Gun owners/conservatives should move to a state and affect its politics

[chaim]

Hmm, reading this thread, http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=161007

and especially Lupinus' post has me thinking.

Anyway, here is Lupinus' post:

"So, move conservative's into a state that's already reasonably conservative?

Tgo what point and purpose?

State's no long have the right's origionaly given then to make much change. Federal law is far to strong. And one state no matter how conservative on the federal level hold's the same power, no matter how conservative. Still only two senetor's. If you want to inact change, try moving them into liberal state's and being proactive there where it need's that help."

I think he has a point. Why should people move somewhere that already has a lot of people who agree with them? Why the freestate movement in NH which is already conservative and pretty libertarian? That does not spread, but rather dillutes, our influence.

If we want the most impact, move to left leaning states that already have a decent core of conservatives (thus, being more likely to be successful).

NJ, CA and NY may have too many liberals to be successful. However, places like IL and MD may be prime candidates. I don't know the state politics, but I have trouble believing the majority of Kansas or Nebraska is really all that liberal and thus should be doable. What about New Mexico, why is it so different from neighboring Nevada or Arizona?

MD for instance has enough liberals (and the Dems here are very liberal) to currently control things. However, their margin is not that large anymore. Our current governor is a Republican. The prior governor only beat his (far right) Republican opponent by a few thousand votes (I don't have the energy to look it up but I recall Saurbrey losing by less than 10000 votes). This coming election, a Republican will actually have a chance at the Senate seat being vacated by Sarbanes (though it is something of a long shot).

Convince a few thousand right leaning gun owners to come here instead of Northern Virginia or PA, and stop some of the existing conservatives and gun owners from fleeing, and MD just may be salvagable. Other than Baltimore City, PG county and Montgomery county the rest of the state is relatively conservative and pro-gun already.

A concerted effort could work. Do it in one well selected state at a time, then moving on to one or two others, and I think we could sway several states. If we can be successful in even one state, that is one less state that is on the vanguard of gun control (definately thinking MD on this one) and one more state with conservative Senators, thus making things better for everyone else as well.

 

[Joejojoba111]

A state could have damned near the same effect as declaring secession if they refused federal funding, and started quoting 'obsolete' phrases from their and the federal constitution.

Personally I think that state gov't would be tarnished in the media in such a way as to make Chavez's treatment look downright friendly. And the beautiful federal security apparati would be set to work on the 'internal problem'.

But it would sure rattle the cage, oooh boy. I hope some state comes out swinging, I surely do.

 

[Spot77]

A friend of mine, who moved to Virginia about 15 years ago constantly tells me how great things are in Virginia and bugs me about moving there.

To which I reply, "Only a coward would run away from his problems."


Now, Maryland might not be a great place to live, and I have no doubt that Virginia would be better for me, but I like living where I am, and I'll keep doing what I can to change the things I don't like.

 

[Old Dog]

Chaim, nice thoughts

Convince a few thousand right leaning gun owners to come here instead of Northern Virginia or PA, and stop some of the existing conservatives and gun owners from fleeing, and MD just may be salvagable. Other than Baltimore City, PG county and Montgomery county the rest of the state is relatively conservative and pro-gun already.

A concerted effort could work. Do it in one well selected state at a time, then moving on to one or two others, and I think we could sway several states.

but ... There's one huge reason this will never happen: cost of living. For example, a conservative gun-owner such as myself can support my family (on what my wife and I can command in salary) in relative luxury almost anywhere out West (excluding California), down South or in the Midwest ... But put us in Maryland? -- forget it! Most of us with families, regardless of whether or not we are typically conservative, often single-issue voters, are going to want to live for the here-and-now -- giving our children a good life -- rather than wanting to move somewhere with a substantially higher cost of living, more crowded cities and suburbs, higher crime rates and even worse traffic.

I have friends and family in Maryland and New York ... even if I were single, I don't know that I'd want to relocate to a place with a far worse overall quality of life simply in an attempt to influence the politics of that area ...

 

[Lupinus]

I know what you mean old.

I grew up in NJ to the age of 16. And then PA through 19 before moving to florida.

PA was certianly better then Jersey but the defences are insane. I am now looking into house's in SC near Anderson. I have found houses and good quality large mobel/manufactored home's on two acre's for less then you can buy a Jersey crack house for.

 

[idakfan]

www.freestatewyoming.org
www.freestateproject.org

I prefer IDAHO myself. Rated 97% in Boston's Gun Bible. Good economy too.

 

[Art Eatman]

The best read on this sort of strategy is Boston T. Party's novel, "Molon Labe".

Art

 

[M-Rex]

Come to California. I'll warm up the barbecue.

 

[Lupinus]

Cali BBQ?

Buddy.....there is no such thing

 

[garyk/nm]

Chaim,
Curious as to why you singled out New Mexico? Open carry is legal, CCW is fairly easy to get, no restrictions on number of purchases; ???
Oh, and thanks for the invite, but I am NOT moving back to MD. Too crowded!
(lived there 18 years. My sister lives in Columbia)

 

[Matthew748]

The idea of moving to a hostile state to try and effect change is noble, but not feasible for most people. Besides, once you get to the hostile state what do you do? Heck, I did everything right I could think of in Illinois (voted, wrote letters, joined the ISRA, contributed money to the ISRA, spoke to fence-sitters about firearms) and we still almost got slammed with a Cook County AWB. The only thing that prevented it was the press coverage of Hurricane Katrina and the totalitarian response the “authorities” tried to take. With the fall veto session looming, who knows what will happen on the state level? The ISRA did a good job earlier in the year, but the IL state police are still being allowed to compile a database of gun purchases, the ridiculous FOID card is still around, and the home rule act still allows cities and counties to ban whatever gun they want.

I am sorry if I abandoned the fight in Illinois, but the outlook is just too grim. I hope I am wrong, but I figure it will just be a matter of time before Daley and his flunkies in Springfield get their way and Illinois joins the ranks of New Jersey, New York, and California. Rather then waiting and risk being caught between a rock and a hard place, I decided to get out while the getting was good.

 

[JohnBT]

"To which I reply, "Only a coward would run away from his problems.""

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein



John...who has lived in Baltimore and Rockville.

 

[jefnvk]

I will respond to this the way I respond to all these ideas.

Often times, I hear people complaining in Montana or Wyoming or Idaho that there is an influx of people coming in from California, settling down and getting the laws changed. It is frowned upon when people do it and get laws passed that you don't like.

How is this any different than that, except we are the ones doing it?

 

[aircarver]

I dunno... after I moved from New York to punch up Texas.... New York got Shoo-mer & Shrillary.....

 

[AirForceShooter]

and we're all going to join the Brady Bunch and make it a Pro-gun group.

AFS

 

[cbsbyte]

Massachusetts

Move to Massachusetts. Its not at all liberal. We just like to pretend it is.

 

[Rockstar]

The original concept of this thread is naive.

 

[Dan from MI]

Move to Michigan.

Great Outdoors, conservative outside of the cities.

All we need is about 150,000 more pro-2a gunowners, and we're a red state.

 

[beerslurpy]

I moved to Florida, and we're going unelect Bill Nelson next year. Getting rid of an anti-gun senator and possibly replacing him with a pro-gun candidate will be huge by any definition of the word.

 

[Spot77]

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein

hehehe...I've been called worse than "crazy" before. Mostly by my parents.


We've actually made a slight bit of progress in the last two years, and have managed to fight off any new gun control legislation.

But as the years go on, I can certainly see how easy it is to get frustrated and burn out.

I wish VCDL would grow to become the VMCDL (Virginia-Maryland Citizens' Defense League.)

Those guys kick butt!

 

[AirForceShooter]

Beerslurpy:
who's going to replace Bill?
certainly not my esteemed congresswoman who's a major RINO and probably as anti-gun as Nelson?

AFS

 

[chaim]

There's one huge reason this will never happen: cost of living.

Old Dog, I'm not advocating that everyone move, then the conservative states will become liberal states and what net gain will there be? However, there are plenty of people moving to the region for jobs or whatever. Instead of going to Richmond, northern VA, or southern PA, I'm advocating people coming here. That plus a few people who are politically inclined and move for the politics could make a difference.

www.freestatewyoming.org
www.freestateproject.org

idakfan, I'm almost talking about the opposite of the "freestate project". I'm not talking about running to a state that is already conservative and digging in. I'm talking about motivating a few thousand gunnies to come to a state like MD that is borderline (not borderline in current politics, but the margins are small enough today in total votes that it wouldn't take much) and taking it back.

Chaim,
Curious as to why you singled out New Mexico...

Well, I know it has improved but until very recently their gun laws were pretty bad compared to its neighbors. It also has a reputation of being relatively liberal (though I guess it is left wing libertarian and not east coast liberal).

Often times, I hear people complaining in Montana or Wyoming or Idaho that there is an influx of people coming in from California, settling down and getting the laws changed. It is frowned upon when people do it and get laws passed that you don't like.

How is this any different than that, except we are the ones doing it?

Good point, but I think there is a difference. In more conservative, "live and let live", states new people come in and limit freedom. They want to limit guns, they want to limit what you can do with your property, etc.

If we get enough people to move to an area to actually make a difference we will be gaining freedom and giving more choice.

In the cases you bring up, they are imposing limits on people already there. We would be giving them choices, and if they don't like guns they could choose not to own them.

Anyway, in the cases you mention there is no concerted effort. Washington state and Oregon for instance have seen huge changes in recent years (still decent on guns though) from people from CA simply running for financial reasons. I'm asking for an effort for gunnies to target certain states- within a decade we could add 2 or 3 states to the pro-gun list and sending more conservative reps to the House and Senate.



For Rockstar, Matthew, John and other naysayers, it may not be easy (the hardest part being convincing people to try), but I think it can be done. I'm not talking about going to impossible situations- CA may have similar margins as MD but the raw numbers would be tough, NY and NJ are pretty much impossible. However, places like MD, MI (with decent gun laws but nationally quite liberal), WI (conservative core, but strong liberal core as well and mediocre gun laws), maybe IL, etc, may be doable. MD only needs as few as 5K-10K to come in to swing our governor's elections to be pretty solidly Republican. A few more votes in the right districts and you will definately see a change in MD gun laws (many of our rural Dems are already pro-gun), and that is good for all of us since MD's lead is often followed by bill writers elsewhere.

 

[jefnvk]

In the cases you bring up, they are imposing limits on people already there. We would be giving them choices, and if they don't like guns they could choose not to own them.

By the same ideology, people moving into a predominantly old-fashioned (I hesitate to use the term religious) area, and demanding things like welfare for the poor and borth control handed out in schools are doing them a favor, after all if they don't want that stuf, they don't have to take it.

To me, the basic premsis is the same. A group of people who more or less want to impose their values on another group of people who have more or less already determined on what sort of values they want to have.

 

[chaim]

By the same ideology, people moving into a predominantly old-fashioned (I hesitate to use the term religious) area, and demanding things like welfare for the poor and borth control handed out in schools are doing them a favor, after all if they don't want that stuf, they don't have to take it.

Except in your example, while they don't have to take it, they'd have to pay for it. Birth control and welfare aren't free- they cost tax dollars. So, the taxes of the existing residents would have to go up, or other existing services would have to go down, to fund the welfare.

In my proposal, I don't see how liberalizing gun laws and allowing carry would cost anyone anything, except for those who choose to buy a gun anyway. Whatever it would cost to administer a CCW system would be more than made up in the savings from the cost of the many gun-control boondoggles in the state (you have any idea what the ballistic fingerprint database costs for instance). So, in my case it hurts no one and promotes choice and freedom. Those who oppose it have the freedom to stay gunless, but the rest of us can buy guns more easily and actually carry them. In your example, it costs the opposition more money in more taxes.

Additionally, I'm talking about doing this in states that already have a large conservative and/or pro-gun minority. I'm not talking about changing the face of the state, only adding a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of voters. That doesn't change the demographics all that much, but gives the conservatives and pro-gun minority already there more of a voice (by no longer being a minority). Admittedly, it does change the face of the state's politics greatly, but by adding a few thousand people, especially in certain districts, only allows the large minority currently denied a voice to actually finally have a voice.

 

[cracked butt]

The whole idea would work on paper only if you assume that government at all levels in those states aren't corrupt socialist crony bastions that are firmly entrenched and already beyond repair. In Illinois, Chicago controls the politics of the state, and is notoriously corrupt. I don't think places like NewJersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh are all that different. The city in my own backyard, Milwaukee, is so corrupt that its rediculous, our state hasn't slipped to the depths of some other states yet, but i would never even consider moving to that city for any political reason.

If things ever get bad enough, I'll move. Its no use swimming upstream in a tide of idiots.

If you are going to stay, the only way you can effect change is to burn the cities to the ground and start over- the only way.