Category: Guns

From Human events:

Unlike the reserved approach to politics that the traditional firearms lobby has taken, the new generation is outspoken, unashamed and willing to fight for what they believe.  They are educated on the origins of the Second Amendment and the fundamental right to be free.  They do not advocate for the Second Amendment as a right to hunt, rather they perceive it as a guaranteed ability to resist an oppressive government.

I generally agree that there’s a Gun Culture 1.0 and a Gun Culture 2.0, but there’s a lot of minor revisions in the middle. In terms of people who are “outspoken, unashamed and willing to fight for what they believe,” I’ve found that to be more true of retirees than young people. Young people are far less likely to get involved, in my experience, than older folks. They are less likely to join pro-gun organizations, and less likely to participate in other civic aspects of gun ownership, like joining clubs, or moving in political circles to try to advocate their point of view on the Second Amendment.

I think for many in Gun Culture 2.0, guns are a lifestyle product that money can buy. If there’s troves young people who are really interested in the civic aspects of gun ownership, I haven’t seen it. Any time I’ve ever been to rallies, or had people volunteer, they’ve usually not been people we would classify as Gun Culture 2.0. In fact, I think how to get Gun Culture 2.0 folks involved in the civic aspects of gun ownership is going to be one of our biggest challenges going forward. GC 2.0 was built on top of the foundation laid by folks who were 1.0 shooters, and it’s not very hard to start going backwards if people don’t get involved.

Spent most of today in the office today rearranging things to take this all into the final stretch, assuming we find some real-estate soon to put all this stuff. I felt bad ignoring the blog, but it didn’t take long to realize there was nothing to blog about anyway. Got caught up with other blogs pretty quickly, and looks like no one else has much to blog about either. It’s a real problem when you write about RKBA when no one is talking about it in public life. Let me rummage through and see what I have here.

I generally try not to pay great attention to polling numbers, because I think there’s a lot of tea leaf reading that goes on here on all sides. I’m skeptical they are rigged, however. I think there’s literally nothing to see here. I’d bet this is a fundraising scheme. If the person had been there, at the end they would have patched you through to someone who asked you to make a donation. If you answered Obama, or just stood there with a dumb look on your face, they probably would have dropped you eventually.

Speaking of polls, and why they aren’t to be trusted, we have this poll, which says 66% of Americans believe everyone should be required to pay some amount of income tax. From a post by Ilya Somin, we have a poll which shoes that 66% of Americans believe no one should pay more than 19%, and a whopping 88% believe no one should pay more than 29%. Now, if you think about cutting taxes on the wealthy to 29%, and especially 19%, while simultaneously raising taxes on the poor some modest amount, and how politically viable that is, you’ll understand why the gun control crowd’s reliance on polls to show their views are uncontroversial doesn’t hold any water with politicians who know better. People will tell pollsters anything. What matters is what happens when it’s time to make policy, and both sides rally, and the media prints and broadcasts, the bloggers blog, the forums forum, the pundits pundit, etc, etc. A poll on specific gun policy or tax policy doesn’t mean crap. Most people know next to nothing about both, including people who own guns and pay taxes.

Louisianans will be voting on a strengthened Right to Keep and Bear Arms ballot measure this November. Needless to say if we lost on this, it would be a minor disaster, so if you know people there, or live there, help spread the word. This is also meant to send a strong message to the courts about how the people expect their rights to be treated. Practically every court has called for intermediate scrutiny for the Second Amendment, rather than strict, because it allows them to do the kind of interest balancing that should not happen with a fundamental constitutional right.