Supporting 2nd Amendment as a Liberal, Woolard v. Brown Updates

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Kylaen

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Not to get too political, guys, but the recent tragedy in Newtown, Conneticut has a lot of Americans mad as hell. There's a lot of talk of wider gun bans, and the events indicate a partal shift in America's attitudes away from guns, according to CNN. Now, I don't want to see this happen. I may be liberal in social ways, but I'm no Pollyanna. I don't believe that people will unilaterally disarm, and the world will become some utopia.

I try to have common sense in my politics, and I know that banning guns is something the Nazis did before the Holocaust, and the KKK did for a long time, to keep African Americans oppressed after the end of the Civil War. I know that you guys who are better acquianted with guns and the legal process than I are fighting back, trying to preserve the Second Amendment. I want to know how to better shift my fellow liberals' opinions.

I try the common sense argument. If human life is precious, and valuable, and worth protecting, then we have an intrinsic responsibility to take that protection into our own hands. To those who tell me that "that's what police are for", I respond that if we are not expected by our government, or allowed to be able to defend our own lives, how can we trust anyone other than ourselves to do it, especially people we don't know?

I'm trying to get my anti-gun friends to realize that, for one thing, some of the biggest anti-gun activists are people who have lost family members in accidental shootings, or premeditated gun murders. I gently suggest that certain senators and other people who have lost loved ones to guns, have positions that are motivated by grief, not by common sense. A lot of our laws don't make sense (a bit of Libertarianism showing through).

I could go at this for days, and my thread is already plenty long. Fear is never a good motivator. When we try to protect ourselves in times of fear, we end up sacrificing a lot of our blood-earned American freedoms. Gun advocates need to have the best tools they can to defeat anti-gun arguments calmly, and with common sense, and let those who want to take away freedom in the name of fear show themselves for the ranters and ravers that they are.

How can I present this to anti-gun people in a reasonable manner? How can I help preserve our Second Amendment? And also, anyone have any updates in the Woolard v. Brown decision, since it affects the future of my right to carry as a Marylander?
 
I've found that the best way to convert is to remove the stigma, fear and ignorance about firearms, and you do that by taking them shooting. A lot of liberals I know have simply never been around guns close up in their lives or shot one. Most liberals come from urban environments where there is less gun ownership and hunting or shooting activities.

So, those liberals entire body of knowledge of guns comes from what they see and hear on tv and other sources. Almost every time they hear a story about guns, it is the local evening news where they learn some gang member has murdered somebody in a drive-by shootings. They begin to associate guns with criminals exclusively, not with any lawful purpose.

It's amazing the number of times I've heard liberals say things along the lines of them being scared that they might murder somebody if they carried a gun. They honestly believe that guns cause a person to lose control and do something stupid that they wouldn't have done if no gun was present.

I've never taken somebody shooting for the first time where a huge smile didn't pop up on their face and they loved it. That leads to further interest and soon they are hooked and looking to buy a gun of their own. Once they are actually exercising their right to keep and bear arms, they will be less likely to want to give it up.
 
Phatty said:
It's amazing the number of times I've heard liberals say things along the lines of them being scared that they might murder somebody if they carried a gun.
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I've heard this too, but I always assumes that people who say this have a worldview that emphasizes an external locus of control (things happen to them rather than them being in control of themselves and their immediate environment) and who have poor impulse control. Frankly, it never occurred to me that maybe they just believed their own propaganda.
:eek:
 
I'm a left-leaning environmentalist with some libertarian views, but many liberals look at me like I'm nuts when I say that guns are a good thing, and I don't restrict freedoms out of fear, and I don't tell people that I know what's better for them, better than they do. But then the reason for it is that I have the ability to see common sense on both sides.

Most people, regardless of politics, don't want to look at the other side, and ask why they believe what they do. Both sides are right and wrong in certain situations, and politicians on both sides manipulate tragedy for reasons that the people wouldn't agree with. Our politicians don't always represent us, and both sides antagonize the other based on what our politicians do, without remembering that our politicians never listen to what we want.

So I'm a centrist in my own opinion. We need to stop trying to defeat each other and find common ground. Maybe if that crazy bastard had mental health care, he wouldn't have killed those innocent people, and then himself. There's always another perspective, guys. But enough about politics. I don't want this to become sidetracked as a political conversation.

I'm interested in how to better defend my Second Amendment, and any updates on the Woolard v. Brown case. If you guys can tell me what I asked to know, that'd be great. No offense to anybody. I just have specific questions.
 
I dislike the word "liberal". It gets misused a lot. Seems like at one point, it meant "keep your hangups to yourself". When did it start meaning "our hangups are a basis for public policy"? If being "liberal" doesn't mean encouraging liberty, what does it mean?

How can anyone call themselves "liberal" and demand that the government take away liberties?
 
I know it's considered a smoke screen but even the most zealous anti worth talking to is not trying "ban all guns", at least not all at once.

To cut to the chase, they are going to seize on the class of weapon that "has no useful purpose other than to kill humans"; the "assault weapon".

And, only because every snake has two ends, there's the high-capacity magazines.

It's not hard for them to imagine that had the Newtown, CT killer been "only" able to arm himself with a bolt-action rifle, or a revolver, or a CA-compliant Glock, the outcome would have been vastly different.

They've always had a coat on the hook; between Loughner, Colorado and now Newtown, they found a spot to hang the hat.

No one needs AR-15s and high-cap mags, that will be the drum beat. We'll see if it sells I guess.
 
I always assumes that people who say this have a worldview that emphasizes an external locus of control
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You know, I hear there's a cream for that, now :D

The "lack of control" people expect from themselves comes from a lifetime of regulation. Remember when we took the training wheels off for the first time; "Oh my God, they're gone!--How am I gonna stay upright!!!:eek:"

I, too, felt a slight "thrill" at the power I was entrusted with when I purchased my first firearm after college. Then I realized that it was actually responsibility I had bought--and that I was capable of carrying such a burden. I didn't change because of the new responsibility, I shouldered it (pun) and went on with my life as before. But this time with the ability to defend myself by my own hand. It was very liberating for me, and something gunowners who have been exposed to firearms since youth may have missed out on. The vast majority of people against firearms simply do not trust themselves with firearms, and are projecting that onto everyone else. A new driver cannot trust themselves behind the wheel, and a non-shooter cannot trust themselves (or anyone else) with firearms.

"I can't be trusted with this power, but I don't want to be powerless. Therefore I don't want any of my peers to have this power, either"

TCB
 
The long and the short of it is we will never convince the grabbers just as they won't convince us. Kinda like congress.
 
To the OP's question, here's a line of reasoning I used very successfully on an ill-informed "ban all the guns in the world except cops" person. Coincidentally, this person was my own mother who happened to see my CCW piece and she went a little holier-than-thou on me when I mentioned that she should look into a protection piece for herself.
She said: "If more people have guns, they would just snap and just shoot everybody, guns make people crazy."
"You too Mom?"
"Yes, I'd get so mad that I'd pull out my gun and do something with it."
"Mom, in your 75 years, have you ever slapped someone across the face?"
"No, of course not."
"So you've never been so mad during an argument or in a crowd or anything, in 75 years, that you've reached out and slapped or punched someone?"
"No, not even close."
"Then why would you ever think that you would escalate way, way above a slap and resort to gun violence?"
Silence. Point scored for me (I think).
 
Further, to the section in the OP's post about precious human life and the common sense argument for protecting it, here's my thoughts on that subject.
Americans are unique in many ways, but the principal guiding force in our culture is freedom. Free to worship, work, live, move, play, educate, eat, drink, be merry in just about any way we feel we want to as long as it doesn't impact others. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Probably the most important aspect of that freedom is the liberty to build wealth as a private citizen. That wasn't an option for many people historically, and it's not an option for probably 66% of the world's population today (I do a lot of international travel; it is rough out there). The liberty to build individual wealth is such a crucial building block to everything that we do as Americans, that it simply cannot be removed from our DNA. You may choose any job you'd like, or none at all, invest where you like, or not at all, and you may move up or down social classes at your will or abilities; and that is a very rare commodity in human history.
I say all that to say this; the right to build individual wealth is meaningless if you can't protect it. No one can seize what I've worked to obtain, and the 2nd Amendment guarantees that.
Our Constitution is all about establishing freedoms. It's been a building process, and sometimes it's gone slowly, and it's often been a struggle, but our Constitution has always been about granting a freedom and allowing more and more access to the good stuff in the world. Suffrage, Citizenship, Civil Rights, etc. have all been about ADDING FREEDOMS to our people and not restricting them. So enough talk about changing the Constitution and instead let's talk about using our freedoms to protect the important things like each other and this grand experiment that we call these United States.
And with that, I have said enough. God Bless the kids of Newtown.
 
The Woolard decision could come any time in the next few months. Oral arguments were on October 24th. I think the last two appeals cases were decided between 3 and 6 months from oral arguments.
 
Last Saturday, I met with a feller for a swap, here in TX. Broad daylight, middle of the day, however my wife felt that someone should go with me. Her brother was sitting there and I asked if he wanted to go and He declined stating that he had some things to do. I said OK and called another friend.

I got home with my new rifle and B-I-L admitted that he didn't feel right about being in a gun deal, that since there wouldn't be any background check, this deal shud be illegal. He went on about it for awhile before he guessed he was up setting me.

Didn't say much, just dropped it but that cooled my jets about out friendship in a hurry. He has his right to an opinion, but I have the right to ask anyone I want to go shooting. He has gone with me and enjoyed it but not now. We done
 
Another benefit of bringing a anti shooting is them seeing law abiding citizens using guns safely and shows them that target shooting is a sport, not a bunch of paranoid crazies practicing killing or hunters sighting in their guns.
 
Here's another vote for inviting to take them shooting. Seeing a range full of people, including kids, shooting thousands of rounds without anybody getting hurt is an eye-opening experience for some. When a person sees first-hand that with a little instruction he is capable of safely and responsibly handling a firearm, it can change his mind.
 
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