Sitting here a little bummed out.

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M-Rex

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Kalifornya Soviet Socialist Republic
Folks,

I've been sitting here this afternoon/evening thinking abou the state of affairs here in California. We are a dichotomy. We have the 5th largest economy in the world, and yet, we are also the laughing stock of the rest of the U.S.

It is disheartening to realize the amount of actual, real freedom people have in other states, specifically in regards to firearms compared to the accepted level of restriction we have here in this state. I don't have any children yet, but I don't want them to grow up in this oppressive state.

I think there needs to be a concentrated lobbying effort by organizations like the GOA, NRA, CRPC, and others. We need a letter writing campaign coupled with a media blitz to start bringing these meaningless, and largely symbolic, firearms restrictions under control. For Heaven's sake, we need something...anything...from the gun lobby.

The Roberti/Roos act, and it's subsequent 'add-ons' must be repealed. I can not believe that, even though we have neigh-socialist, leftist senators, that California firearms owners are unable to change the laws. Other states did it, why can't we?

The '10-day wait' needs to be abolished, completely. It is an undesputed fact that crime rates in California are above the rates of the rest of the nation, especially in our urban centers. The '10-day wait' has done nothing. It has had no impact. It is a sham. Most other states follow the Federal 'instant check' system. The thrice-be-damned 'Brady Law' was allowed to sunset. I have seen no blood in the streets. I have seen no rolling gun battles on our highways. I have seen no 'Tombstone gunfights' in our cities.

States, such as Florida, are even passing pro-firearm legislation that benefits its citizens. Why, I ask you, is California lagging behind? It's been said that as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation, and that California is 20 years ahea of the rest of the nation. Why can't we gain victories regarding the right to keep and bear arms? I have to admit, I'm puzzled, and somewhat disheartened. Now, this isn't a high-and-mighty diatribe against the other states, just an observation.

I saw the 'red county/blue county' map of California during the last elections. 80% of the state was red (conservative). Why are we losing?

If nothing changes, the only alternative I see is to simply move away from the state I grew up in...to turn my back on my home.

I will be writing letters, for what they are worth. From what I hear, the first letter that a rep/senator receives, they generally pass off. However, if they see the same letter writer more than once, they start to take notice. In the politico world, it's said that every letter represents 500 people. I'm also writing letters to various firearms organizations to ask for money and efforts to be directed at this state. I sincerely hope that something happens.

What else can be done? For whatever reason, this has really got me down today.
 
I'll go ahead and give you the standard "Move out of California", so that we can get that out of the way and people can actually have a real discussion in this thread.
 
The fact of the matter is that we live in a democracy, and the will of the people prevails. You happen to live in a state where the will of the people is to be oppressed. There is no reason that the NRA, GOA, or whoever should spend money lobbying in a state for laws that the residents don't want.

If people in California wanted it differently, there would be a turnover in the elected officials. The fact that doesn't happen tells you what you need to know.

As an NRA and GOA contributor, I would not want my hard earned money pissed away in a state where the majority does not want my help.

Some states you have one or 2 politicians that are a tough nut to crack, but the people themselves don't generally agree with that politician. In those states you see progress, because it's the will of the people.

If you want to live in an oppressive state because the weather is nice, don't ask others to come fight a fight that can't be won on your behalf.

You gotta move. You can't ask a group to waste it's money on a lost cause, and unless the will of the people is to change, that's what California is and will continue to be. Period. It's a shame yes, so move out or take it like a man, since you choose to live in a place where the will of the people is that you be disarmed and helpless.
 
We are a dichotomy.
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Yes, you're in a bad place with good weather. I grew up there too (Los Altos, then Palo Alto) - it was fantastic when lots of the Bay Area was orchards. I can remember riding my dirt bike around an old railroad bed that is now Foothill Expressway. Keep writing your letters, encourage others to do the same. Meanwhile, enjoy the weather - it's not that nice everywhere.
 
I grew up in Massachusetts and lived there until I left for college which was about four years ago. I did not know anyone except one friend whos father was a dective on the police force that had any guns. I knew nothing about firearms, but after my first time shooting, I was hooked. The only problem was that I lived in Ma, a place that is not gun friendly.

I attended the Universtiy of Alabama (roll tide) and I noticed how vastly different the climate is towards guns in a gun friendly state. I would show my friends family members my firearms and it was no big deal, but if I did that in Ma, most people would say that guns are dangerous and uneccasry. I am sure that this might be similar to your situation in cali.


My range at home was town owned and I never had a problem there, infact it didnt have very stringant rules...ect.....example I could fire from my holster.

The most annoying thing about living in an anti state is the stupid laws....In ma there are only certain pistols that have to compliy with the attorney general. Basically every manufactor has to make a Ma pistol. its really dumb and you are extremely limited with pistol selection.

Now that I am in Texas, I feel free. Free from Stupid laws that dont do anything. I have free choice of pistols that I want. It feels good. I dont know if this helps any, but its my experiance...sorry for the poor spelling.
 
Well Rick Reno, you probably couldn't ride your dirtbike there now either-- isn't it amazing how may of the freedoms we enjoyed a kids are gone?
 
I saw the 'red county/blue county' map of California during the last elections. 80% of the state was red (conservative). Why are we losing?
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The 80% of the state that is red only has 20% of the population. Los Angeles County vs. Modoc County.
 
I feel for you M-Rex.
Life cannot be much fun for you.

Spend more. More time personally getting in the face of socialist legislators, mayors representatives all the way down to the school board.
Spend more money, supporting only those that see things the way you do.
After you make the donation, mail a copy of the receiept to the dirtbag and remind him why it didn't come to him. Spend lots of energy getting decent folk registered to vote and getting them to actually hit the polls.
Get involved in your party and keep them on the straight and narrow so we don't get folks like the "manchurian seven" in office. Get with the local NRA rep and do some legwork for them. Hell get with any bunch that will further the cause and encourage them. GET REAL SERIOUSLY INVOLVED IN YOUTH SHOOTING ORGANIZATIONS. Lot easier to ge them while they are young and impressionable.

Won't be easy but it can be done. The Socialist dream cannot work and one way or another it will be defeated. Bust your hump to do it with the ballot box because if you do not, the bullet box may be next. :what: Fight for what you want, fight for your life.

Work for decent laws that encourage socialists to leave for Europe or Canada :cool:

Sam
 
M-Rex, you face a situation similar to other states, but on a more massive scale, by simple virtue of CA's population.

Yes, most of CA's counties are "red counties," but the real centers of population are in the LA and SF areas. So the rest of the state is at a disadvantage.

We face that here in the midwest, but not to such an extreme. There are enough folks outside the large urban areas to usually offset the city folks.

The problem with large urban areas is that so many residents rely on government spending, either in some form of welfare, or in the form of a government paycheck.

Cut the money hose, and you cut them off.

On top of that, the SoCal areas have many in the population that would not be able to exist in other metro areas of the country: former or aspiring hippies, aspiring actors/actresses (who can always count on porno for a living), aspiring surf-bums, the homeless, and the hopeless.

Add to that the members of the above demographic who have actually managed to succeed, but still cling to their old neo-socialist views, and you have a Darwinian catastrophe striking the Southern California area.

Either give up and move, or condition yourself for the long fight.

The good news about California is that many residents see the failure of the system there, and are moving to MT, UT, ID, OR, AR, WY, NV, and other conservative states.

The bad news is that many of those CA residents are polluting those states with their screwed-up belief systems.

If Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Krushchev, and Gorbachev were wrong, what makes the leaders of the SoCal cities think that they're right?
 
You know I really get tired of these self-righteous “move out of California” threads. Using the same logic that free America has, there is no reason for me to send my money to any national gun rights organizations because I would just be wasting my money. I mean after all, we are hopelessly screwed here in California right? So if they pass a new AWB that is just as bad as ours, it really doesn't affect me right? So screw free America, they don't care about us, so why should we care about them? It isn't like our anti-gun legislators ever introduce anti-gun legislation on the national level and they never help sink pro-gun legislation. No, just continue to ignore them and this state and they will just go away right?

I am sorry but you self-righteous non-California members who always like to tell us how it is and how it goes are fools. You can't see how a free California will help make a freer America. For some unknown reason you don't realize that as you tell liberty minded patriots to leave California or any other bastion of liberal thought, you are only making these places better strongholds for the people that are going to filibuster and vote against your good legislation. No it is easier for you to tell me to turn tail and run like a coward.

Sorry, I am not going anywhere. I am not complaining either. I know what I am up against and I know the stakes. Just realize I have enough forethought that not only should I fight for my rights, but your rights as well. I fight in California not just for what I get out of it, but what the whole country gets out of it. That means I talk to my congressman even when the legislation he is voting on won't make a lick of difference in my state. That is right, I "waste" my money on you unappreciative snobs.

It is so tempting to stop "wasting" my money on any national organization because of a few bad apples, but I think I will take the High Road. I will continue the fight and I would hope some of you might understand why we stay and why we fight. Sadly, I have to make these statements every other month on this board, so I am not too confident that the cowardice around here is going to end anytime soon. Sorry, I won't turn tail and run. Someone has to stand up around here even when it is hard. It’s called sacrifice and dedication. Too bad more people didn’t have that in free America. They might encourage Californians to fight instead of flying the French flag. :fire:
 
Nobel sentiments there El Rojo but I'd blow out of this socialist pig sty in a heartbeat if I could. I live in Modesto and the gangs here are horrid. People getting killed every time I turn around. Actually, I'd blow out of this county in a hurry if I could move to a conservative northern county. California north of Sacramento is another world. The Butte County Sherrif openly tells people to come and see him about a carry permit if the Chico COP balks. Here in Modesto we don't need guns because the police will protect us :banghead:
 
What else can be done? For whatever reason, this has really got me down today.
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You need a break. Sometime in the next few days, go out to a range early in the morning and do a little plinking/target shooting to clear your head. Keep it simple but focus on the shooting.

I got wrapped up and brought down by a couple stressful things going on in life for the last few months, and even though I'd been to the range, it had been a while since I went alone. I finally did it last week and after getting back realized how badly I'd needed to step back from the politics of firearms and remember why I started shooting in the first place.
 
It's been said that as California goes, so goes the rest of the nation, and that California is 20 years ahead of the rest of the nation
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Not a chance in :fire:

What started in California migrated to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and then to the rest of the state and then throughout the Midwest. Your social policies are now to radical for Ann Arbor to adopt. :what:

I see California as a dying state. In 20 years it will either be part of Baja or broken up into several smaller states.
 
Give California back to Mexico.

Mexico is taking back Texas, California and new Mexico one illegal at a time anyhow. Heck, almost seems like Mexico is "prepositioning" to me. Of the estimated 12,000,000 illegals in America, about what, 80% are Mexican? Where do most go? Hmmm.

"Democracy" someone said? Not! A democratic government would do the will of the people...tell me about illegals and the borders. Now tell me about repressive gun laws that keep us from protecting ourselves. We USED to be a democracy. Vote a lawyer out of office and put a farmer in instead.

Doc2005
 
El Rojo--

I agree with you entirely. In fact, the national organizations should spend way MORE money dispelling myths about gun control in the liberal centers than they do giving this guy or that guy in Iowa to remember guns. The NRA/CCRKBA/CRPA etc should spend money in liberal centers on advertising, billboards, flyers, etc in a grass-roots campaign to re-establish the gun culture even amongst the artists, gays, novelists, actors, and actresses. They should have national firearms awareness days etc...They of course won't do it because we are a "lost cause"...if that isn't a self-fulfilling prophesy I don't know what is. And then the Feinsteins will have their way with your perty guns...

I happen to be liberal and I think the real trouble with my side of the political debate is a general ignorance of firearms and a resulting irrational fear of them. If we spend the time to educate in the liberal centers of california, New York, Illinois etc about firearms and dispelling these fears, we can get back to having debates about social security, public education, taxes, tariffs, and all the stuff I love and still keep our AR-15s, FALs, and perhaps even full autos (well I'll stop short of hoping for a miracle =)
 
I was born in San Diego and raised by Californian parents... in Texas.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Literally, every single one of my relatives has left California and now live in either Texas, Utah, or Alaska.
 
M-REX, I'm also a "native" Californian, but I'm not about to abandon the ship! I'm 59 years old, so I've seen California at its BEST, and have watched it erode to what it is today.

I don't think that ANY state has gotten "better" over the past 40 years, but most have eroded at a slower pace than California.

A pendulum swings in two different directions, and being the optimist that I am, I feel that California's pendulum is about to start moving to the right, and maybe at a very high rate of speed!

Consider the "dud", Governor Gray Davis, that the PEOPLE voted OUT of office! How many other states have had re-call elections of their governors? While Arnold Schwarzenegger may not be the best, at least the PEOPLE won out over the Democrat Party "machine".

Yes, California was considered as a "red state", but were you aware of the fact that 43% of the voters here cast their ballots for G.W. Bush in 2004? YEP!

Proposition 77 may be a "boon" to the conservatives in California. It's still "iffy", especially since the re-districting panel will be made up of three retired judges....but by the mere fact that this proposition will be on the ballot shows that the PEOPLE in California have gotten sick and tired of the way that the Democrat Party has manipulated almost everything in the state.

Governor Schwarzenegger, from what I have heard, is on the verge of DEMANDING more federal intervention at the southern border. If you recall, he DID say that he wanted to "block" the border at one point, but chose to amend that to the word "control". A Freudian slip? I think that BLOCKADING the southern border is on the back-burners of our Governor's mind.

A recent article in the local newspaper (South Bay Daily Breeze) revealed some interesting prospects!
A panel of economic and financial experts disclosed that there was the prospect of having a 20+% growth in manufacturing and business ventures in California, during 2006! It's beginning to look like the aircraft industry is starting to return to California, and may even compare to the "boom" years back in the 1970's!

I hate to see GOOD people abandoning California, just because of the restrictive gun laws. While the anti-gun folks will point out that those restrictions are working, since the overall crime rate is down, they can't defend the FACTS, as reported by the United Nations, that SCOTLAND is now the "murder capital" of the world, and that England and Australia have shown HUGE increases in their crime rates (especially physical assaults and robberies) since enacting TOTALLY idiotic restrictions on firearms! Believe it or not, the UN report stated that a person was SAFER in New York City than in London! Oh, and New Zealand is now the "sexual assault capital" of the world!
Those countries are NON-gun, for the most part....
and Australia is even NON-slingshot and BB gun!

Ya GOTTA stay for the pendulum to start showing more movement toward the RIGHT! If you and other GOOD people move out, it will only be detrimental to those of us who will continue to stand and fight!
 
The main reason the leftists have such a stranglehold on California politics is gerrymandering. Not to single out California, because the same is true most places, but in California it is especially pernicious.

So fight. Don't focus on gun issues - those are the symptom, not the disease.

What can you personally do? Some suggestions:

Make it a personal goal to write one letter every day. Letters should be polite, calm, short, and to the point, so this takes less than 15 minutes a day. Pre-print a stack of envelopes to your local, state, and national representatives. As a further incentive, go ahead and put stamps on them so that if they don't get used it's money down the drain. Then use 'em up.

Get involved with your local Republican party (there is no hope with the Democrats). The Repulicans are *not* mostly social conservatives, but the social conservatives tend to dominate the grassroots because they are the ones who get involved. Help turn the Republicans back into the small-government party.

Start a blog, and write about local issues. Each one, tell one.

Join each and every organization that helps protect your rights. Not just NRA-ILA and GOA, but also groups like the Institute for Justice. Even if you can't afford to donate beyond the annual membership fee, the pure membership numbers equal clout with legislators.

Watch your boring local cable channel that runs City Council meetings or whatever. Pay attention and write letters. Very, very few people do this, so each one has real impact. These also provide excellent topics for blog posts; if you're the only person blogging about your City Council, you WILL have impact.

Make it a point to vote in every single election, no matter how trivial.

Just some ideas. While it is easy to say "move", and I have said so and done so myself, the point that the blue states have a big impact on the laws for ALL of us is very well-taken.

But don't expect some national organization like the NRA to just "do something". It doesn't work that way. We have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people... who bother to get involved. If we're not involved, and we don't like the government, well, we need to look in the mirror.
 
Good posts all.

Gannet, psyopspec, and Oldtimer, thank you in particular. I've been a letter writer for several years, and active in local politics. Lately it's been weighing on my how much more energy I should be putting forth 'throwing pearls before swine'.

I have high hopes that this redistricting initiative will pass (and the leftists don't start filing lawsuits - fat chance :rolleyes: ).

At any rate, thanks folks for the replies.
 
The fact of the matter is that we live in a democracy, and the will of the people prevails.
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And that attitude is the cancer that destroys us. We are not a democracy; we are a republic. That means we have basic rights guaranteed to us by law, regardless of whether 51% of the people don't want us to have that right.
 
California is my home. I am not going anywhere. And I intend to remain armed.

To all of you "traveling agents" out there, two words: Bastogne, nuts.

The real impact any one of us is guaranteed to have is if we preach to everyone of our friends and colleagues, and their friends and colleagues etc., about the fallasies of gun control. I myself have turned one of my friends from being irrationally fearful of guns and deeply anti to a regular shooter! Also, I personally have seriously shaken the anti beliefs of several others and am working on converting them too. It is not that difficult; all it takes is tell the truth in a friendly discoursive way.
 
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