Category: Gun Rights

Joe Huffman offers a graphic and powerful response to someone questioning, “Why do we need so many dang guns,” after reading about gun sales spiking ahead of an Obama presidency.

Wretchard of The Belmont Club has an interesting lesson I think Second Amendment Activists could take to heart.  In the comments:

One thing I learned from hard experience is you always start from where people are. Not from where you want them to start. You have to take people step by step, on the basis of their own experience, getting them to reflect on it to their own conclusions. Just because you “know” doesn’t mean you can force what you “know” down people’s throats. They have to figure things out for themselves. It’s not a function of being unsure of your beliefs. Just an acceptance of the fact that people have to travel their own road to the same spot you may be standing on.

There are no shortcuts. Fourteen years it took us to knock down a tinpot dictator. And we did largely by letting him expose himself. The key was to set up what I would call the reflectional infrastructure. You got people together. And they figured things out. But that required energy to overcome entropy. Just no way around it. I don’t think it necessary to create one big conservative opposition to socialism. You can create people who are opposed to socialism out of greed; some out of philosophy; others out of a desire for liberty. Still others for reasons they can’t articulate. It dudn’t matter. Also organizations have the disquieting tendency to fall apart after they’ve formed. Coalitions are always splitting up or coming together. It’s like trying to build a sandcastle. Still if you keep at, as the Temptations used to say, ‘Our Day Will Come’.

And when the Day comes it won’t solve all the problems of the world. It will just keep the night back for one more day. Our job isn’t to fix things for all time, but to keep this old world running for the time we’re on it. Like Gandalf said, “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Wretchard is speaking from experience organizing against Ferdinand Marcos.  We don’t have tinpot dictators to topple, just minds to change, and allies to make.  What opportunities the Obama administration will give us we don’t know yet, but we should be prepared for strange bedfellows.  As I’ve said before, I don’t need someone to have 100% buy in to our cause to find them useful.  John McCain certainly isn’t a high philosopher of Second Amendment rights, but on the really important stuff, he got it.  I am more interested in advancing my cause than in finding philisophical fellow travelers.

This past Tuesday, manning the phones to turn out the vote for our NRA endorsed tickets, I was working along side two orthodox Jews; a father and son team.  I did not know for what reasons they thought it important to show up to make phone calls.  I know little of their overall political philosophy.  I’m sure much of it would be alien to me.  But for 12 hours in the call center, none of that mattered.  For different reasons we were working toward the same thing.  Too often gun owners take a black or white path toward building allies; anyone who deosn’t buy in completely is a pariah.  To be effective, you have to be willing to work with what fortune gives you someitmes.

Countertop reports that John Dingell, who is a pro-gun Democrat, might be done for.  Obama has named Henry Waxman’s former Chief of Staff as his Congressional Relations Director:

This was an easy decision for Pelosi who has long clashed with Dingell and ran Lynn Rivers against him in a primary attempt to defeat him.

The Lynne Rivers campaign was all about gun control. For it to rear its head in this fashion, so soon after the election, doesn’t bode well for anyone.

Hang on folks, this is going to be a bumpy ride.  Dingell chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.  Here’s what Countertop says the consequences of Waxman will be.

If Waxman wins, expect serious heavy handed climate change legislation. If Waxman wins, expect the Consumer Products Safety Commission to have jurisdiction over firearms. If Waxman wins, expect a gun show ban. If Waxman wins, expect a gun control orgy.

This is what happens when we don’t vote Freedom First.  Anyone still want to argue there was no difference between Obama and McCain?

I wonder if this was the kind of “price signal” Obama was talking about.  I would like to get a few AR lowers, but I doubt I’ll be able to find any.  For the most part, I have what I want.  I’d like something in .308 at some point.  I suppose I should start thinking about that very soon.  For now, I’m going to wait out the panic buying.  I doubt we’ll see a new AWB at the top of The Lightworker’s agenda.  Pretty clearly we’re on the list of right-wing loons to be gored, but I think economic issues will dominate his first 100 days.

Already on his transition platform:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.

Pretty much the Brady agenda.  Elections have consequences folks.  It won’t have a sunset this time.

UPDATE: The old version disappeared for a while.  The new version is here.

Looks like Bush might be fixing the National Park issue for us on the way out the door.  Pity it’ll probably get undone by Obama, but hey, elections have consequences.

David and I might disagree on a lot tactics wise, but he’s absolutely right about this:

We expect politicians to champion our rights, but how many of us make it worth their while to do so on such a hot button issue–one that is radioactive in most urban locales? Yes, true, a principled person does not shrink from hoisting his colors, but most politicians, even the ones who vote our way the majority of the time, view it as but one of many issues. And even though we don’t like to hear this, most constituents do not consider gun rights their major concern.

If that’s to change, we can’t elect someone to do it for us. Representative government doesn’t mean we abdicate our own initiative and go back to sleep.

He’s absolutely right, and gun owners don’t do nearly enough to help out politicians that support them.  It’s going to be very rare to get true believers in politics, but we do have some.  We even have some in my district here in Bucks County.  Yet I would have been happy to have even a dozen dedicated volunteers.

Jim has an interesting take on the events of last week at the bottom of Today’s Shooting Wire.  I agree with his observation:

As I said, Cooper exercised his individual right to support a candidate. Unfortunately, his making that choice very public had very public consequences. When asked if I felt it “right” my response was simple “Is it right? It just is. It’s the way it works. It’s absolutism.”

It’s not right, it just is.  That’s a pretty good way to describe it.