I don’t think that gun laws are going to be what causes the revolt. I think they’ll get away with that. I think they’ll get away with a lot of other freedom-stealing laws. I don’t think that we’ll actually stand up and say enough until we’re in a society that makes the Dystopia in “V for Vendetta” look cheerful.

Freedom is a relatively new concept in this world. Our method of government was, pardon the pun, revolutionary. The default state of government historically is to create a ruling class and a ruled class. Guess what? Most people are creating their own “ruled” class right now, making sure they have their own bread and circuses. They’d rather watch American Idol than the news, and the concept of watching C-Span is foreign to them. Let someone else be responsible for government decisions, let someone else be responsible for their safety and security. Forget giving up freedom for security, as long as they don’t have to be inconvenienced, they’ll be happy to hand off any number of liberties. They WANT someone else to make the choices.

Yes, some people who value freedom will fight against the goon squads, but those will be covered on the evening news and shown as aberrations, as loners, as criminals. There won’t be some giant declaration of tyranny that causes everyone to stand up and fight at the same time, it’ll be a little law here, a little rule there, a tiny little henpeck over yonder. It’ll be a little extra inconvenience here or there. And it’ll happen slowly enough that nobody will start the war. Eventually, they’ll have the history books showing that we were a bunch of misguided, racist, bigots.

Think about taking someone that lived 100 years ago, and plopping them down in our time and explaining our current laws. They’d look at us as though we were insane for allowing people to take so much of our money for taxes, for allowing the government to have so much control over us, and for having the type of police forces we have.

So. What can we actually do to fix it? And more to the point, what WILL we do to fix it? The only thing I can think of that will give us any hope is if “they” manage to show their hand, and let slip the fact that there are upcoming giant restrictions on freedoms that everyone takes for granted now. Perhaps a plan to close the state borders and require traveling papers to go from state to state, or some other Draconian measure that can be used to swing the pendulum back the other way.

Think we’ll get that lucky?

“Machine guns have been banned, in fact if not in law. Yet no revolt has taken place.”

And: “If a second, permanent, AWB is enacted by this Congress, will that be the line in the sand?”

“What if a new AWB incorporates confiscation? Is that the “trigger” for a mass revolt?”

But here’s the kicker: “So, where is that line where the “prag” morphs into the “three-percenter”(?) More importantly, where is that boundary space where a sufficiently large mass of “prags” cross the Rubicon into “three-percenter”-style resistance(?)”

Uh, excuse me? Each of those “lines in the sand” weren’t supposed to “trigger” the (you know, completely-useless-if-not-complicit) “prags” – they were supposed to trigger the Three-Percenters.

And they didn’t. There hasn’t been any “three-percenter-style resistance.”

But it now appears that the Three-Percenters want to do the pragmatic thing and oppose the nomination of Eric Holder politically, rather than by long-range rifle shot.

I’m all for it. But let’s not confuse who it is who has been acting versus talking prior to this.

Don’t ask me to help, American Idol is on.

Despite the fact that I won’t get off my ass to help, I expect you to have everything just the way I want it, like…NOW!

Why can’t you be more like my microwave? It has everything done in 5 minutes or less.

You sure are useless.

But the rest of us should not call each other names!

Now to the problem – we have met the enemy and he is us.

If we can’t get 6 million gun owners to shell out $30 a year to the NRA we are sure as hell not ever going to get a million gun owners to march on Washington.

During the Clinton years of the Brady bill and AWB I was controller for Dillon Precision. I watched as he tried to increase membership. Result, not enough to do a damned bit of good.

20 million members in the NRA and they would fight Holder, and probably would win.

But too many people – from ALL sides – prags, fudds, 3%’s, “nuts”, won’t pay the $30 because the NRA doesn’t do EXACTLY what they think should be done.

WELL GET OVER IT! Pay the $30 and call it a cheap way to participate (and probably the ONLY way the vast majority ever will participate in any meaningful fashion). ALL the people who reject the NRA are the ones who are doing the MOST damage.

Now, I’m more of a 3%er, so I should say screw the NRA right? Well, I’m a life member 35+ years and I’m not quitting them, despite my complaints.

So everybody – man up. Join (you can still be a member of the ‘other’ gun orgs too) and get YOUR friends to pony up. Its the only real way to make something happen fast.

If you don’t and they won’t, then we’ll lose eventually.

This isn’t about fighting. This is about holding the ground we are currently standing on without being forced into retreat. You want to know what a victory for us will be between now and 2012? Being in the exact same position we are today.

In the upcoming political world, that is the end goal. I’ll settle for now having any gun control passed between now and then. Sure, we aren’t fighting forward but we aren’t losing ground either.

The NRA is going to have to spend the political capital they have just to keep this position. Right now is not the time to fight. We don’t even know what battles will need fighting. All we’re doing is speculating. Until we start see bills land in committee and more importantly, getting out for voting, then can we define how deep we need to dig in.

People like the Brady’s are posturing right now. Sure, they might have a receptive audience with Obama and Congress but what they don’t bring to the table is VOTES. Even two million NRA members against the Brady Campaign is an uphill battle for them. How many Blue Dogs do you think can hold their seats the first time they betray their constituents back home in support a gun control measure pushed on them by an elitist, do-as-I-say Democratic leadership? That’s a mistake they can’t afford to make once.

It’s too early to get really worked up. We need to wait and see what has a serious chance of getting out versus posturing. HR.1022 never got a vote out of committee. Maybe it will this time around. I don’t know. But I do know the supporters of it are going to have to answer some tough questions back home because like it or not, we have the past 14 years to serve as a stark example of how such laws are NOT needed.

I have hope (pun intended). If I’m wrong, then we’re facing several hundred self-appointed tyrants in Congress and from there, it is anyone’s guess. I’d prefer it if Obama just keeps right on going down the economy road and expose hard reality to the country as quickly as possible.

If the government opts to pursue gun control as a priority agenda, let them. All we can do is fight it. If we lose and lose big, then let’s talk. I suspect that if that point is reached, we won’t need to talk because the bullets will already be flying.

Whether you realize it or not, Oldfart, NRA does need you. Like I said, membership is the root of their political power. If NRA dropped to two million members under the current political climate, you can kiss our gun rights goodbye. The feds will be kicking down your door, with all the horrible things that implies. Even with 4 of 5 million members it’s going to be a hell of a fight to stop anything in Congress.

Greg that “avenue” ir rapidly becoming a one-way street and the grade is getting steeper and more slippery too. We need some sort of roadblock to keep us from plunging into the abyss. I don’t think anyone expects Obama to provide us with such a thing so we have to rely on ourselves and those we have chosen to represent us. Now the group we’ve supported for years has decided not to support us. We need to find or make another group that will support us – one that isn’t afraid to get a bloody nose in order to make a point.

I belong to a gun club that requires membership in the NRA. If that weren’t the case I’d drop my membership in a heartbeat. As it is, just a few miles past the club range is a zillion acres of National Forest. It’s looking better and better with every poorly-conceived “go along to get along” excuse I hear from NRA flacks. Sebastian says they need twenty million members instead of six million… I wonder how they’ll do with two million?

Remember, the NRA is a political organization… just like either of the two political parties, and it needs money to live. When political parties screw us over we cut off their money supply to bring them back into line.