Also, it would be real patriotic of you if you reconsidered you posture about "speaking the truth" take the opportunity to inform people who get to your stand that firearm Ownership is an individual, Constitutional Right in the USA.
So, blakenzy, you suggesting I'm truth challenged?
The direct approach is in the cards, maybe someday, but not this year, which is all about good clean American fun. Of course, if someone asks me directly, I'm going to tell them that it's _their_ choice to have a gun or not, and nobody's business to decide for them.
Relax, pull up a chair, and I'll relay a relevant story.
There's a lot of awful things in this world, and one of them is FGM, female genital mutilation. Basically, the clitoris, which is a significant structure associated with female enjoyment of sex is sliced off under unsanitary conditions. Sometimes it's a right of passage ritual, sometimes it's sprung on surprise. It's primarily practiced in African societies who have that sort of thing as part of their tribal past. Women with intact genitals, fully capable of enjoying sex are not considered marriagable, and therefore effectively sentenced to a life of hardship, deprivation, and social censure, assuming they're not clean thrown out of the village, which could well be a death sentence.
As a husband and father of daughters, the whole thing makes me sick, and I would righteously send to the hospital, in several pieces, anyone who laid hand on anyone I cared about with such intentions. Actually, I would righteously send to the hospital, in several pieces, anyone who laid hands on anyone at all in my presence with those intentions.
Be that as it may.
As you can imagine, several organizations have tried to intervene over the years on this, trying to get people to stop crippling themselves, and they've found that some approaches work better than others.
The approaches that don't work at all are the ones where the westerners show up and directly try to get them to stop, boldly proclaiming the wrongness of their ways.
They're dismissed out of hand.
The approaches that get better traction are the ones where they show up, and spend some time working in the village, not even mentioning FGM for like a year. Instead, they do things like instruct the villagers how to improve their crop yield. During this time, everyone gets to know each other, and some trust is built. More to the point, once the improved harvest comes in, it hammers home that the westerners know what they're talking about, at least on that one point, and this creates some credibility that perhaps they might know things on other topics as well.
So, I'm spending some time wisely, being smart. I'm learning who my potential allies and opponents are, building up some trust and face time with the folks 'round here.
Grandstanding and speechifying feels good, but it's for the choir, not the pagans waiting to be converted.