So what are we telling the anti-gun folks, really?
- Thread starter Old Dog
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NIGHTLORD40K
Member
You may be able to advocate for government run healthcare, taxpayer funded college, and other liberal ideology, but you cannot VOTE for these items, ala-carte, without also casting a vote against the private ownership of firearms. The choice at the polls is binary, and the 2A is not a plank in the DNC's platform, even if a few individual Democratic reps have pro-gun leanings.
Likewise, some Republican legislators are really gun-grabbers, but they dare not get too far from the official GOP program, or risk having their RNC support money sent elsewhere. What LaPierre has done is to link the NRAs support to all the other GOP talking points, so that individual Republicans dare not cast the 2A to the political wolves without also invalidating their ENTIRE platform.
It is a package deal, like it or not.
OP
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Old Dog
Member
Usually I try to let this stuff go, but tonight I'm letting myself be annoyed by those who either don't possess the reading comprehension skills required for intelligent debate, or who simply presume they can frame a discussion by changing the thesis statement into what they believe it should be.
Bottom line is, whatever statements those of us in the RKBA movement make publicly -- especially in social media platforms -- can, and will be used against us by our opponents.
Those who understand this are noting just how our own side can effectively damage our efforts by attempting to politicize the issue. Gun rights should not be a political issue at all (though we've let it become one in this country); it should be a common-sense issue.
My whole point boils down to the fact that since our opponents are engaging in a war of incrementalism, let's just think about some of the information we're putting out there ... Remember Zumbo? Our movement was positively crippled in the '90s when we let the Democrats -- and our own Fudds -- frame the debate.
AlexanderA
Member
This is a huge strategic mistake. In the past, the NRA was nonpartisan, and supported pro-gun Democrats as well as Republicans. This at least gave the NRA some influence with some Democrats, regardless of the official party platform. Now, if the GOP ship sinks, the NRA (and gun rights) will sink with it. Demographics don't make the GOP prospects good in the long run. Simply put, GOP constituents -- older, non-college-educated white people in the rural heartland -- are dying off, while Democratic-oriented coastal and big-city young people, minorities, and elites are increasing. The GOP, as presently structured, is going to be swamped in a few years. (Just look at 2018 Texas, where the Dems got huge majorities in all the big cities, and Cruz was saved only by the rural vote. If Texas goes purple, what's left?)
(It's gotten to the point where John Yarmuth, the congressman from Louisville, Kentucky, had campaign buttons printed up touting his "F" rating from the NRA, as an electoral positive -- and he was re-elected with 62% of the vote. In Kentucky! If the NRA has become toxic in this way, gun rights are doomed.)
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Deanimator
Member
Actually, that's EXACTLY what it makes him.
The desire to give government an absolute monopoly over the means of armed force and an absolute monopoly over everyone's health arise from the same instinct. The instinct to CONTROL.
Deanimator
Member
In the PAST, there were Democrats who REALLY supported the 2nd Amendment. Now the ones who CLAIM to, cynically turn their coats when they think it's politically advantageous to do so, former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland being a case in point. I voted for him over a Republican. Now that he's out of office, he's become just one more purveyor of invidiously racist gun controls.
Last night on the news, I saw a rabid anti-gunner try to hand wave out of existence, Swalwell's threat of nuclear weapons against gun owners. If I had a dime for every time some smarmy anti-gunner lied to me and said, "Nobody wants to take your guns!", then in the next breath called for a [FORCED] "buy back" of my AR-15 (or my Glocks, or my Smith 36), I'd be able to buy an original Maxim Pom Pom with change.
I can't stop anti-gunners (mostly, but not all Democrats) from lying to me about what they want to do to me. Fortunately, neither can they make me believe their lies.
Deanimator
Member
Delete, dupe.
NIGHTLORD40K
Member
Everything is political, common sense is anything but common, and wishing these things so ignores the reality of our time.
Look, I get your premise- I'm on your side. My reading comprehension is just fine, and calling it into question as you did is hardly consistent with the standards espoused by THR.
What do you propose, that we stop discussing concealed carry tools and tactics except in double-secret private servers on the dark web?
The anti-gunners are no longer making a pretense of their intents, they operate openly and vocally. Anytime they make inflammatory or ignorant statements, we waste no time in using that information to our advantage. That is how the game is played on both sides.
Filtering our discussions through the lense of how anti-gun operatives will use them will do nothing for our community.
Zaydok Allen
Member
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Exactly.
I don't think filtering our discussions as gun owners helps our community as a whole, and if we portray a message that we all need high capacity handguns just to walk down the street, we will just be further demonized as paranoid paramilitary nuts. I mean how many times have we all chimed in on threads started by new shooters who want a small concealed carry gun. Should we not help those people make an informed decision? Or can we only suggest full size guns that carry a certain amount of ammo? We will turn people away if we do that.
I do believe that more ammo is always a good thing.
However failing to recognize the benefit of smaller and lower capacity guns for the average carrier and the desire to just fend off an attacker with a minimalistic tool will just lead us further down the vigilante/hyper paranoid hole.
The bottom line is that gun banners will use whatever we say or want against us. To me the best response is transparency and logic, not censorship of our discussions.
Sistema1927
Member
The NRA still supports pro-gun Democrats. And Libertarians, and Independents, in addition to Republicans. It is just getting harder and harder to find a pro-gun Democrat.
Deanimator
Member
The plan is to redefine "pro-gun" until it's utterly meaningless, or worse, the opposite of its plain meaning. Supporters of invidiously racist gun controls, who advocate gun CONFISCATION claim to be "pro-gun" and to "support the 2nd Amendment."
It's like Nathan Bedford Forrest trying to portray slavery as "fitness training" and himself and his fellow slave traders as "personal trainers".
AHSA and the NFA before it, tried this scam. It didn't work then. It won't work now.
I think this is pretty spot on. Unfortunately I think a lot of people who would otherwise be ambivalent about guns instead have very negative opinions about them because of the way gun rights have become intertwined with the rest of the GOP platform in the minds of many. And as you point out, at least on a national level, the demographics of this country are going to continue to be less and less favorable to the GOP (I'm being generous here - I think the GOP as it's currently situated is headed for a cliff). On the plus side for purposes of gun rights, the judiciary is currently shifting pretty hard toward conservative and that should act as a bulwark to the coming political shift at least for the next decade or two. Hopefully in that time frame firearms and the 2A can become more standalone issues.
Edited to add - I don't think there's any association between the popularity of lower capacity carry firearms and likelihood of additional magazine capacity restrictions.
Mike OTDP
Member
Yup. Historically, the division line on any issue ran at an angle to the division line between parties. You could find pro-gun Democrats, anti-gun Republicans - and that was true for all issues. Today, those division lines are running more and more parallel to the partisan division line.
Deanimator
Member
Most people don't know ANYTHING about guns that wasn't spoon fed to them from "Law & Order - Counterfeit Prayer Wheel Unit". Needless to say it is EXCLUSIVELY virulently anti-gun agitprop. Imagine where civil rights in this country would be if the ONLY image of Black people that Whites ever saw came from "Birth of a Nation" and the Stormfront website. And that is by DESIGN. That's why people ask me if my guns are "registered", when the only guns which CAN be "registered" in Ohio fall under the National Firearms Act, and are registered with the BATFE. The idea is to deceive people into thinking that NYC is the norm and not the exception.
You're not going to stop politicians and their PR flacks in the media from LYING in support of invidiously racist gun controls. You can only expose them as liars, one person at a time.
theotherwaldo
Member
First - The leaders of the gun-banners know that a gun ban will not disarm their security teams, whatever else happens.
Second - A gun ban will automatically criminalize all gun owners and their representatives in the eyes of the ordinary folks. A double win.
Third - Everything that happens is an excuse to do what you really want to do. If Fudds say that it's O.K. to ban standard capacity magazines or certain classes of weapons then that means that all gun owners agree with the Fudds.
-By the way, Antifa appears to be an experiment to see whether or not folks can be terrorized by thugs that are technically unarmed... .
Second - A gun ban will automatically criminalize all gun owners and their representatives in the eyes of the ordinary folks. A double win.
Third - Everything that happens is an excuse to do what you really want to do. If Fudds say that it's O.K. to ban standard capacity magazines or certain classes of weapons then that means that all gun owners agree with the Fudds.
-By the way, Antifa appears to be an experiment to see whether or not folks can be terrorized by thugs that are technically unarmed... .
Ummmm.... Go back and read your first post. The whole post focuses on how carry guns are getting smaller and smaller with less rounds and how we are OK with limiting the number of rounds being available for self defense. The whole premise of this argument relies on the conclusion that small carry guns are the only guns people buy for self defense. That conclusion is incorrect.
Any pro-gun statement can be twisted and and used against us. Trying to limit discussion on small carry guns and actively discouraging people from talking about the subject would be counter productive. Many new shooters are first drawn to small carry guns and then there interests blossom from there. Somehow restricting discussion on carry guns would not be helpful in the least bit.
Madcap_Magician
Member
I've seen this happen, too.
AlexanderA
Member
There is no guarantee that some justices who are thought to be "conservative" will end up voting in favor of gun rights. The Supreme Court has an internal dynamic all its own. (Just a couple of days ago, Justice Sotomayor said in an interview that she considered all the justices to be "family.") Remember that Trump's "conservative" nominations were suggested to him by the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society has an agenda that is far broader than just gun rights.
Zerodefect
member
Supply and demand.
"Free stuff" just inflates the cost of everything drastically. Or supply runs out, and there is none. You'd think that these college people, who are supposed to be smart leaders, could handle basic middle school economics.
"Free stuff" just inflates the cost of everything drastically. Or supply runs out, and there is none. You'd think that these college people, who are supposed to be smart leaders, could handle basic middle school economics.
AlexanderA
Member
I could get into a defense of Medicare for All and free college tuition, but that would be off-topic for THR. The basic point is that reasonable minds can differ on these things and still be in favor of gun rights.
Deanimator
Member
Bike locks and bats aren't "unarmed". Try swinging one at a cop and see what happens.
Deanimator
Member
They just almost never DO... especially when governmental force is required to impose them. That's why there's such vehemence in the push to disarm citizens. Imagine how hard it would be for the principles or their masked surrogates to impose their program if they were met with armed resistance.
It's why every oppressor group from the Klan to [anti]fa wants its intended victims disarmed.
theotherwaldo
Member
Yep.
The Revolution cannot succeed until the law-abiding are disarmed.
Those that are armed but not law-abiding will then be either the justification for The Revolution or are the justified Revolutionaries.
The Revolution cannot succeed until the law-abiding are disarmed.
Those that are armed but not law-abiding will then be either the justification for The Revolution or are the justified Revolutionaries.
bassjam
Member
I'm sure you know how these things work. The media and gun control advocates don't scour the internet looking at knowledgeable forums such as THR and finding subject matter experts. They find the nearest dope off the street, talk to him for 10 minutes and cobble together a soundbite that makes him sound like an extremist. If they can't find a nearby dope, they go to youtube where there are hours upon hours of mall ninja's happily trying to prove that gun owner's aren't responsible. Heck, they can often even go to our un-designated national spokesmen like LaPierra and Dana Loesch and find something really stupid that they said.
I see no reason to self limit our 1st amendment rights to protect the 2nd. This is a gun forum to discuss guns. And as several other members have pointed out, small lower capacity firearms are just one tool in our toolbox, used for one specific task, and no usable data on "need" of higher capacity magazines for all guns and all uses can really be derived from that.
OP
OP
Old Dog
Member
Sorry, man, my post was not directed at you.
For those who cannot, though, put written remarks into context, I've not called for "restricting" discussion about any subject on a public internet forum. Nor, at any point, did I "conclude" that small carry guns are the only guns people carry for self-defense. Finally, I've not tried to active discourage any person from talking about any subject.
I simply attempted (rather poorly, it appears from the results) to illustrate that there are times when we make (what we believe to be definitive) statements that can run counter to many of the basic premises of the RKBA platform, and could be (have been, actually) used by the opposition movement.
No need to "filter discussion," or limit in any way what we talk about, let's be real. We all get passionate about what we believe, but when we repeatedly attempt to persuade others that our chosen firearms are the best, there are sometimes consequences. And sometimes, even the stupidest remarks have a long life-span and can come back to haunt one.
I've been on this forum for over fourteen years (since 08/04) so I have a little historical perspective. Apparently in trying to obtain others' thought on my topic, I got some folks riled up ... no intent to insult anyone. And yes, NIGHTLORD40K, I get that any discussion of gun rights becomes political. But a guy can dream, right?
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