What Are We Going to Do About It?

[Kind of Blued]

I'm pretty sure that a literal national gun-grab, or all out confiscation, would go less than swimmingly for those doing the grabbing, but I am trying to figure out why more is not being made out of the possible AWB.

It pisses me off enough that I would be willing to take time off work, unpaid, to march on Washington to make myself heard. This is assuming a bunch of other true Americans were "gonna be there" too, however. I wish I could just print off a list of facts about the last one, plop it on somebody's desk, assume that they would use some logic in their decision, and be done with it, but that would be too easy.

Is the fact that it already happened once making it more tolerable? Why are politicians being allowed to consider another AWB as a possibility? Who is it that is failing to force the truth upon them? What can we do to make them realize that it is not only counter-American idealogically, but also a stupid idea statistically (as far as crime rates, etc.)?

I'm 22 years old and was not influenced by the first ban, as I did not own any firearms or grow up in a family that did so. Is there some history that I am ignorant of, or did everybody just watch their freedoms crash in a fiery wreck on television? I know people must have fought it, but once we lost, did we immediately accept defeat? I'm being dramatic and exaggerating, but honestly, I am curious as to how the last one came to be.

We're stocking up on things like high-capacity magazines because we may never be able to get them again. This is the behavior of he who learned his lesson last time. We are NOT the ones who should be learning from the lessons taught by the last ban.

The obvious answer is to vote, join the NRA, etc. That supports a side, and that is great. What is there to do that says, much more LOUDLY, that anything else is completely unacceptable?

From the 2007 bill:
"a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event."

Humans are smarter than that, right?

 

[Pat-inCO]

Pick your battles! The first thing we need to be concerned with is the DC gun ban - BECAUSE - the court ruling there will determine far more than owning a hand-gun in DC. If it goes the way last night's TV commentators think it may (that the 2nd Amendment is an INDIVIDUAL Right), then each of these other items will shake out in the wash.

If gun ownership (notice it doesn't say "handgun") is an individual right then it will be far harder to get any politicos to sign up for a proposal that limits gun ownership because they understand it will be their political life on the line.

Does that mean we can forget a possible AWB? No, but let's concentrate on the most important item first, and address the others as they shake out afterward.

 

[Rob G]

The reason nobody's really talking about HR1022 (the AWB) is because nothing's happening with it. It was first proposed on 2/13/07, over a year ago. In that time it's gone nowhere. It has only 60 cosponsors, it's never had a reading in it's current subcommittee. It's technically alive but functionally dead at the moment.

Should we be concerned about it? Sure. But only if gun grabbers take the presidency, house, and senate in november. Right now they control none of these.

We should concentrate our efforts on the bills that are in committees right now, that are going to take away our rights right now. If we can defeat these then we can make it hard for anything in the future to pass. And if we can maintain control in either the House or Senate than we can guarantee that H.R. 1022 NEVER has a real chance.

I know that at 22 it probably seems like the world's on fire and if we don't drench this this with water right now we're going to get burned. But I've been watching this fight for a long time now and we are winning a little at a time. Every year more pro gun bills are passed than anti. Castle Doctrine is sweeping the country and passing by unheard of margins. Shall issue right to carry is law in 40 states. Even the federal government has passed "Katrina" legislation. We're winning this battle a little at a time. Keep the faith, keep fighting, and with a little patience and persistance H.R. 1022 will become a dead bill, just like that last 4 times in the previous two congresses that AWBs were introduced.

 

[moosehunt]

Mr. Rob: You make a good argument that I basically agree with, but for one major point: I don't believe we are winning a little at a time. Sadly, I believe we are loosing a little at a time. That is exactly the feeling the socialists want you to have; that we, freedomists, are winning. A socialist society comes about through the propoganda that a few political entities promote to a mass of societal subjects that are ignorantly suseptable to to the propaganda. They are suseptable because the propaganda is proposed in a manner such that it sounds like positive, progressive change. Get that word? The front word of our current socialist force, i.e. Clinton and/or Obama, ---change! That is the word that has always allowed socialists to take power. If life is less than perfect, or if people are convinced that life is less than perfect, then their nature drives them to respond to the word "change". It has worked over and over! Will it work again?

No, we are not slowly winning. We are slowly loosing. I don't know your age, but mine is adequate to be able to see what I had in 1955 and what I have in 2008. We are not winning.

We spend a huge amount of time and effort preaching to the choir. Promoting gun rights in "The National Rifleman" is preaching to the choir. Who reads that magazine who is not already a believer, a supporter? Who are they going to recruit? Everybody reading is already in the boat!! We need to regain control of our schools (regain from the socialist powers that currently pocess them) in order to have a hope. The success rate at converting the believers is nil; we must address the issue before the pups become believers, and that is what our school system is set up to accomplish--convert the open mind to a way of thinking--their way. Those open minds are as available to us (freedomists) as they are to them (socialists). But we need to access them. We are failing in that endeavor. Here we are failing, miserably. I don't really know how to accomplish this, I admit, but I do know that we are failing miserably. It doesn't really affect me. I'm an old man that will be gone soon, so I won't suffer. But my grandchildren will, severely. They don't know how to change it, let alone resist it. It is all they know: it is all they are told: it is the only scenerio they are presented. Once they loose it (freedom), it will take something on the order of 200 years to regain it, if history is indicative of the future. All the socialists are doing is waiting for my type and age group to die out. They have determined that is the easiest way. They aren't fighting us. They are taking a pacifist appearing angle that makes it appear to us that we are slowly winning, yet they know that they are slowly winning. That pacifest approach is that each year, there are a few less of the strong opposition people, through attrition, replaced by an equal number of those that are just a skosh more tolerant of their views. Progressively, they gain ground. A day, a week, a month, a year at a time. What is viewed as acceptable by the majority of the freedomists today was considered as absolutely unacceptable and absurd by the equivalent 40 years ago. It is through this gradual degradation that freedom is lost. Insert gun owners for freedomists at any point in my above diatribe. Sorry for the rant. Listen.

 

[bogie]

When you have a chance, try to reach an opinion maker. The guys the legislators -listen- to... Big ones are school administrators, or other folks in "leadership" positions.

And if you can pressure them with numbers, whether it be numbers of their students, or numbers of their students' parents, hey, that's what they understand.

"Gun people" still haven't figured out that the battles are fought, and won, in the media and on the streets with public opinion. When 200 customers ask a retailer "Why isn't your store safe?" maybe he'll start to think about the Crime Zone signs he put up...

 

[Robert Hairless]

The obvious answer is to vote, join the NRA, etc. That supports a side, and that is great. What is there to do that says, much more LOUDLY, that anything else is completely unacceptable?

If you can think of any way that you or I alone can accomplish more than the NRA this year, or do it for less money than the $35 it costs to belong to the NRA for the year, please let me know?

There are a lot of things on which I'd rather spend the time and money I contribute to the NRA and to political candidates every year. But I've never found a better way.

What I did learn many years ago, long before you were born, is the need for patient, dogged determination and stamina instead of quick, enthusiastic, dramatic flurries. Me, I'm in it for the long run. The guy who quits the fight first is the loser. The winner is merely the guy who remains after the losers have quit.