Gun Owner Image

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Replace alot of what's said in this thread with activism for First Amendment rights. Nobody in that debate was arguing, "you need to say nice things, and paint nice things, and make movies about nice things.". They pushed the envelope with the most vulgar, vile, indecent, and morally reprehensible "speech" ever created by human beings. And what was the answer to all this in the end.. you need to suck it up and quit being offended.

But that battle is still brewing even now in the US, and has taken a terrible turn in Canada. And what's even stranger, is that it's the LEFT that is destroying that right was well.

I think the problem is much much larger than guns themselves. Swaying a few minds here and there isn't going to change the fact we have a serious divide in the fundamental underpinnings of the US. The gun debate is just the tip of the iceberg.
Of course it's the left that is destroying the First, all the while hiding behind it. It's what those who run the agenda want. Eliminating the First and Second Amendments is the last challenge for them before institution of total control. Make one wonder just how far their active work in destroying the Second goes? Seems rather coincidental that mass shootings happen at certain junctures.

"Worshippers clutching AR-15 rifles and some wearing bullet crowns, participated in a commitment ceremony today at World Peace and Unification Sanctuarty...."
Sorry, I don't think this is any of us. The name of the place gives that much away. It looks like a Globalist initiation ceremony. Note they hold the rifles as if petrified by them. Looks like a visual 'double entendre' of smearing gun owners while forcing their flock to embrace the very instruments they revile and commit to the fact that violence will necessary to achieve their ends.
 
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Get involved with Scouting or FFA. Youth shooting programs offer a connection, not only for youth, but their parents as well, with healthy shooting sports.
Really.
We've had shooting activities at our liberal dominated school Troop (parents encouraged to come along) and several of the parents responded by afterwards purchasing their own .22s or 20 gauges---first firearms ever---this also allows for further discussions, enthusiasm for 2A, and family enjoyment of range time.
A few single moms even expressed a strong interest in pistols for SD and CC.

OTOH, "mall ninjas" are a real turn off. Not conducive to public support in the least. My observations anyway.

Another thought: invite someone to go shooting with you----a colleague from work, a relative, or even a Monday night football drinking pal at your local watering hole. An additional box of shells is a cheap investment for a positive intro into the shooting sports.

Fostering a positive experience for real Americans is a good way to put 2A boots on the ground (and in the polls) My two cents anyway.
 
Of course it's the left that is destroying the First, all the while hiding behind it. It's what those who run the agenda want. Eliminating the First and Second Amendments is the last challenge for them before institution of total control. Make one wonder just how far their active work in destroying the Second goes? Seems rather coincidental that mass shootings happen at certain junctures . . .

This is literally a textbook example of what not to do, and is the point of this thread.
 
This is literally a textbook example of what not to do, and is the point of this thread.

Indeed. What folks understand is just because you *have* a right doesn't mean you need to take it to the very furthest, most uncomfortable extremes.

Yet some folks are compelled to go far above and beyond on some personal, narcissistic crusade just to show others how "right" they truly are.

"LOOK HERE EVERYONE, THIS IS PERFECTLY LEGAL AND I WILL DO WHAT I WANT JUST BECAUSE I CAN."

Historically, that has proven to be a most highly efficient method of losing whatever right, or personal liberty, the person is espousing to try to protect.

To be that obnoxious, self-righteous person, who torments others with relentless vitriol and degrading words and actions. To abuse others by flaunting the very thing they don't like; all you do is steel their resolve and turn someone who is - at best - a "few day activist" in to someone who is a hardcore anti; and to anyone else just watching, they start lumping that obnoxious behavior in with the rest of the folks who just want to earn their keep and hold on to what we've got left, without giving up more, incrementally, over time.

Rather than "hold the line", some folks just seem so bent out of shape about things, it seems their sole motivation is to push the issue right to the point of violent conflict. Like they just can't wait to get that chance to shoot someone with their new matte black toy without that nagging worry about repercussion and internal moral conflict. Like they sit up at night dreaming about the Good Times Ahead with friends around a campfire, as if conflict was glorious and all of the enemies will be anonymous untrained snowflakes with no clue which end of a rifle points forward, and that war will be fought without any real sense of danger behind it; or the home invasion scenario where they can show off their skills and justifiably blow someone away; or the isolationist end-of-worlder who stockpiles well beyond the point of emergency preparedness and could outfit a small army all to their own, but in reality sits on their horde like the lonely soul they are, because the truth of the matter is they just can't get along well enough with anyone else.

Those folks, these days, are perhaps more our enemy than the other side is. The ones who keep pushing the limits of civility beyond anything reasonably tasteful. The ones who, deep down, believe they really do want violence to break out, just so they can sit back and say "I told you so!" to anyone unwilling to listen. The ones who sip the nectar of empowerment you get when you hold a lethal instrument, and fall headlong in to the well of violent dreams.

The ones who want to impose their version of reality on others.

And why do they do this? In the end they want to seek a new reality, to justify this vision they hold inside of their own personal skewed version of reality.

The problem with fanaticism? You don't even realize you are a fanatic.

Zealots don't realize they are over the edge. To them, that mindset, that behavior, is as normal as grabbing that first cup of coffee or tea in the morning.

They don't even realize they have slipped so far to one extreme that the entire rest of the world seems .. not right, anymore.

Alas, there's the first major clue. If it seems like the entire rest of the world has gone so bad that you can't stand it? If every waking hour is spent finding yet more fault with everything, to reinforce your own internal version of reality even further? If you reach at the very limits of credibility and latch on to every last story which can be somehow shoehorned to fit your personal agenda, even if it is completely unrelated to the issue at hand?

You just might be an extremist.
 
This is literally a textbook example of what not to do, and is the point of this thread.

I was merely pointing out the anti's M.O. I am not the person you are trying to paint me with your response, Trent. I know a few of them, and despise them. They are would be SA types, waiting for that moment they can hit the streets in black BDU's.

The methods I described are how those behind the scenes are working to secure their totalitarian dreams. Read Noam Chomsky.
 
Can you link a Pew report that says 58% of Americans feel having a gun makes them safer? The most recent Pew I've seen certainly doesn't say that.
EDIT: Pew report here: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/guns-report-methodology/

Yes, I've been part of a Pew poll and I answered honestly. I can't see any reason why someone would agree to take part in a poll and then lie.
I know a LOT of gun owners, and not one of them would ever answer any gun survey/polls about their ownership of firearms.
That's why I believe that such "statistics" are invalid.
 
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If one has an image of a gun owner, that probably isn't a very useful image.
The image of a Doctor, Lawyer or Indian Chief (or grocery clerk, plumber, pastor, electrician, HVAC, nurse, banker, teacher, cook etc... who owns a gun is what our fellow citizens can relate to.
Hey, you're like me and you keep a firearm to defend your home or have fun target shooting or hunting, maybe I could too
That is the image that goes a long way in helping preserve the 2A, IMHO,
 
Can you link a Pew report that says 58% of Americans feel having a gun makes them safer? The most recent Pew I've seen certainly doesn't say that.
EDIT: Pew report here: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/guns-report-methodology/

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Yes, I've been part of a Pew poll and I answered honestly. I can't see any reason why someone would agree to take part in a poll and then lie.


Sorry, apparently it was Gallup and 63%:

http://news.gallup.com/poll/179213/six-americans-say-guns-homes-safer.aspx
 
Last week I was confronted with an incident of "gun owner image" and didn't know quite what to do. I was in a retail clothing store (yes, there are a few of them left) and I saw this other customer walking around looking at the merchandise. The issue was his appearance and what he was wearing -- he had long, stringy, uncombed hair; tatoos up one arm and down the other that included offensive images; and a black torn tee shirt on which was printed "<removed> Your No Gun Zone". Just couldn't help but think of the damage he was doing to owners of firearms. I wanted to ask him what he thought he was accomplishing by being so offensive, but I just shook my head and didn't say anything to him. I did, however, say something to the cashiers after he left, explaining that all gun owers were not such idiots. They seemed to understand, but again, I just couldn't help but imagine all the damage this walking billboard for was causing. What would you have done? Thanks
 
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Last week I was confronted with an incident of "gun owner image" and didn't know quite what to do. I was in a retail clothing store (yes, there are a few of them left) and I saw this other customer walking around looking at the merchandise. The issue was his appearance and what he was wearing -- he had long, stringy, uncombed hair; tatoos up one arm and down the other that included offensive images; and a black torn tee shirt on which was printed "<removed> Your No Gun Zone". Just couldn't help but think of the damage he was doing to owners of firearms. I wanted to ask him what he thought he was accomplishing by being so offensive, but I just shook my head and didn't say anything to him. I did, however, say something to the cashiers after he left, explaining that all gun owers were not such idiots. They seemed to understand, but again, I just couldn't help but imagine all the damage this walking billboard for was causing. What would you have done? Thanks

You aren't going to change someone's mind like that in one conversation, or even overnight. As far as "source for change" a stranger isn't all that likely to be a stimulus for invoking the desired change. Getting a "rise" out of people - getting attention - are what those folks are after, it's what their brain is telling them they need, whether they acknowledge or are aware of the fact or not.

Most folks respond fairly well over time to general peer pressure, but when you are talking about someone who is quite comfortable with being offensive to everyone / anyone around them by wearing overt profanity, you sure got your work cut out for you.

Like most ideas out there, the "good neighbor" concept will take time to spread, take root, and evolve.

It also has the danger of being taken too far, or the wrong direction. Example; the image you want to portray is "I'm a good dude, who just happens to be a gun owner." Not the attention seeking alternative of "I'm doing good things *because* I'm a gun owner."

Cart and horse, and all of that. If you are pulling good deeds along by the nose of overt intention, it comes across as a self righteous crusade.

This is where the NRA screwed up, in my opinion. Their "Good Guy with a Gun" and "Arm Teachers" was founded in good intention but drenched in politics.

If they had carried the message across just a shade differently; reversing the cart and horse, they might have been more successful.

Such as, "if more good people took responsibility for their selves, friends, families, and communities, and took an active interest in self-defense, criminals would have a much harder time selecting easy prey."

Instead the message comes across as "good guys with guns are required to stop bad guys" - the guns lead the parade, not the other way around. As if, you can't be a good guy unless you carry a gun and your mission is to stop bad guys. That reeks of vigilantism, alienates people who don't carry guns (What, I'm not a "good guy" because I don't carry a gun??) and so on.

Subtle changes in context mean an awful lot, but it's all in perspective. When you are delivering a message to the public at large, it needs to be done in a fashion that compels thought and not emotion. Emotion is fleeting, and that tactic is impatient and reckless. However, sowing a seed of thought; that can grow with time? That's really something, because that one phrase or interaction will grow over time as the person mulls it over.

The NRA would have been better served by pushing their Refuse to be a Victim campaign. Pushing instructors to get involved with the community with free or low cost self-defense clinics, and so on. But instead they turned even THAT on it's head with this "blended learning" stuff, and replaced a lot of that time you'd sped with students with a computer program the student takes online.

There's been a lot of mistakes made on our side recently, nothing incurable, but if courses don't get corrected these off-target messages sent by the larger organizations and individual encounters by extremist gun owners ("ef your gun free zone" types), will continue to accumulate measurable damage over time.

The message is simple; good neighbors look out for each other.

If WE individually act as good neighbors, and during the course of our interactions (not even the first encounter) with folks let slip we are gun owners, that will be much more successful. "Sure, I can help you replace that water heater; I'm free Saturday afternoon after I'm done with shooting practice."

Whoa, suddenly you aren't promoting an agenda. It just became common knowledge that you are a gun owner without any pretense of an agenda, while you also happen to be a Good Neighbor.

Simple, and effective.
 
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