---and repeater regulations won't strengthen public safety. Canadians came to see long-gun registration as a colossal waste of money with no public safety benefits in spite of opposition from two of the three federal political parties and police forces from ocean to ocean to ocean.

Change won't come from looking to or paying others to look after our business. The US is filled with examples of citizens taking responsibility for how they want to live. Students stopped the war in Vietnam, took away LBJ's job. Nader alone was one of the most powerful people in America. To say US governance is endemically rigged against the public interest seems an unwarranted indictment of the American people to me. The American ethos never embraced defeatism.