I wish these guys well and hope they get a large showing. Looks like some have finally gotten fed up and are fighting back.
http://www.crpa.org/showpages.aspx?pid=1410
http://www.crpa.org/showpages.aspx?pid=1410
Every day politicians, celebrities, bags of cash, valuable works of art, warehouses full of goods, and important places are protected with armed guards. Why? They're valuable. So is the everyday person like you and me. We have families. We have friends. Our lives are just as valuable and equally worth protecting. The right to do so is respected and almost everywhere these days, and is even available to Californians when outside their own state. This is a basic human right.
Yet for millions of Californians this right is outrightly denied the moment they step out their doorstep near their own home.
In the vast majority of the US this right is recognized and upheld via Shall Issue policies of concealed carry license: anyone with a clean record showing they follow the law, is 21 years or older, has basic understanding of the applicable laws, and possesses basic competency in handling of firearms is given license their sidearm of choice upon their person, concealed as to conduct their lives among society without disruption of others or harassment by those of differing beliefs. California even has this right acknowledged in many counties, and in fact in the vast majority of the land area of the state. Yes, there is a such thing as a California license to carry firearms. In many areas this is well respected, yet in others you'd never know it exists at all, and some even go out of their way to make sure you never get one for yourself.
For some strange reason some areas of California has it subject to the whims of politicians who often see little in the value of rights and safety of the individual. You literally have less rights purely by being resident in the most populated areas of California. The SAME PERSON anywhere else occupying any of the Free States or in other areas somehow magically becomes judged less worthy for the mere fact of crossing an imaginary line.
The massacres of Virginia Tech, the mall in Nebraska, and NIU occurred in so called "gun free zones," meaning places where lawful possession of firearms of law abiding citizens was prohibited. The law abiding complied and were rewarded with execution. Absolutely zero was accomplished except guaranteeing their helplessness. Most states long ago realized the necessity for allowing citizens their right to self defense in public, and now are working to rectify the problems caused by exclusions to this basic right. Concealed carry by the average citizen has been a success everywhere it has been tried. Correspondingly, the lack of it has clearly been proven to achieve the opposite. California by its questionable "may issue" system has, for the vast majority of the population, become the country's largest "gun free zone." As a result people are free targets for all manner of violent crime because of it. More restrictions on gun ownership, particularly that which may be carried and the act of carrying them are implemented...and the crime continues. Not one less crime actually ever takes place, and nobody even bothers to honestly ask why. Yet as the rest of the country has gotten wise to the problem and is fixing it, the heavily populated counties in CA and the state remain the same and are in fact moving in the opposite direction, away from what has worked everywhere else. The solution to the problem is being applied everywhere else, yet where it is needed it is completely ignored. In fact the very people who deserve the same relief, the same freedom to solve their own problems are the very people to whom the proven solution is being denied.
In short, if you live in the heavily populated counties of California, you are being punished for living there--just because misguided politicians and policemen who are supposed to care for your safety suggest doing so by implementing policies which insure the opposite. Laws, laws, and more laws, yet none of the "promised" results. Those who trumpet the cause of firearms restriction in the name of safety are charlatans. Rather than being demanded to account for their results, they are instead given free rein to sacrifice other people to their flawed, feelgood based policies in spite of what results virtually everwhere else have shown.
This group's purpose is to demand, quite simply, the same right to defend ourselves in California as is afforded to citizens in the vast majority of the rest of the US. There is absolutely no reason to obstruct or exclude any citizen's right to carry who is otherwise accepted in 40 out of the 50 states. Those who have license to do so in other states should have their rights honored here as well.
The Second Amendment is not optional, discretionary, or subject to arbitrary whims. To defend oneself is not only a right, it is a fundamental responsibility.
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Who needs to join?
Anyone who has moved from another state and now has less rights than they had--for the "crime" of moving to California.
If you have out of state permits that are valid in lots of places EXCEPT...where you live. You're actually safer 300 miles away than at your grocery store.
If you live in a county that has no issue because of sheriffs who think your rights aren't rights just because you're in their jurisdiction.
If you don't have $10,000+ to donate to a local election in exchange for the right to protect your life--and you don't find legalized bribery within your ethics.
If you don't think having an occupation that can kill you should be a requirement for the right not to be murdered.
If you'd rather not have to be robbed or raped first to be justified in defending yourself from being robbed or raped the second time.
If your last name isn't Affleck or Stallone or first name isn't preceded by "The Honorable" yet your kids still love you and want you to get home safe at night.
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This isn't about being extreme or outlandish. It's simply a demand for equal rights. Give us the same access to our rights as everywhere else. The right to go to a gas station late at night. The right to visit an ATM without being a target. The right to drive your car without fear of it being stolen with you in it. The right to not have someone else's bad decisions in life decide whether or not your family sees you that night.
There should be NO:
"Good Cause" requirement that can be rejected on a whim. We are living human beings. Human life is priceless. Our families value us more than a bag of cash or a tray of diamonds. That's good enough cause to defend ourselves wherever we may be.
No "discretion" in determining who gets to choose whether to bear arms or not. That's our job.
No ridiculous repository or waiting periods. Waiting till 21 years old, being able to pay retail price for it, and going through a standard FBI background check and ATF form 4473 is good enough for anyone everywhere else.
No exclusionary list of what a panel of bureacrats think is "acceptable" and "safe" for ordinary citizens to own while the state's designated people have no such standard. Whatever the market provides and the individual determines appropriate for them as in every other state should be available to all who can legally purchase.
No more nonsense because we somehow cross a line between two spots in the desert, one tree further south, or some rock in the middle of a river. This is the United States of America and it's about time California got the picture and started acting like it.
I was also banned from that site
You divulge the financial transaction of another member and got banned? What a shock. And now you're here talking them down, what a shock.
Something to remember is that CA is a very large state. It's not always easy to make the 5-8 hour drive to the state capitol which happens to be a in city that is quickly becoming a total hell hole.
I enjoy how you say that CA is a lost cause right after you ran away from the fight.
Good luck in AZ.
CA is a lost cause, I saw the writing on the wall and got out last year. They will let the legislators run them into the ground because most are not willing to do the legwork themselves to get grassroots efforts off the ground. I moved because the activism wasn't there, they just wanted to email, fax, and phone call. Me, I wanted to be on the doorstep of the Capital building.
Yep, call me a coward
We already know that *most* CA gun owners aren't interested in really interested in fighting for their rights. If they were, there'd be politicians hanging from lampposts.
It's as simple as that. Force will be required in California and the gun owning population is not interested in paying the blood price.
O.K., I'll take it back... right after you post a link to One grass roots effort YOU started. Show me where YOU organized a protest. Show me that link and I'll apologize.
I don't think leaving CA is such a bad thing, but if the only reason you leave is because of the gun laws and then you mock others for the way they fight while you yourself ran, well, you know what that makes you.
What was your impression of the event TAB?i was there for about a hour.
Oh, and thanks to CA we have Feinstein, Boxer, and Pelosi in the Fed gov. mucking things up there for the rest of us.
What rest of us? Did you not say you used to live here? You were a Californian. Didn't you vote?
Thanks to the MAJORITY of Californians we have....
Don't go painting all of us with the same brush and don't go criticizing the way we fight since you took yourself out of the fight.
I've seen the people on Calguns put down some of the other gun rights orgs. for taking more extreme measures, and they blaim them for the Microstamping Bill that passed.
We already know that *most* CA gun owners aren't interested in really interested in fighting for their rights. If they were, there'd be politicians hanging from lampposts.
It's as simple as that. Force will be required in California and the gun owning population is not interested in paying the blood price.
What is to be done then with respect to regimes in de facto single party soft authoritarian states?
I suppose it then comes down to either fight, i.e., armed struggle or flight to a relatively free state.