So what do you suggest we do to encourage the more liberal of the politicians to abandon their efforts at gun control?
If I've learned anything over the past two years it's that the grass roots matter. The key to getting liberal politicians to re-evaluate their stance on guns is through their constituents. And the key to getting democratic constituents to understand this issue is getting them to see firearms, the RKBA and gun ownership as a concrete, practical reality rather than an abstraction. Most of the liberals I know who are anti-gun don't own them, don't use them, have very little if any experience with guns good or bad.
It's an abstraction so they just decide, I'm against them. (I used to be a lot like this but never really was outright anti-gun.)
However, when people see guns as a reality, as a concrete truth, as a practical tool in self defense, sport or fun, they understand the idea of passing laws to limit them is basically ridiculous.
That's why my tactical approach is to make guns NON-iconic, NOT unreal, to talk about them and interact with them as I do a cat or a motorcycle or a guitar. Are they for everyone? nope. Can they be harmful if misused? yep. Should we outlaw them on that basis? There's no need to.
I also really try to get the politics OUT of the issue. It's why I get so weary of all of this "they'll take your gun" or "they just want to have a gun" millieu. It's not helpful.
I try to talk about these things as just practical realities, tools, experiences. No icons, no demagoguery, no politics.
It's a lot like all the wedge issues in our society: race, sexual orientation, abortion. I find that when people experience these things as a reality they can appreciate one anothers' position and yet not find the need to take away one anothers' rights. Our constitution observes restrictions on certain rights, and part of respecting the constitution is respecting that fact. I accept that as a law abiding citizen. And also, as a law abiding citizen, I have stand against the outright removal of the rights of lawful people.
I also try to remind fellow Democrats of what one of their own said, as quoted in my signature line:
Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), who declared that the purposes of the Second Amendment "include self-defense, hunting, sport, and some certainly would say, as would I, the protection of individual rights against a potentially despotic central government."
