I would Like to Pose a Question to You All

[Life During Wartime]

It is crazy to me how uneducated politicians are in regards to firearms. Case in point: Colorado Represenative Diana Degette and her absurd thoughts on magazine being ammunition :banghead:
As a result of this, I have been thinking that I should make a video series for youtube that shows the basics of firearms, starting with type, how they function, what they can and cant do, so called high cap mags and so called assault rifles.
In that train of thought, I began compiling images off the webs, and came to the thought that it might be a copyright infringement.
My question then is it
and if it is, (since it would take far too much time to get all of those people's permissions) would you the THR community like to participate by photgraphing very specific photos. There will be a huge number of pictures involved, but if any of you are up for such a task, please tell me. Thank you all.

 

[Hanzo581]

There are already tons of videos that show this info. But they won't get a single view from their intended audience.

 

[Life During Wartime]

there might be, and it might not, but I still would like to try. I am going to take a very anayltical approach, which is why quality pictures will be so important. For example, the first video will be as simple as merely identifying a "gun" and identifying into types with proper nomenclature, ie a "gun" to the more proper "firearm" to the more specific "handgun" to the more specific "semi-automatic"

if nothing else, it will help people who become gun owners and a little info in the right direction could be helpful. The firearm terminology is rather expansive

 

[Hanzo581]

I'm not trying to get you off your idea, just saying it has already been done a thousand times, so try to do something a little different to set yourself apart and get people to watch.

Good Luck!

 

[Ryanxia]

As has been said there's already a huge amount of videos/info out there but if you do make one, make sure to tell people you interact with/meet on a daily basis about it.
Saying, 'hey you should check out this youtube video I made' might get some otherwise nuetral or 'anti' gun people that you personally come in contact with to check it out and become informed.

Good luck.

 

[Sam1911]

Education is great. But education about the details of how firearms work isn't the answer to politicians who use gun control as a plank in their platform.

Understand that very few of them really care about guns or how guns work. They have a group of talking points which they think their constituents want to hear and they believe (often correctly) that the folks from their district will come out and vote for them if they support gun control among their other platform planks.

Whether or not gun control is effective at stopping crime, or whether or not it violates the Constitution, or whether or not the laws they propose make any technical sense or difference matters NOT AT ALL. They DO NOT care and have no reason to care. Their goals don't have anything to do with guns, but with being ELECTED. If they thought they could get people to come out and vote for them if they tried to ban purple popsicles, they would!

IF you could get some of these politicians to watch your videos and understand your points, all you'd succeed in doing is to make them slightly more technically proficient in writing their bad laws.

There are many (probably hundreds) of instances where the technical ignorance of political types have created loopholes in the terrible laws they wrote. They didn't understand guns well enough to write a law that would really outlaw what they were trying to outlaw -- or which would allow folks to make some minor cosmetic change and not have to give up their "banned" guns, etc.

If you were to REALLY succeed at educating these political vermin, the best you could expect is not that they'd stop writing bad laws. (That's not going to happen. It isn't conducive to their goals of getting elected on a platform of "doing something" about "guns on our streets.") The greatest result would be that they'd write more eductated versions of their BAD laws and do more harm next time.

 

[Ryanxia]

Wow, Sam's got an excellent point unfortunately.

 

[45_auto]

Did you go to Youtube and type in "firearms basics" in the Youtube search bar?

There's literally hundreds of videos covering basic firearms types, basic firearms terminology, basic firearms safety, assault rifle basics, etc, etc, etc.

Not trying to turn you off if it's what you want to do, but it's usually a good idea to research what's already out there before you put a lot of effort into re-inventing the wheel.

 

[beatledog7]

Committed anti-2A types don't want to be educated about firearms. They want to take them away, and that's the only aspect of guns they care about.

Politicians typically turn to their staffs for "education" on the issues on which they will propose legislation or on which they will vote. By and large, whatever they get from their staffers--who are hired because they are supporters of said legislators--is what they believe. Staffers are unlikely to tell their bosses that they are wrong.

The only effective way to get politicians to stop pushing for anti-2A laws is to fire them.

 

[Life During Wartime]

@sam1911

wow, hadn't thought that
I suppose I should proceed carefully if at all

@45 auto
I will look into it further when I have more time, but initial impressions from doing that search is that my video series would be unlike those videos.

 

[Ryanxia]

@sam1911

wow, hadn't thought that
I suppose I should proceed carefully if at all

While educating politicians might be a dead end, introducing new shooters, educating coworkers/family and writing/emailing/calling your state and federal representatives on gun issues is very important and something we need all gun owners to be involved with.

Many states still have their Rights after these past 7 months because one politician or another said that there was just too much overwhelming response to shoot down this Bill or that and protect our Rights.

 

[longknife12]

IMO, most politicians have mind set and are not interested in details. At least, the ones I was in contact with during this last Colorado fiasco!
Dan

 

[Trung Si]

There are already tons of videos that show this info. But they won't get a single view from their intended audience

I agree, it's a waste of time and all you are doing is preaching to the Choir, the Gun Control Advocates don't want to be bothered with Facts, the Truth, Technical Info, or Statistics about Firearms, they want to remain willfully Ignorant and that happens to be the sad Truth.:banghead:

 

[Doc7]

I think that this presentation is one of the most valuable on the web ... If any anti would try to actually understand it is another matter entirely:

http://www.assaultweapon.info/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

 

[Life During Wartime]

@doc7
thank you for bringing that very well written slide show to my attention. I learned a few things too

 

[bdickens]

There's a plethora of that information freely available (and for free!) almost everywhere you look.

The anti rights crowd does not want to be informed. Their willful ignorance is seen as a virtue.

 

[Life During Wartime]

@bdickens
Your right about that, but at least it might prevent some of the on the fence people from going with the wrong crowd

 

[locnload]

LDW, I say go for it. Yes there are lots of people posting stuff on You Tube, but some are good, many, not so much. Maybe your approach will attract the right audience. I don't think you are really going to get politicians, and that may be a good thing. Heaven knows many of them would vapor lock if they actually found out how guns work. What I would hope you may attract are the people that are on the fence and showing some interest in learning about guns but because of their lack of knowledge are easily swayed by hucksters with plans to make us all "safe", and don't see the harm in "reasonable gun control". Maybe you can save them from the dark side.
Skip the macho stuff, and give them facts with emphasis on the fun side of the shooting sports. Keep it intelligent, interesting, and informative, you can get into "tacticool" mode later.

Good luck with your project.

 

[Life During Wartime]

@iocnload

Thanks! If you could help me with pictures that would be great!

 

[Frank Ettin]

...They have a group of talking points which they think their constituents want to hear and they believe (often correctly) that the folks from their district will come out and vote for them if they support gun control among their other platform planks....

That's the real bottom line.

It's fashionable to blame politicians for restrictive gun laws. But politicians are interested in getting elected and re-elected.

So what it really comes down to is our neighbors, the people in our communities, the people in our towns, the people we work with, the people we see at the mall, etc. If enough of our neighbors, enough of the people in our communities, enough of the people in our towns, enough of the people we work with, enough of the people we see at the mall, etc., don't like guns, and don't trust the rest of us with guns, are afraid of guns and people with guns, politicians who take anti-gun stands can get elected and re-elected (and bureaucrats who take anti-gun stands can keep their jobs).

So we need to remember that a large part of the battle to keep our guns needs to start with our neighbors, the people in our communities, the people in our towns, the people we work with, the people we see at the mall, etc. We need to start there by --

• Being a good ambassador for gun ownership -- as a multilayered, well rounded person; active and contributing to society in a variety of ways and spheres -- our careers, our communities, local charities, the arts, etc. We're not just "gun nuts." We're active, participating members of our communities, and we just happen to own firearms and are interest in, and knowledgeable about, them. The points are (1) to break down stereotypes; and (2) to increase our credibility.
  
  
• Actively promoting shooting and responsible gun ownership -- training and bringing new people into shooting. I'm an instructor in a group that puts on monthly NRA Basic Handgun classes. Almost all of our students have no prior experience. We introduce about a hundred people a year to guns.

 

[monotonous_iterancy]

It is crazy to me how uneducated politicians are in regards to firearms.

Politicians are normal people for the most part. They understand as much as the next average person, which might be something, but likely might also be nothing. Simply being good at speaking, or raising money, or whatever it is that makes politicians politicians doesn't gift one with superior intellect or a thirst to understand what one is talking about.

After all, listen to someone, anyone, give a random opinion on something. Politicians have those too, and sometimes they have to vote on them.

 

[hso]

You do understand that they're not interested in the details, right?

Politicians like McCarthy have made their careers on the Anti 2A platform and they have no interest in the details of firearms. They simply see them as being dangerous and as our not being able to manage that. Don't get caught up in the fact these people don't know a clip from a magazine or the ammunition that goes in them from "bullets". That minutia isn't relevant to them or their target audience. What is important is to note every instance that they make an error and to use it to point out they don't have a basic understanding of the topic (in spite of the fact they have a perfectly adequate understanding of the "topic" and we mistake technical knowledge for political/social roles understanding) so we can discredit them in the eyes of the people that they're trying to convince.

 

[Cee Zee]

Sam is right of course but I think there's more to the debate. There are the true believers who want to disarm the populace so they can get away with murder in how they run the government. Too many of them spend too much time selling their points about gun control long after they have been elected for me to think otherwise. Obama for example can't be re-elected but he's still fighting for gun control. He has to know it was a huge losing issue for the Democrats back in the 1990's with the AWB. I think there's more to his views than just politics. I think he's a true believer in disarming the public. He said he wanted to fundamentally change this country. That generally isn't real popular with the people who get hurt by your idea of change. So instead of worrying they will take the extreme road they would rather take away their ability to take that road. And we can look back to the civil rights marches in Washington in the 1960's to see evidence that politicians worry about a violent overthrow of the government. Remember that most of them are heavily invested in the status quo and they get their big pay offs after they hold office. The word is they mounted machine guns on top of the White House along with rocket launchers on the day Martin Luther King marched there. That sure sounds like they worry to me. And other times have brought about the government preparing for violence like the bonus army marches early in the depression. Ex-soldiers from WWI weren't getting their promised bonus money and they marched on Washington to protest. The government was shaking in their boots that day because they saw what was essentially a trained army approaching. They took drastic actions to thwart any possible violence too. Several vets were shot and at least two were killed. The army was used to clear the streets too.

 

[Frank Ettin]

...And we can look back to the civil rights marches in Washington in the 1960's to see evidence that politicians worry about a violent overthrow of the government. Remember that most of them are heavily invested in the status quo and they get their big pay offs after they hold office...

That reflects a complete and utter misunderstanding of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

• Overview of the Civil Rights Movement
  
  
  • The core and very effective part of the overall strategy of the Civil Rights Movement (referring to the struggle during the 1950s and 1960s for racial equality) was non-violent civil disobedience, winning wide and deep support for that cause.
    
    
  • The acts of civil disobedience, involved very normal, benign, human acts: taking a seat on a bus for the ride home after a hard day at work; sitting at a lunch counter to have a meal; a child registering to attend school; registering to vote; voting; etc. These are normal, every day thing that White folks took for granted. And it became profoundly disturbing for many White to see other humans arrested for doing these normal, benign things simply because of the color of their skin.
    
    
  • The Civil Rights Movement of the '50s was the culmination of 100+ years of abolitionist and civil rights activity. It had broad and deep support. The goals of the Civil Rights Movement were promoted regularly in sermons in churches and synagogues all across the nation. The Civil Rights Movement had charismatic leaders like Martin Luther King who could inspire the country.
    
    
  • During the days of the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s and '60s, civil disobedience, as favorably reported by the mainstream media, and as favorably commented upon on college campuses and in sermons in houses of worship across the nation, helped generate great public sympathy for the cause. That sympathy helped lead to the election of pro-civil rights legislators and executives. And that led to the enactment of pro-civil rights laws.
  
  
• A Particular Example -- Rosa Parks
  
  
  • Rosa Parks had a long history of being actively involved in the organized Civil Rights Movement:

    ... joining the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in 1943, serving as the chapter's youth leader as well as secretary to NAACP President E.D. Nixon—a post she held until 1957...

    
    
  • At the time of her arrest Mrs. Parks was an adviser to the NAACP.
    
    
  • On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was the third African-American since March of that year to be arrested for violating the Montgomery bus segregation law. One was Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl who was arrested some nine months earlier. E. D. Nixon decided that Claudette would be a poor "poster-child" for a protest because she was unmarried and pregnant.
    
    
  • The night of Mrs. Parks' arrest, Jo Ann Robinson, head of the Women's Political Council, printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community starting the call for a boycott of Montgomery's city buses.
    
    
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association and pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, together with other Black community leaders, then organized the boycott of the Montgomery bus system. That boycott reduced Black ridership (the bulk of the bus system's paying customers) of Montgomery city buses by some 90% until December of 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled that the bus segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama were unconstitutional (Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903 (1956)).
    
    
  • A well orchestrated, well organized, non-violent, multilayered program reflecting good planning and political acumen leading to a successful conclusion.

...The word is they mounted machine guns on top of the White House along with rocket launchers on the day Martin Luther King marched there...

Whose word? Do you have any actual evidence to support that? And can you establish with reliable evidence that any added security reflected a fear of violent acts against the government or reflected a concern for the security of the marchers?

 

[DanTheFarmer]

Hey Life,

If you've got a good idea, go for it. Don't let the nay-sayers hold you back. They may be right but don't give in to defeatism. The fact that it may not work is no reason not to try.

Please don't take this as bashing those who say the anti's aren't interested in your views. They are probably correct, but so what? Advance your idea, state your case, at the very least you will have had the satisfaction of making your voice heard.

Good Luck.

Dan