Your Activism Homework: March 2007

[bogie]

Guys, we have to learn how the successful activists do their thing.

How they organize disparate groups of people into a single cohesive force.

How they stage events and shape the news.

We do things like write letters to the editor, to congressmen, and a lot of nice conservative stuff.

What other tactics are available? What resources are available to us? How can we mobilize?

For instance, imagine this... Your local mayor's office is announcing that it is going to have a rally to ban handguns. They're doing a "buyback." Our object is to have a sizable number of people show up for a "die-in," with the message that a disarmed population make easy targets for criminals... A bit of street theater.

Your homework: Look at the different groups, and see how they are doing things that we aren't. Because their tactics WORK.

 

[CNYCacher]

You mean chanting "Hitler was for gun control!" on a megaphone isn't cutting it anymore?



I like your die-in idea. People laying around outside the police station where the buyback is going on.
Have a woman all made-up like a rape victim. Frizzed hair, smeared makeup, torn shirt, fake knife sticking out of her chest, purse contents spilled on the sidewalk beside her, including an open cell phone. Put a sign next to her:

"Complying with a rapist didn't turn out as well as I was promised."
-- Another victim of gun control

Another one of a guy in his pajamas, pool of fake blood, golf club in his hands. His sign will say:

"That bump in the night turned out to not be a golf ball"
-- Another victim of gun control

etc.

 

[kludge]

Instead of a "buyback"...

How about having a "safety inspection"?

Gather a couple local smiths... a couple instructors... hand out "the four rules"... have a 5 minute lecture every 30 minutes, and have time for one-on-one personal questions... could be sponsored at a local club... advertise this...

"You may have a gun in your home. Perhaps you keep it "just in case". To promote safety in our community we are holding a safety awareness program. Local gunsmiths will inspect your firearm help you determine if it can be safely used. There will be certified instructors on hand to discuss safe handling and storage to help determine what's right for you."

They could also be encouraged to buy a fresh box of ammo, and even collect old ammo that might not be good after 30 years in a dresser drawer.

 

[TX1911fan]

I like that idea Kludge.

 

[hso]

I like the idea of the "die in" when buy-backs or gun-control meetings are held. Scores of chalk outlines on the ground with our people standing around with sandwich signs saying "I fought back! Don't let them disarm you so that you can't!"

Or people carrying a poster with a "chalk outline" and the words "Don't let this be you. The police can't protect you from criminals." Or, "The mayor would rather see this than you having a gun to protect yourself and your family." Perhaps people wearing sandwich signs with the same?

A fork and a handgun with "This stuffs food in your mouth and makes you fat like this crawls into your hand and makes you a muderer."

Heck, the chalk outline and "armed citizens" standing would be street art or performance art!

 

[shield20]

I think just "getting out there" would be a BIG thing - how to go about organizing a sizable presence - even if just for ourselves (i.e. not a counter-'demonstration'), lets be PRO-active too!.

 

[Fly320s]

I really like the Die-In idea. Good one, CNYcacher and hso. Kludge's idea is a very close second place, but it might be better used on it's own, away from any anti-gun campaign of "buy-back" program.

In any case, Bogie and Shield are right. Half of the battle is just showing up. We need to outnumber the blissninnies at the rallies.

 

[hso]

Perhaps hand these out at political events?

 

[hso]

SM and some of his folks visited a gun lock give away and pulled a brilliant little action.

When given the cable gun lock he and his loudly proclaimed something along the lines of, "Now HOW am I supposed to put this stupid thing on a fire extinguisher and still use the fire extinguisher when our lives are at stake!" "My kids know not to mess with a fire extinguisher because I taught them how important it was!" "What do I do while I'm waiting for the fire department to get there just let my kids burn up?!?"

Steve reports that as soon as the words were spoken - the Antis knew they had screwed up and played right into their hands.

Folks put the locks back down, put down literature, and wanted to hear what Steve and his folks had to say.

 

[bogie]

Okay... We've got some ideas...

Now to get the "hate mail directed toward Bogie" rolling again...

Look at gay pride groups.

The black panthers.

The ACLU.

NORML.

NOW.

Folks like Abbie Hoffman or Dick Gregory.

We can adapt some of their tactics.

 

[GaryL]

Well, for one thing, I'd like to point out that the politician who works quietly keeping restrictive legislation from making it to the floor, and votes it down if and when it does, is as much of a friend as the politician trying to pass legislation that will turn back the clock and restore some of our rights. The reason I say this is that the guy who quietly supports us may be doing the only thing he can that will allow him to stay in office and keep our foes out of office, while the other guy might just be setting himself up to lose the next election.

Unfortunately, too many firearms owners get pissed off when they don't get exactly what they want, and then do things that make sure the anti gun candidate wins the next time around.

All those other groups are usually pretty careful to make sure they don't hurt their cause when they're unable to help it. We need to learn to do the same. And if a guy is willing to support us a little, that's certainly better than the guy who is flat out against us.

 

[bogie]

Very true - We have to remember that nothing happens immediately, and that even if someone isn't out there rah-rahing, it doesn't mean that they're not on our side when it counts.

One thing we _really_ need to lose is the anger. Or at least the appearance of anger. When you see one of "their" talking heads on TV, they're calm, and they're polite, and they smile and use "caring" language... As for us?

Overall, we need to ****, and also police our own ranks...

At a typical protest rally, the leadership is apparent, unless it's a staged riot, like they do at the world economic conferences, etc... A news crew knows who to talk to. These people are from the right-side portion of the intelligence bell curve. They do their best to make a nice impression, and their language is already thought out - they're not making things up as they go. Because they are there FOR the TV...

In our case, a news crew drives out to a gun show, looking for examples of the "gun show loophole" and some Bubba in overhauls, a klucker t-shirt, with 2.5 teeth left, and a big ol' chaw of some indescribeable material, wanders over and tells 'em that he can git 'em any dang thing they want. Becuz he's sellin' off his collection before his ol' lady's divorce lawyer finds out about it. On camera.

What we _need_ is for Bubba to KNOW (kinda hard to train Bubba tho...) that he needs to send the folks to the promoter. And the promoter needs to be PREPARED (via your basic simple "cheat sheet" of talking points) about what to say, and what not to say. He's got this _ready_ and it's in the form of 5-10 second soundbites, not a two minute statement - because the news ain't gonna give him two minutes. Things like "You wanna buy a gun? Let's do your background check."