[Cory Steiner]

What's the one statement that would make those unknowledgable about the value of the right to keep and bear arms give it some thought? "From my cold, dead hands" wouldn't be it although I do appreciate that one myself.
Thank you all. Your assistance may help further the cause of liberty. There I go being delusional again. Sorry.

[stevelyn]

Some of the quotes on Oleg's posters come to mind. The combination of attention grabbing pictures and quotes should even provoke critical thought from a frozen pizza.

[geekWithA.45]

Noble: "Human life is worth defending."

Practical: "Do you see any cops nearby, right now? How long do you think it'll take them to get here? Got a cell phone? Go ahead and call a pizza shop and order a pizza. Ask youself how dead you'll be before the pizza guy picks up."

Sarcasm: "Gee, don't you wish Todd Beamer was armed?"

[Hkmp5sd]

"You can't rape a .38."

[HankB]

"What, you say you'd NEVER shoot anyone under ANY circumstances? You must have pretty low self-esteem, if you place such a low value on your own life to think it's not worth defending."

A variation is "Gee, does your (insert family member here) know that you don't value them enough to protect them, no matter what?"

[Billll]

"The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed—where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once."
KOZINSKI, 9th Circuit Judge, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc:

Or, to paraphrase:
Giving up the right to arms is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Or, to quote A.E.VanVogt:
The right to bear arms is the right to remain free.

[jimpeel]

Here’s the question I pose to people that they must pose to themselves to know the truth of the matter:

If it is, as the Founders state in their many writings, that the right to keep and bear arms is the final bastion against government tyranny; why is it that same government is so anxious to remove firearms from the hands of the citizenry?

Answer that question and you will know everything you need to know.

[chadintex]

I forget where I saw it, but a photo of a family with some small kids with the caption "Because some things are worth defending".

Ask someone "what would you do if I threatened to beat you to death with a brick and you couldn't run away?"

[Black92LX]

not sure if this fits.

I'd rather carry and never have to use it, than not carry and need it once.

[another okie]

I just want to be able to defend my children against bad people.

[Standing Wolf]

My life is worth defending. Isn't yours?

[Skibane]

No offense intended, but by framing the 2nd Amendment in terms of defending youself, loved ones and property against criminal attack, you are selling the 2nd short.

The 2nd wasn't written with crime fighting in mind (let alone duck hunting!), but rather as protection against tyranny. Towards this end, I might suggest any of the following:

"One of the ordinary modes by which tyrants accomplish their purpose without resistance is by disarming the people and making it an offense to keep arms." — Aristotle, The Politics 218

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun." — Patrick Henry, spoken during Virginia's ratification convention, June 14, 1788

"When the history of the 20th century is finally written, one of its key features will be the wanton slaughter of more than 170 million people, not in war, but by their own government. The governments that led in this slaughter are the former USSR (65 million) and the Peoples Republic of China (35-40 million). The point to remember is that these governments were the idols of America's leftists. Part of the reason for these and other tyrannical successes was because the people were first disarmed." — Walter E. Willaims, Professor of Economics at George Mason University

"Contemporary scholars have little explored the preconditions of genocide. Still less have they asked whether a society's weapons policy might be one of the institutional arrangements that contributes to the probability of its government engaging in some of the more extreme varieties of outrage. Though it is a long step between being disarmed and being murdered—one does not usually lead to the other— it is nevertheless an arresting reality that not one of the principal genocides of the twentieth century, and there have been dozens, has been inflicted on a population that was armed." — Daniel D. Polsby, Washington University Law Quarterly, Volume 73, Number 3, Fall 1997

"...It does not say 'shall not be infringed, unless the weapon in question is really scary.' They're SUPPOSED to be scary. The occupants of Washington City are supposed to go to bed every night, wondering if anything they've done today will get them what it got Charles the First in 1649, or Louis XVI in 1793." — Vin Suprynowicz

[Cory Steiner]

The winner is:
"Giving up the right to arms is a mistake a free people only get to make once."

[SDC]

I like: "Gun Control: The government's way of saying that they don't trust YOU."

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Excellent question, Cory, and one I've thought about a lot.

By "sheeple," I'll assume someone who has little experience with firearms, a vague distrust, and an unexamined willingness to trust the government and gun-control groups. (But someone who isn't an anti -- a true anti won't be convinced by anything you say.)

I think it's counterproductive to be in-your-face with such people. And you won't convince anyone with just a single statement. You want to get them doubting, a little bit. (BTW, I think it's also counterproductive to call names; it sets up an us-versus-you situation.)

With that in mind, here's my try. A little wordy, but I think it has to be.

"Of course, you'd do anything to protecy your family, and you'd defend yourself too, so you could provide for them. Suppose that you were backed into a corner, where running away isn't an option and the police couldn't get there in time. Something like an armed robbery or a home invasion. Wouldn't you want to have the same or better tools than the bad guys have?"

- pdmoderator

[Fly320s]

I like PDMod's.

It gets the mind and soul thinking, "what if?"

[Zedicus]

How about this one.

"The Goverment and Media think that people are like sheep, easly lead, even to the slaughter.
DON'T BE A SHEEP!"

[Mad Man]

Politics of sex ed: "So you favor the 'abstinence only (http://www.aclu.org/ReproductiveRights/ReproductiveRights.cfm?ID=11141&c=147)' approach to gun safety?"

Politics of abortion: "A woman is too stupid to weigh the risks vs. benefits of owning and/or carrying a gun for self-protection. Therefore, she must be denied the right to make that choice."

Politics of free speech: "Yes, they do have gun registration in England. Of course, you also need a license to own a television set there (http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/bbc.html), too." (see also http://www.tv-l.co.uk)

Politics of licensing: "Register guns like cars? I wish they would, because we would have much less gun control (http://reason.com/9911/fe.dk.taking.shtml)."

Politics of the poll tax (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax): "Of course nobody wants to ban guns (http://www.saf.org/JFPP13ch1.htm). They just want to make it so costly and inconvenient that nobody can."




A tangent about voting rights, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (http://www.aclu.org/VotingRights/VotingRights.cfm?ID=10136&c=166)


Photo Identification Requirements

As with the other methods of disenfranchisement in our history, such as literacy test and poll taxes, the photo identification requirement would present another barrier to voting and have a chilling effect on voter participation. There are voters who simply do not have identification and requiring them to purchase identification would be tantamount to requiring them to pay a poll tax. A disproportionate number of racial and ethnic minority voters, seniors, homeless people, as well as voters with disabilities, do not have identification or the financial means to acquire it. The burden of this requirement would fall disproportionately and unfairly upon them,


Imagine how they would react if they found out what happens to these disenfranchised persons when they try to fill out Section 18 of Form 4473 (http://www.atf.treas.gov/forms/4473/page02.htm)...

[Partisan Ranger]

Something like this,

If we didn't have guns, we would be spelling 'neighbor' with an 'our' on the end. And speaking with a snotty British accent.

My point is that the USA exists because of armed rebellion against tyranny. If our more rebellious ancestors were bliss-ninny statists like many today, this Republic wouldn't be.

[Mad Man]

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