Gordon Fink
Member
I don’t want to hijack Jim March’s California CCW thread any further, so I’m starting a new one.
In part, jimpeel wrote:
I won’t bore anyone with a list of what I personally do to defend and promote the right to keep and bear arms, but suffice it to say that I don’t just complain from behind a keyboard. What I will do is write about leadership.
Leadership and organization are required if we are going to achieve any of our pro-RKBA goals. Jimpeel and I leafleting an airport in Kimball, Nebraska, will accomplish exactly nothing without coordination with and support from our fellow gun owners. We have formed various associations to accomplish this.
These organizations, such as the National Rifle Association or the California Rifle and Pistol Association, are tasked with mobilizing their memberships to action and to coordinate said actions in an effective manner. Individual RKBA activists are usually less than useless on their own, though someone like Jim March can occasionally be an organizing force all by himself. We members, therefore, wait for leadership.
So where is it? Other than merely writing or calling the elected “representatives†who consistently fail us, what would our leaders have us do? March on Washington? March on Sacramento? Pass out leaflets? What? Call us, and many will come.
Jimpeel, on the specific issue of armed pilots, I ask you this. If the President already supports it, how are you and I handing out leaflets at the airport going to make an ounce of difference? If the President really wanted armed pilots, we would have had them on Sept. 12, 2001. But that brings us to the crux of our problem.
I can’t convince even a single fellow gun owner that a vote for G. W. Bush is really no better than a vote for John Kerry where the right to keep and bear arms is concerned. By and large, gun owners don’t care about freedom outside of their own prejudices. Instead, most cling to patently irrational beliefs (such as that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God or that Republicans are defending the RKBA).
Realizing that most gun owners will never make the right choices politically, I await the leadership of our pro-RKBA organizations to at least advance our own little interests. If the NRA calls for volunteers to leaflet LAX, then I’ll volunteer my time and money. If CRPA asks me to rally in Sacramento, then I’ll take a vacation day and go to Sacramento. And if Jim March says go see the sheriff of Kern County, then I’ll spend a weekend in Kern.
So I’ll ask again. Where is the leadership?
~G. Fink
In part, jimpeel wrote:
Look at the number of threads that have been “bitch and moan†sessions on the reluctance of the government to arm pilots.…
Then someone asks THRers if they would like to spend an afternoon … leafletting passengers at airports; and do these “men and women of action,†these “keyboard activists†leap to the challenge? Nah. They have to mow the lawn.
They think that the TSA and the airports will “hear†their voting with their wallets louder than they will if 10 or 12 major airports are leafletted on the same day all over the country urging passengers to contact the TSA and demand that the law be enacted. They think that inaction on their part will be far more effective than having the press there at the airports asking us questions.
The fact is that most of the armchair activists who gather here are all show and no go. They “talk†with their keyboards about the issues and what should be done; but when it comes to actually doing something … are unwilling to give up a few hours of their time standing in an air-conditioned building smiling and handing people a … piece of paper.
I guess that just doesn't “turn them on.†What it does do, however, is define them.
Saying “Yeah, Jim (March), I’m with ya 100%†is easy. I think he might be a bit disappointed when the time comes for them to show up.
I won’t bore anyone with a list of what I personally do to defend and promote the right to keep and bear arms, but suffice it to say that I don’t just complain from behind a keyboard. What I will do is write about leadership.
Leadership and organization are required if we are going to achieve any of our pro-RKBA goals. Jimpeel and I leafleting an airport in Kimball, Nebraska, will accomplish exactly nothing without coordination with and support from our fellow gun owners. We have formed various associations to accomplish this.
These organizations, such as the National Rifle Association or the California Rifle and Pistol Association, are tasked with mobilizing their memberships to action and to coordinate said actions in an effective manner. Individual RKBA activists are usually less than useless on their own, though someone like Jim March can occasionally be an organizing force all by himself. We members, therefore, wait for leadership.
So where is it? Other than merely writing or calling the elected “representatives†who consistently fail us, what would our leaders have us do? March on Washington? March on Sacramento? Pass out leaflets? What? Call us, and many will come.
Jimpeel, on the specific issue of armed pilots, I ask you this. If the President already supports it, how are you and I handing out leaflets at the airport going to make an ounce of difference? If the President really wanted armed pilots, we would have had them on Sept. 12, 2001. But that brings us to the crux of our problem.
I can’t convince even a single fellow gun owner that a vote for G. W. Bush is really no better than a vote for John Kerry where the right to keep and bear arms is concerned. By and large, gun owners don’t care about freedom outside of their own prejudices. Instead, most cling to patently irrational beliefs (such as that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God or that Republicans are defending the RKBA).
Realizing that most gun owners will never make the right choices politically, I await the leadership of our pro-RKBA organizations to at least advance our own little interests. If the NRA calls for volunteers to leaflet LAX, then I’ll volunteer my time and money. If CRPA asks me to rally in Sacramento, then I’ll take a vacation day and go to Sacramento. And if Jim March says go see the sheriff of Kern County, then I’ll spend a weekend in Kern.
So I’ll ask again. Where is the leadership?
~G. Fink