“It is possible that the forces of reaction today, led by the Republicans and the NRA, will similarly be defeated. But if today’s activists on gun control wish to replicate the successes of the civil-rights movement, there remains a long road ahead of them. The march this weekend will have to be just the beginning for these student activists, if they hope to achieve their dream of curbing gun violence in American schools and streets.” – Julian E. Zelizer in What Gun-Control Activists Can Learn From the Civil-Rights Movement [via theatlantic.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

87 COMMENTS

  1. The only way to curb gun violence is to lock up gun criminals….and the very people supporting these children refuse to lock up repeat gun offenders no matter how violent they are….the democrats want power….and releasing violent criminals into our communities allows them to accumulate that power…….

    • “GUN criminals? Gun offenders?” Violence and crime is not limited to those things perpetrated with a gun. Why do people of the gun use these idiotic phrases?

      First, people must take personal responsibility for their own and family’s safety. They must be prepared to defend themselves rationally. The combination of deterrence and effective elimination of the criminals would go a long way toward reducing criminal violence of all kinds.

      And then, those actual criminals who are not killed as a result of their attacks should definitely be dealt with – more or less permanently. Trusting to any level government for that is a fools errand. The politicians and cops NEED the violence to continue so they’ll have jobs.

      • politicians and cops NEED the violence to continue so they’ll have jobs.
        Bingo. Job security.
        This is all part of the Plantation Mentality.
        There is a reason we have all these victimless crime laws.

      • First, people must take personal responsibility…..
        and this is why all of our government stooges whine about all of the little fabricated social victims. Most responsible people usually don’t need the “vital” services that only government goons can provide.

    • 2Aguy: Since FEAR has been very successful for marxist progressives to promote whatever their current divisive (to our Constitution) agenda, do YOU think the sheeple-coalescing FEAR of criminals (even if progressives caused it) is their primary purpose, or desire to actually prevent steel from corrupting otherwise normal illegal invaders, or other reason?

    • The forces of tyranny on the march, led by children. What was once wrong is now right and what was right is now wrong.
      I
      Parents afraid to discipline their children, professors and teachers afraid to discipline their students; murder of the unborn as a “right”, but the execution of a murderer is barbaric; a man that feels like a woman makes him so, and if you tell him he is delusional, it is “hate speech”. And not having children is admirable, because humanbeings are a virus and. a plague on the earth, after all.

      Progressivism really is a way to tyranny and cultural suicide.

      • Not the first dimwitted “Children’s Crusade” (circa 1212). Actually you could draw some reasonable parallel from that one to today.

        • Yep. Most of those children marched off to free the holy land, and they mostly got raped and enslaved and murdered.

          The end result this current crop of children revolutionaries in their attempt to change the world? They would end up raped and enslaved and murdered by the totalitarian government that would be forced upon an unarmed population.

    • Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
      The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.
      -Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.

  4. I will call you President Trump no more or ever, you have caved in after no fight at all. Not even one veto just talk of it, just talk. No border wall, walk back of 2A rights. The list goes on. A clear victory for the left. I am so pissed off, YOUR NEW NAME IS DUMPTRUMP. Enjoy it you traitor you earned it.

    • It seems to be working for the antis. They have ignoramuses with absurd theories leading the way and they have found some traction with it. Mass school shooting deaths are as much rarer than death from school sports accidents but it is easy for the media to convince people that they are very common. It is the public inability to grasp probabilities that is hurting us most.

      • The “traction” comes from the playing of the MSM. It isn’t gaining much with the voting public.

  6. I was hoping trump was going to delay the inevitable, but it looks like they got their claws in him now, dont rely on political parties OR political .org to save you, they are all evil, dont rely on some old penguins behind a big desk to save your natural rights, they are no different. Big corp is jumping in the game too. So, where does that leave us

    • If we don’t want to be seen as radical idiots we better clean up our act. The “leebruls is Kommunists who will enslave us schtick” is done.
      Buy an 80% AR and then find a way to participate in the change or get run over.

      • Wrong. Attacking the gun-controller’s politics and moral imperative is the only strategy that will defeat them. Americans don’t like authoritarians and, at it’s core, gun-control ideology represents a kind of coercive reform, i.e., gun confiscation among other things, that is profoundly authoritarian.

  7. ‘…if they hope to achieve their dream of curbing gun violence in American schools and streets.’

    I wonder if these little shitstains know that ‘gun violence in American schools and streets’ has been cut in half since their parents were their age.

    • Yup, people’s sense of history is completely warped. Violent crime is the lowest it has been since the early 1960s…despite the liberalization of gun laws through most of the country…
      …it’s almost as if gun control has nothing to do with crime control…

      …who knew!?

  8. POTG, at some point it will require massive civil disobedience. This is inevitable. The longer people wait, the more difficult it will become. But what do I know?

    • “POTG, at some point it will require massive civil disobedience. This is inevitable. The longer people wait, the more difficult it will become. But what do I know?”

      I agree. But the POTG are too cowardly a lot to actually commit acts of Civil Disobedience. And The Powers That Be know this.

      • I cannot disagree. 🙁

        I’ve heard far too many POTG comment to me about the little things that I have done and do on a regular basis; “Oh, I couldn’t do that, I would be too worried about (x,y,z happening).”

      • The POTG are already being disobedient. Look at NY where there are now 800,000 felons refusing to register their pistols under the New York Safe act. Just imagine how rowdy we will get in a Red State.

  9. “And this time it is possible that the forces of reaction today, led by the Republicans and the NRA, will similarly be defeated.” So, people defending the US Constitution are “forces of reaction?” Pot calling the kettle black.

  11. I think the antis may have been right all along. Most gun owners are a bunch of lazy little dick retards that have guns to compensate for their dick and limited mental ability. Antis can muster thousands of people are a regular basis. Gun owners can’t mobilize for shit. They donate a few buck to the NRA and think a huge special interest ran by millionaires is going to help them.

    • Hi Jason,

      You sound a bit angry behind your keyboard. You could, always lead by example and start to gather people rather than complain on a forum…

      But, to answer your question, most gun owners are at work or want to be left alone. The reason why most don’t just rally and protest all the damn time is we understand when it is time to watch and when it is time to act.

      And just because a bunch of people managed to meet in one place does not add credibility to their message (it’s called confirmation bias).

      However, the real issue are the politicians that are driving the message and are using the less intelligent masses to mold society as they see fit. You can’t blame the stupid masses, because they don’t realize they are stupid. Sad but true.

      There is a process in place for removing bad politicians and legislation.

      • Gather people? People look at you like you have two heads if you mention getting anything going. Gun people talk big but if it comes to actually doing something they want no part of it. It’s pretty sad.

        • We vote and we contact our legislators. That’s what REALLY counts. Protesting is protesting. I live in WA and we defeated a democratic run legislature this year. We flooded them with calls and emails in spite of being outdone via protests and public hearings. The only thing that passed was a bump stocks ban and that’s because we had some traitor RINOs vote for it.

    • Without a Bloomberg or Soros to fund us, it’s admittedly more difficult to organize and counter these “marches”. The crowds you refer to are paid for, bussed in, and many, like a cousin of mine and his kids, are professional anarchists who go event-to-event, draw lots to determine who is arrested this time, and in reality, such activities are their real jobs.

      Gun owners, and conservatives in general have to take time off work and pay their own way for travel and food expenses to counter them. And what sort of coverage by MSM would we actually gain if 100K of us descended on the Mall in DC, anyway? We, however, actually live in the communities, many of the agitators don’t, which is why we can beat them at the ballot box every time if enough of us don’t just tune out and don’t even bother to educate ourselves on who/what might be the best option at the time. Can’t do the math, or learn a little give and take at the moment? You’ll lose everything and not even know it. And, of course, complain that someone else didn’t do their job.

      • You did see, didn’t you, that the New England Patriots provided their local Hitler Youth the team plane so they could make it to te party. Patriots…yeah, that’s a laugh.

    • Jason simpleton. It is not hard to manufacture and astroturf “mobilization. Pass out free cheeseburgers, signs and a bus ticket (and pot). Its cheap and you got your riot.

      On our side we have people with a freaking JOB, normal families and RESPONSIBILITIES. This interferes with the gadfly life of a “community organizer” or protester.

    • Actually we have jobs and families. Not much time to politic and agitate. This March is nothing but leftwing Astrotrf.

  12. People certainly are bored. This is a prime example of protesting just to protest. 100% of those signs make no sense.

    It would be refreshing if there was honest signage:
    “I don’t know what to do with all this freedom I have. So here I am bitching.”

    “A murderer shot my kid and I enabled it by sending them to a Gun Free Zones and I actively protested against armed adults that could’ve saved lives. I have myself to blame.”

    “I bitch about the poor treatment of animals, but I own a cellphone, jewelry, and all these nice first world accessories created by child labor and poor workers overseas.”

    “I’m too fat to move, so give me money.”

    “My opinions are important, I wish someone would pay me for them.”

    • And replace him with whom?

      So, you’ll just sit around bitching to your computer and let the others roll over you “until then”?

      Can’t get much more affective or smarter than that. And then people wonder why it’s so hard to find intelligent people to counter the left…

        • And you think those “people” here actually have a plan, or a clue???

          I consider myself “above average” and I’m not laughing, except at those kinds of comments and the non-players taking potshots. But then again, you may be right about the “average” TTAG posters. Probably ought to rename this site The Truth About Gun Owners…

        • Have you spoke with many people lately? The average person is a ‘tard’ themselves. I am constantly reminded at how little the people I work with know about anything. They think I am crazy nerd for continuing to study the world around me. They are baffled at how and why somebody would know how a florescent light works for instance.

        • don’t know So you open you piehole to spew a opinion. You have been actively involve in ANY political operation or just another expert in your opinion?

        • At Vic Nighthorse…

          Man, I speak with people all the time and manage to have a fairly good conversation. Trying to put “the average person” off as a tard either shows how little you know, how shallow your conversations and art of persuasion are, or the type of people you choose to hang around, I’d change my location and tactics…

    • It’d help our side to remember Winston Churchill: “NEVER GIVE UP”… but in reality, many of these whiners never got engaged in the real fight in the first place. Cripes! Somewhere around 80 million gun owners and we can only get 5.5 to join NRA? And then we can only get about 3% of those to mobilize? It’s on us, not the organizations. They don’t vote, and our votes are still better than cash at election time. Get off your butts!

      • Actually the DO vote. Which is why demtards that come out antigun nearly always get their ass handed to them in a general election.

        Most people aren’t joiners or doers. Pick your issue or organization. I’ll bet Robert has a thousand viewers for every one that posts a comment.

    • The people commenting in comment sections are not a random sample. Generally speaking, the most emotional and upset post the most.

      • “The most emotional and upset post the most”
        Interesting take. I find it is the most dedicated and the most passionate, that post the most. I also find that people who are conservative usually use fact, logic, history and example without a lot of ad hominems in their posts; whereas progressives and people on the left use ad hominems, attacking a personal character of the person they disagree with as their norm for their “debates”.

        • Yeah, you have something there as well. I was also thinking of how astute and incredibly knowledgeable some the most prolific commentors on the Shooter’s Forum are. This however is a political and cultural forum. We do have some very upset and emotional commentors here who do post very frequently. I do think they post far more than the average commentor and are thus skew the nature of the comments quite a bit. Of course we also have people like myself who just don’t have much else to do and enjoy jabbering and we do have a few who are astute and productive.

  15. New trolls I see…hey what happened to Black Liars Blather or Demanding Mom’s? Oh wait I KNOW! It morphed into another Bloomie/Soros leftard bunch. He!! they couldn’t even get the Hildebeast elected. I’m not giving up anything…but I vote.😩😖😡

  16. My daughter told me that anyone who expresses ideas that the readers of a site don’t like – true or not – is a troll. I thought that I was trying to engage in honest debate. Now I know why I seem out of step.
    People love echo chambers, but not me. The internet is not my domain I suppose.

    • No Mike. It’s not you ideas, it’s your attitude. You come across as elitist and condescending.

      “I’m trying to help it along, but I’m not optimistic”, you know, unlike those “tards”.

    • Mike, most of the direct responses to you have been fairly reasonable. It looks like one person may or may not have included you in their comment about “trolls”. I think most people here don’t consider any criticism as trolling and are quite aware that you are not a troll. For my part I have just been trying to remind you that the antis suffer from the same ‘personnel’ problems but are overcoming them somehow. One exception, as I see it, is that POTG do seem less likely to march around yelling in public.

    • It seems like you should start at home and educate your daughter about free speech instead of lecturing us.

  17. Thank you for the kind response, Vic.
    I am not new here actually, and have had many run-ins with some of the more, uh, single-minded commentors.
    At this point I know what’s not helping. We need a new response. Compromise will likely play a part. If not we’re done IMO.

    • We can always compromise… the commies leave our rights alone and we don’t shoot them. See? Compromise.

    • Mike, dude, your wasting your time. This comment thread is for “entertainment” purposes only. It’s cat nip for lunatics, I sense that you can see that, you just haven’t accepted it yet. Paranoia, “single mindedness”, your being too kind. Over 50% of frequent commenters on this thread are very thinly veiled racists, that clearly harbor, bitter violent fantasies fixated on revenge against society at large. Delusions of adequacy about reshaping America through a campaign of murder and terror against innocent fellow Americans. Many of them think these children deserve to die for there views. This isn’t a gun blog, it’s a psychiatric side show, the frequent commenters here just aren’t in on the joke.

  18. Somebody needs to buzz the mall with a few tanks of napalm. Make the world a better place in under 30 seconds.

    • If the President had waited 24hr to sigh that idiotic budget, the mall would have been closed today. THEN you would have seen some funny stuff.

      • I see Trump is praising the little tide pod eaters.
        I hope Trump gets impeached by maxine Waters.
        Pence cannot be any worse.

      • Not a budget… That’s kinda important. I’m waiting for the left wing to realize that.

  19. What do we need to do? Start excercising your damn rights in public. Have gatherings (not necessarily rallies) but gatherings with like minded people where you can be armed, rallies also help.

    Our problem is that most gun owners are ashamed and embarrassed of the “radicals” and scared of being harassed, let me let you in on a little secret, we’re never going to be treated fairly, if these losers are the “new civil rights protesters” then we’re like soldiers and real Americans coming home from serving in Vietnam being spit on and called “baby killer” and stuff like that.

    Embrace the suck, let them come at you. This too shall pass, you expose them for who they really are if you are a peacable citizen excercising your rights.

    If the law allows you to carry openly a handgun, carry a handgun openly, if you don’t have a CHL and the law allows you to carry a rifle openly then carry a rifle. Be a Citizen. Don’t be afraid of being harassed by the cops or ignorant morons on the street simply because they don’t know or don’t care about the law. They will be tossed upon the ash heap of history.

    And our founders pledged their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor on a cause that in 1776 was lookin to be all but lost; the least we can do is excercise the rights they helped secure for us.

    But to improve our movement we as gun owners need to start with ourselves, and become Citizens and activists.

    • This is what my friends and I have done for years. It changes the atmosphere about the RKBA in a positive way wherever we carry. We do so everyday; usually handguns but sometimes long guns. It has also been instrumental in changing law and enforcement in Ohio. Unfortunately, many gun owners have given us much keyboard lashing online about the practice. We carry on.

    • Something like 5% of the population was actively involved in the American Revolution – Radicals. There was no astroturf in 1783.

      • But 5% is somewhat deceptive. You might have only 5% actively out in the field fighting but you still had the majority support of the general population in fighting England. All 13 colonies voted to declare independence from England. I would highly doubt that we would have that type of unanimity today.

  20. Whatever the approach ends up being it will have to overcome the lefty media blackout that will no doubt take place. I’ve been to rallies in the past where easily a couple hundred thousand people showed up and it was described in the press as less that 10,000 or not covered at all. It isn’t just an attack on the 2A – the Ist is being abused as well.

    • Open Carry (not in DC obviously) would fix that media blackout immediately. I dunno if the outcome would be good or bad ultimately but a large OC event would get coverage… at least until they figured out that itbwasnt going to be a bloodbath.

  21. Only fools demand that citizens surrender their liberty to Government control.

    When our youth marched for civil rights, they were protesting against Government actions that were detrimental to liberty. These ill-informed protesters are calling for Government action to curtial liberty.

    Regardless of whatever traumas these Constitutionally illiterate, anti-American juveniles have suffered, their call for gun control must be opposed at all costs.

    We pay very high taxes to fund a public education system that has failed to properly educate our youth in the history of the causes and principals of America’s founding.

  22. My favorite quote is from Emma Gonzalos, the young lady with a questionable choice of hair style that imprudently tried to bring Dana Loesch’s children in to the CNN MSD debate.

    “Fight for you lives before it’s someone else’s job” (20180324 13:40 CST) It shows just how little these young adults have thought the problem through.

  24. Thinking I (we) need to see if this little skinny assed David Hogg is on twitter or face book and blast him with facts. SH!t, the little asshat wasn’t even in the same building where the shootings happened, and is a “Survivor” , and is a media HOG. Just wanting to get his face out there (maybe it makes him more popular with the girls?). Now he’s complaining that the school is infringing on his 1st Amendment rights by issuing students clear backpacks!! Ironic I know but, apparently he doesn’t understand it. After all he hasn’t been taught about the Constitution in our pubic (not a spelling error) schools. If I find him on any social I won’t attack him, just bombard him with truth.

Comments are closed.