P320 Entry: How This Liberal Became a Gun Guy

1. Welcome home brother. You’ve taken the first giant step. Now please consider what we conservatives are saying about other things. You might just find yourself on the right side.

   • Aye. If facts and numbers convinced you on guns, please take a look at the numbers on the “war on poverty” from LBJ to now. That is what turned one of my favorite talking heads, Charles Krauthammer.

   • They (Conservatives) aren’t saying much as far has having a reasonable, intelligent, rational discourse. They simply form an “opposition” to the Liberals and nothing more. If Barrack Obama said “Im scrapping all gun control legislation and going back to the second amendment only”, Conservatives would largely be against it and start citing the legislation Bush Sr., Reagan and other Republican gun control legislation and initiatives as “reasonable”. Be an independent, analyze things for yourself, think rationally and draw your own conclusion, you’ll end up seeing political parties are nothing more than jokes and free yourself from following party lines.

     • That’s an excellent point. I hate what the democrats have tried to do, but allot of Republicans have a pretty shady history of anti gun legislation. Like you said, Reagan and Bush, also Nixon, but also this last election. Romney was totally anti gun. I didn’t even vote because there wasn’t very much in difference between Obama and Romney except for the fact that Romney had signed an AWB and Obama had not, (though he would given the chance). Romneycare was also basically Obamacare. Same with this next election. If republicans put up a Kristie or a Bush to run against Hitlery, what’s going to convince me to vote? Nothing. There wont be much difference in gun legislation with Kristie or Bush than Clinton. If Romney were president today we’d have the “expanded backround checks” and maybe even and AWB- in the name of Compromise.

     • I totally agree with you Nighthawk. It seems like you can only be on the right or left these days and there is no room in the middle. When people find out I’m pro gun and they call me a conservative, I get pissed off. But then again when people find out I’m for gay rights and they call me a liberal, I get pissed off. I believe our two party system is one of the big problems in our government. People don’t really bother thinking for themselves now a days and just vote for what ever side they are registered as.

       • You must not get out much. Haven’t you heard of the Libertarian Party?

   • Don’t ruin a positive thing with this kind of poop. Thanks.

2. That is interesting. he uses the term FOID card, which is an Illinois thing.

   • He was from NJ. FOID is also a NJ term. Probably other states also.

   • “Firearm Owner Identification Card” is a pretty ambiguous acronym, really.

   • Just for the record, my NJ card — issued in 1977 — is titled as “State of New Jersey Firearms Purchaser Identification Card”.

     • Given that abbreviation, FPID, vs. the more ubiquitous FOID (thanks to recent high profile cases like McDonald V. Chicago and the recent presence of Illinois gun laws in the news), I’m thinking it was probably a typo that was overlooked as it turned into a more common acronym.

       • Maybe it’s like “pwned” — a typo that became an accepted form.

3. Your last paragraph. You said it much better than I ever could. That’s exactly the attitude we should have. Thanks fellow Kyle. 🙂

   • Couldn’t agree with you and him more. It’s this kind of attitude that I’d like to see pro-gunners embrace.

4. Welcome to the wonderful world of guns, and Texas!

5. I don’t see where holding liberal or progressive or radical points of view has anything to do with lack of support of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Questioning what the Framers had in mind has always struck me as highly suspicious — face it, those documents, coming from that era, were and remain a high water mark in political thought. They got it right and there’s no reason for the weasel element in politics to be allowed to take any further thin slices off of the Second Amendment. It pisses me off no end that in my nanny State I can’t own a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds and I have a “bullet button” on my AR build.

   • move i know it hurts but if lack of 2a rights cant convince you, lower taxes make it well worth it CA is dying before our eyes

6. I thank everyday the folks that fought so I could have that right. Soldiers,Police, fire. Men , women, dogs.

7. You know there’s a lot of stigma in the whole 2A crowd against people that are self described liberals. And that mind set REALLY doesn’t do use any good. There’s no denying the fact that liberals are pretty much in bed with the democrats in this nation. Nor is there any doubt that the democrats are all pretty stridently anti gun, as a platform policy. None the less I will still maintain that the only way we can change that for the better is with winning of hearts and minds. To use an overused but accurate statement.

   • There needs to be a recognition between these things in America: Liberal, Conservative, Democrat, Republican. Liberal does not equal Democrat, and Conservative does not equal Republican. One set, Liberal and Conservative, are adjectives, while the other, Republican and Democrat, are Nouns. Nor are Liberal and Conservative the only adjectives that can be applied to political views, in fact there is one that is becoming ever more prevalent in American politics, Authoritarian.

     I am going to assume that by Liberal, the author is describing his social side, or for arguments sake lets say that I am ignoring his economic views altogether. A true liberal in that case would have the view that anyone should be allowed to exercise their human rights to the fullest extent, and the right to self-defense or self-preservation is absolutely one of them. What we are seeing out of the Democratic party lately has not been Liberalism, it is Authoritarianism. We are not just seeing this out of the Democrats either, there are plenty of Republicans that are showing their Authoritarian side. We are having our rights challenged not because they have reasonable suspicion and facts that say that policies should line up with their beliefs, but because they “feel like it.” Authoritarians will “feel” safer if guns are confiscated, they will “feel” better if everyone is forced into the lifestyle that benefits them.

     • That is exceptionally well put. Especially with your comments of the growing problem with authoritarianism in this nation.

     • A Traditional Liberal is more of what a libertarian is to day.

       Many Liberals of today are fundamentally a socialist/communist/statist. They hold that that the individual is only important in some “collective good” and what that collective good shall be is determined by a small select elite.

       In such a world, individual liberty shall be sacrificed; including the life of the individual, if that select group decides it is for the good of the whole.

       What an abomination; and a really neat trick; to have the face of tyranny and the enslavement of the individual placed in such a pretty package that is the communist manifesto.

       • Bingo – this is why I registered as a Libertarian last year.

         I tell my liberal friends – this is not a hippie commune – this is the United States – we are all equal under the law. We should not have to suffer equally for equality.

         The gun thing was the last straw. Good bye Democrats – you’ve lost me for life.

     • I agree that the terms need defining in a consistent manner.

       To me, a Liberal is liberal with the use of government violence against the citizenry.

       A Conservative is conservative with the use of government violence against the citizenry.

       The problem with the historic correlation between “Liberal” and “Liberty” is that in 1789 we founded a government at the extreme liberal end of the spectrum. Those who want to adhere to that formulation, are conservative in the sense that they resist change. Those who would deviate from the 1789 formulation are actually favoring a government more akin to the all powerful monarchies of the past.

8. Your point about being offered illegal guns is enlightening. The partisan hack in me wants to say that dope smoking hippes are more likely to know where to get an illegal gun than beer guzzling rednecks, but I will be PC here and say that ones environment has a major impact on their social interactions.

   • I’m not sure what sort of dope-smoking hippies you’re friends with, but in a typical liberal urban environment like mine, all the potheads are at best okay with other people being armed but don’t want anything to do with it themselves.
     At worst they are just like the soccer moms demanding action against reasonable self protection.

     • “all the potheads ”

       Have you met them and they’ve actually told you this, or are you just ass-u-me-ing that they are because of your prejudice against dope smokers? I’m a dope smoker and just tonight decided based on TTAG’s review and this week’s ad to get an S&W SD VE and a spring kit, and see if I can bribe somebody at Turner’s to install the spring kit for me. And see if I can get a nice lockable case, because it comes in a cardboard box. 😉

9. Welcome to Texas. You remind us again of the most persuasive way we can talk to the gun control crowd. We must use facts in a calm and rational fashion. That is what will win them over. Thanks for the reminder.

10. I do my best to keep things… individual.
    I see too many self proclaimed liberals and conservatives, who simply go right along with whatever some talking head on their news source of choice says.

    Conservatives get their “facts” from fox news…
    Liberals quote “The Daily Show” at me.

    And both sides are locked into a set opinion on everything based on their thoughts about something else.

    When it comes to guns, I’m a gun dork.
    When it comes to sexuality, I don’t care.
    When it comes to anything that comes along, I think about it for myself.

    I wish we could drop the blanket labels. Let gun people be gun people, regardless of their thoughts and beliefs on everything else.

11. I too question the Illinois FOID term. You couldn’t be legally armed in your old state but sail through in Texas? I’m not saying this post is BS. Just that Texans probably ain’t happy with another liberal voter.

    • fww, the OP says he was from NJ. FOID is what they colloquially call the permission slip there. In MA, there’s an FID for long guns. There may be other states that use similar acronyms.

    • Texas is happy with productive citizens who know how to mind their business, he will be welcome. As a novice gunowner, he is likely to continue thinking for himself, another trait welcome in Texas. And he apparently has not gone off the deep end and begun murdering people just because he has been freed from the idiocy of a “FOID” in an era of NICS.

12. Welcome aboard.

13. It’s ok. He probably lives in Austin. I’m ok with Travis county being bluer than the ocean. And even the texas liberals aren’t as gluten free gun hating atheist baby murderes like the rest of the country. Most of them are liberal in one or two different ways than the typical red-state base. Not to mention they tend to keep is grounded so we don’t force “conservative” laws through. It’s good to have a dissenting opinion once in awhile. Makes you really test your own opinion.

    It’s ok. Really. Welcome again.

    • Agreed. A one party state can be a scary place. Think N. Korea or Cuba or California.

      A little bit of opposition is always a good thing.

      • I hope that you continue to feel that way.

14. Good write up, dude. And welcome.

    Just wondering what are a few opinions you hold that make you a liberal? I’m not trying to start a firestorm I really am just curious. I feel like a lot of (mostly younger) people just say: “I don’t think pot should be illegal and i don’t care if gays get married…Hey I must be a liberal. Vote Democrat.” and not bother to look any further past that at the real policies liberals and “progressives” actually advocate for.

    Ever-expanding, ubiquitous government, promotion and perpetuation of the welfare state, taxing the hell out of people who earn a higher-than-average income, corporations are evil (unless they donate to Democrats) and “profit” is a bad word, we should sink millions of taxpayer dollars into fly-by-night “green” energy companies using unproven technology because GLOBAL WARMING! These are all things that modern day liberals believe to their very core. And they know they can never achieve their utopian dream if one day they have to meet face to face with an armed populace. Hence, gun control.

    • +1

    • Even if they do achieve their utopian dream, it will collapse under its own unproductive weight.

      • Sweden, Norway, and several other Northern Euro nations are the ideal socialist nations. They have done well when I was in college 30 years ago and are doing even better today.

        Part of their success is clearly an attitude of working together rather than an attitude of greed being good and kicking your fellow man to the curb whenever it’s convenient.

        • Might want to look again, they’re being inundated with people who are NOT of that culture, their system may run into some problems, and can they adjust. Still what you say has merit other than that, the problem is that even if it works for them because of their culture and heritage, that does not mean that you can force it on people by force of arms, which is what Stalin was into, for example. And Obama.

          I am a liberal in the sense that I think everybody should be able to do whatever they like so long as they don’t scare the dogs. I am NOT a liberal in the sense that I will be happy to pay for so much as a can of beans for you when you are 80 and starving in the street. Take care of yourself, or die. The world is overpopulated.

          • I”m a radical libertarian loon, and I have no problem at all with giving people food, if they need it and I have it to spare. What I have a problem with is anyone who would order me to do anything or not, one way or the other – it’s the “being ordered to” part that I’ll fight to the death.

            But the “starving in the streets” argument against libertarianism is easy to dismiss – just let each person who cries, “but people will starve in the streets!” to go out into the streets, find a starving person, and feed him. Otherwise, live and let live. And without massive government intervention, there wouldn’t be starving people anyway. People still haven’t really clued up that government is the root of all evil.

15. This really REALLY got me to thinking. I’m totally guilty of dismissing folks that tell me that they are liberal. I don’t argue, I mostly ignore. But Josh is a liberal gun owner, and not just a gun owner, but an avid supporter of the 2nd Amendment. He is EXACTLY the kind of guy we need to welcome with open arms. The more people like him there are, the less the liberal politicians will push for more gun control. It in effect will fade away. It would become one of those issues where both sides of the political arena will agree, I hope I see it in my lifetime.

16. A liberal gun owner is the exception that proves the rule. Still, the OP is welcome here, just as long as he doesn’t turn into one of those “I support the Second Amendment, but” people.

17. big deal, you are a liberal and like guns? your numbers are meaningless and therefore your influence is zero. its like you are just attention whoring “LOOK AT ME IM LIBERAL AND LIKE GUNS.”

    no one in the gun rights movement cares, let me know when you vote in large enough numbers to make actual changes in your liberal states. till then get lost.

    • Perhaps we’d have more people joining us in our gun right activism if we were, you know.. More friendly? Telling somebody to get lost for their beliefs isn’t going to accomplish much of anything, either.

      • What ‘e said.

      • +1

        • +1000

          I am not here to troll anyone. I like guns but they are not my 100% undying interest. But I do have a different perspective from the “faithful.”

          My honest feeling is that unless everyone – on both sides – moderates their opinions then gun restrictions of a massive sort will be the reality in a few years to a few decades.

          With that said I’d much rather put my money elsewhere but I figure that it’s time to buy something like a Tavor to replace my AR. While I can.

      • Especially when we don’t even know what he believes or not, what someone in NJ thinks is liberal may be as foreign to us as the concept that Christie is a conservative! I mean, boy is that a joke.

        • I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how someone can call himself a “liberal” but not be a socialist.

          • Tell us when someone wants to be a conservative, and believes in voter suppression, who is not a fascist.

            • “Tell us when someone wants to be a conservative, and believes in voter suppression, who is not a fascist.”

              This tirade doesn’t really answer my question: how can a person be a “liberal” but not a socialist?

              But thanks for playing!

    • There’s more of us than you think, Cartman. We’re just not as vocal as maybe we should be. And it doesn’t help when you essentially tell us to {bad word} off.

      • +1

18. So if illegal guns are so easy in purchase it would appear gun control does not work and needs to be rid of.
    I don’t like the idea of being unarmed anyway and now we need to worry about the cops shooting us for no reason it appears. Who’s in control now?

19. NJ also used the term FOID (firearm owners identification I beleive), its been 20 years since I lived in NJ. But I had a similiar problem, my first application was denied by the police chief with the official line of “No, there are too many guns in this town”, but in reality it was based upon prior contact while I was a juvenile. 1 year later there was a new chief, and my application sailed right through in a very short and totally “reasonable” 6 weeks (which gave me permission to purchase long arms, and 1 pistol, each pistol required a seperate application.) Thus was my conversion to the belief in shall issue rather than may issue which I had not had a prior concern with. Now I feel utter disgust with the “reasonable” and common sense restrictions of the great North Eastern states, and remember the time when I thought it was not that big of a deal. I went from not really believing in the “scare” tactics of the NRA to a life endowment member.

20. Woo! Glad to have you in the family, Josh!

21. And this young man, ladies and gentlemen, is why we should *try* to leave politics out of the RKBA conversations. As a libertarian, me and Josh probably do not see eye to eye on economics. I understand the vitriol from the RKBA adherents towards the Democrats because they usually are the party who runs with the anti-gun flag. But as Newtown demonstrated, the last few remaining blue dogs D are the ones who saved us from those horrible federal legislations. The only place where the antis made any ground are where the Ds controlled all three levers of government. That is the most important reason that we have to make sure that the RKBA is respected by both sides of the aisle. If the RKBA becomes a single party issue, all we can expect in the future are more shearings whenever that party gains control. Like it or not, we need liberal gun owners in order to have a strong 2A.

22. “The growing number of liberal gun owners…” Lots of liberals have been gun owners for a long time. But you won’t know that because the mass media has brainwashed us all to believe that all liberals agree with gun control. They’ve been telling us that all NRA members want universal background checks for God’s sake. What has changed is this; more liberals can communicate directly with one another due to the advent of social media and grassroots news outlets. We don’t need CNN and FOX to tell us what to believe about the state of the country. It’s bad news for the government, because people see now that laws that are pushed down the throats of the people are actually not supported by the majority of the people, but instead only serve the interests of the ruling class.

23. Lots to think about. Great article for sure.

24. Interesting read. I’m curious where you found that graphic since that’s a picture I posted up on DailyKos when I attended Netroots Nation, 2011, in Minneapolis.

    Card carrying liberal with a very civil (small l) libertarian bent. Think ACLU and an NRA Life Membership.

    For those who think it doesn’t happen, my stances are as follows: shall issue everywhere, repeal the NFA, and legalize open carry across the country.

    • :::waves hi to KV:::

      • Hey back.

        I didn’t mention the LGC in my response but that fits too.

    • Kyle, if you put your cursor on the photo, all will be revealed.

      • Thanks. The original article I wrote over on DK that hosted that picture was deleted. Completely forgot I used it in a few comments and the original source was out there.

        No complaints; just curious.

25. There are plenty of gun owning self-identifying liberals. And in Texas, too. I live 70 miles from the border, in a county that is 75% Latin, and it’s only a matter of maybe another decade before the majority of the state goes blue. In fact, if it wasn’t for voter suppression of the Latins here Texas would be solidly blue today.

    But with that said around here we have plenty of reasons to own guns, including anything from drug smugglers to white separatists that we want to stay in northern Texas and stay the hell away from us. But you can’t really paint all of Texas with the same brush; not everyone here wants to keep Latins, blacks, and women as second class citizens, or to rewrite the grade school to put a more “Southern friendly” slant on Texas history.

    • Ah, a “white privilege” complaining guy. Did you go to Harvard?

      http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/14/harvards-kennedy-school-will-make-white-privilege-training-mandatory-for-orientation/

    • And some of us wish the brown border jumpers would stay to the south.

      • Frankly, none of us really care what rednecks think. And that’s the wonder of an armed Mexican and an armed liberal; nothing scares old white conservatives more.

        The Mexicans were here first. For that matter the Kickapoo Indians were here earlier, as were the Buffalo Soldiers, most of whom were Semnole Creole.

        Bowie was from Kentucky, Travis was from South Carolina, and Crockett was from Tennessee. The real rush of “real Texans” were Confederates who lost the war.

        • Bullshit, and stop using racist terms like redneck. After the paleo and archaic Indians, Indian tribes like the Lipan, Tonkawas, Coahuiltecans, Karankawas, etc were here long before the Spanish and Comanches, who got to Texas around the same time. Buffalo soldiers arrived here long after the first Anglos settled in the 1820s. Germans outnumbered Mexicans in San Antonio for many decades.

          One thing I can’t stand about some modern liberals is their desperate desire to split up the country by race and class and set them against each other. I am for gay marriage and don’t care about abortion, but I cannot abide today’s race baiters. The great thing about Texas is that unlike in the northern cities, which BTW are more segregated than southern cities, all races here can find jobs, and that’s because of our job-friendly policies.

          • You have never actually lived in those evil northern cities that you claim are more segregated, have you?

            How about other Southern cities? Any actual experience?

        • I’m going on articles I’ve read on studies that show southern cities and schools are less segregated. This has become common knowledge. NYC has some of the most segregated schools in the nation.

          • What articles and what studies? I have spent enough time in NYC to tell you that segregation is today much more alive and well in SC and MS than it is in NYC.

            Did you know that the Feds ordered schools desegregated in Uvalde in the 70’s? But it wasn’t along black/white lines, it was because Latin kids were given inferior tools to work with than white kids.

            Anyway, I just don’t see that there is more discrimination against workers elsewhere, it’s just that in good ol’ boy areas like the South and Texas everyone is in denial. Like you are in denial. Like Paula Deen was in denial. Like the Duck Dynasty folks were in denial.

        • “And that’s the wonder of an armed Mexican and an armed liberal; nothing scares old white conservatives more.”

          More BS.

          Conservatives are pushing for gun rights for all, and laws that make it easy for anyone to carry a gun. Tell me: between TX, and NJ or CA, where is it easier for a black or Hispanic person to buy a gun? Case closed. Progressives push for gun control, especially in heavily minority cities like chicago and DC (you don’t see them pushing for gun control much in all-white states like Vermont, for example). Gun control is racist, and gun control is part of the state and national Dem party platform. It’s one huge reason I’m no longer a Democrat.

          • You do realize that it was legal to open carry long guns in California until the Black Panthers did it, and then suddenly the Guv’ner at the time (some character named Reagan) pushed through laws outlawing the practice.

            Frankly I think that you are stretching your argument past credible when you argue that restrictions in the Northeast are racist.

            Thankfully that situation doesn’t exist here in Texas and there are plenty of armed Latin folks. Not to mention armed liberal old white folks. I have read of plans by Texas white supremacists and ultra nationalists who have openly talked about seizing the oil fields in order to finance their “war of independence” and my neighbors don’t want those yahoos anywhere near our homes.

    • Oh please. I was raised in a Democrat family in San Antonio. The old party hands here used to BRAG about voter fraud. Voter “suppression”? What a joke. They were PAID to vote–they still are paid in the RGV–and no one checked at the polls to to see if people coming into vote were registered or not.

      • Or citizens, or escaped murderers, or anything else. If your name is Alfred E. Newman, that’s fine, how many ballots did you want?

        • And it doesn’t make much difference which one you pick anyway. Would you rather be flayed alive or boiled in oil?

          Democracy is two foxes and a chicken voting on who’s for dinner. Freedom is a well-armed chicken.

    • You really need to read some history. TX has had two female governors. Our progressive betters in NY and CA have had zero. San Antonio had the first female mayor of a top ten city, and the first Hispanic mayor of a top ten city. NYC has had zero female mayors. Houston has a gay female mayor. NYC has had zero gay mayors.

      Of five female governors, four are Republican. All the Indian-American and Hispanic governors are Republican. Toe of those are women. Democrats simply do not elect minorities and women to statewide office–they keep them confined as representatives of packed congressional districts.

      • I think that you are cherry picking but you have proven my point that not every Texan is the stereotypical right wing low education crazy. This state has potential and plenty of places more in line with American values than the “values” of the Rush Limbaugh types.

        Republicans of today have pretty well abandoned the cities. As I recall Jacksonville, FL is today the only major city with a Republican Mayor.

        But fear not! Pretty soon the Democrats are going to give the nation its first female President. Good times, eh? 😉

        • not sure why a Hillary lover would post on a pro-2A site. You just about done trolling?

    • John G. is a troll, nobody down here speaks like that. Doesn’t have the lingo down pat. All he proves is he can read a Wiki entry.

      • My respectful response is that you consider kissing my ass. I enjoy this blog but if being a clone of yourself then you miss my point.

        • sigh. another tough guy telling people to kiss his ass from the safety of his laptop. why don’t you go kiss Hillary’s fat ass tough boy?

    • I confess, I am one of those racist bastards who believe Latinos should only vote once in each election, and should have to do it personally. Same for others, in fact. Is that the “voter suppression” you condemn?

      • What I’ve heard is that they consider being asked to show a valid ID is somehow inherently racist, because it’s too inconvenient for them to bother to prove that they were, in fact, born.

        The solution, of course, is to deflate the value of the vote by removing the power of the electees to do further damage to the electors. Make government irrelevant, or make it go away completely.

        • We all know that gringos on a forum like this don’t really want Latins to have equal votes. Right?

          Many Latins of in the USA of my age we given birth by midwives. They were not allowed to apply for birth certificates. Almost every week there is an article in the RioGrande Valley papers of someone being deported who have never lived in Mexico before.

          • Apologia notwithstanding, I don’t want trespassers from a foreign country voting in our elections.

            And YOU are the one who is playing the race card.

26. Great. Another F’ing liberal who’s had to flee the statist, socialist hellhole he grew up in because eventually he ran into a freedom strangling restriction that actually impacted him personally. Guess it all depends on whose ox is being gored, when it comes to these selfish liberals.

    Now he’s in Texas, MY state, where we’ve worked and fought for generations to build the kind of place where freedom and prosperity reign supreme. Now here come the liberal stances and voting behaviors, because, as you know, given the fresh start in Texas, he can impose his lust for leftism and have a whole new state to ruin. That train in NEVER late!

    That’s never how liberals see it, of course. They see themselves as the center of the moral universe and, thus, everyone else is inherently out of sync, out of orbit, out of touch with the times and all that is high, mighty, right and proper. So here come their typical liberal impositions on Texas, a state already under siege from hordes who’ve ruined their own countries and now want, you guessed it, a fresh start in Texas! They bring their same old, stale, tried and failed policies, but expect it all to be different this time. It won’t. You’ll ruin this state like you ruined your own.

    Look, I’m glad you’ve apparently seen the light on firearms; but for the lesson to take root firmly, the principles of freedom and personal responsibility would need to spread and be applied to all aspects of civilization. Continuing to describe yourself as a liberal, obviously you’re not there yet. I wish you all the best in your philosophical journey, but the history of this country favors gleefully and misguidedly forfeiting one’s own rights in the abhorrent name of snatching one’s neighbor’s rights through liberalism. When you arrive at the sunny uplands of principled constitutionalism, many will be waiting with welcoming arms. Until then, you’re on probation.

    • Fear not, he’s not the only one. Some of us even hail from California, and now we’re here in Texas. Get ready for rising property values and increased voter influence.

      • Amen. When some of the rednecks stop patting themselves on the back they will see that Texas has potential but 18th Century attitudes are holding the vast majority of the state backwards.

        • No, what’s holding the vast majority of the state back is laziness, and an entitlement attitude. The funny thing about “certain people” in Texas is that they never move in, and better an area, they just recreate the same cesspool they fled from.

        • More bullshit. One third of all the best paying jobs in the US are being created in TX. The blue states need to learn from us, not vice versa. people from the blue states are moving here, and not vice versa. Our school kids perform better than CA kids, and TX has a higher literacy rate than CA. CA has the highest poverty rate in the US.

          Now what was that you were saying about how we are being held back here? You live in a fantasy.

          • You say BS, I say that you are terribly misguided. Naive even. Were it not for oil patch jobs this state would be horribly poor. Wages in Texas are below average compared to the rest of the nation. The average home in much of Texas is an old mobile home. And I can’t imagine that Texas is any sort of leader in education unless you compare Texas to some place like Arkansas or Mississippi.

        • You “can’t imagine”. I’m not using imagination. I’m using NAEP scores and actual stats on literacy and poverty.

          That mobile home is imaginary too. People have a much higher standard of living here than they would on the same salary in the large blue states. Again, another reason people are moving here. We have less of the inequality that progressives have inflicted on those other states too.

          Oil? We were leading in job creation even during the last oil bust, before the current shale boom. After the big bust of the 80s we diversified, and now we aren’t depending on oil cycles. We’re the leading state in exports, and we have huge aerospace, biomed, high tech, finance, manufacturing etc. sectors.

          You need to learn more about your home state, frankly.The “facts” you are spouting are equivalent to “facts” the gun grabbers like to make up. One place to start is to look at the comptroller’s website to see what all the industries are doing. Learn some facts and some numbers. Don’t rely on NYT propaganda.

          • I am kidding you. Up to a point. But …

            I cannot speak for those “large blue states”. I agree, I don’t care to live there. I do know that I spent 15 years in Florida which is sorta a purple/blue state now under the control of a T-bagger named Scott. I am also living and working in rural Texas.

            And I have lived in NC, KY, southern Ohio, and dated several ladies in NYC and DC during my Heathen Bachelor Days. I have also motorcycled extensively around the USA and Mexico and written travel books and articles.

            I like minimalist and mobile architecture and write and comment on that regularly. I am somewhat a full-time RVer and have been for about a decade.

            With that said most people don’t want to live that way. And rural Texas is full of that sort of living.

            Still, I do know of an older couple that has a beautifully remodeled 60’s mobile home that keeps the exterior “rough” because they are afraid they will be charged extra taxes (did you know that Texas property taxes are actually among the highest in the nation?) so one has to laugh at this stuff.

            Anyway … Compared to Florida the cost-to-quality of housing is clearly on the side of FL vs. TX.

        • Hah! So, let’s try “If it weren’t for technology industry, CA would be horribly poor”. So What? If CA had any damn sense, they’d be opening a huge oil industry of their own, and REALLY be rich. Maybe even rich enough to pay the taxes.

          • I think that part of the equation is that you have to have resources in order to exploit them, but with that said have you ever seen the oil wells in LA? An interesting case of oil development in the middle of a city.

    • You sure used a lot of words to say “elitist”.

27. Aww, ain’t you just so special. Look at you, you’re just like Michael Sam, yes you are. How precious. Do you want a cookie?

28. I’ve become a single issue voter. Proven 2nd. amendment supporter or not getting my vote.
    The 2nd.is what protects all the others

    • Me too. It’s also the one issue on which I won’t compromise.

      • Me too.

29. Great article. Today myself, I actually had a chance to talk to a liberal associate about my state’s (Georgia) recent “guns everywhere” law. She was very distraught, near panicking, because she had only, only, only heard what her other liberal friends had told her and what she’d seen on things like CNN. I calmed her down and explained the situation, via how the law was actually written, and she was like, “oh, ok, well that’s not bad, why’s everyone freaking out about that?”. I then made some comments about media sensationalism and what not but the moral of the story being, is that I believe, we have allot* more people that agree with us, than disagree. A lot of them are just very misinformed, and legitimately bullied by extreme leftists. We can kill this enemy with kindness and education before its too late.

    • I think you’re right, in that there are a lot more people who agree with you than disagree with you about SOME aspect of RKBA; the problem becomes, if it’s anything even 1mm short of “all in, no exceptions, no but’s, no matter what” then the bullying sets in from the right, too. “Kindness and Education”? There’s a good deal of that to be found in the articles here on TTAG thanks to the editorial policy and the writers here, but in the comments section…no way, no how. If the comments here at TTAG, one of the most widely read and popular online resources, represents the RKBA community’s reception to anyone venturing from the left, or the middle, there’s a long way to go before this becomes the big tent that many RKBA supporters hope for to protect and expand that right.

      • That’s true, but some of us have been around long enough to remember what we were told before about “compromise” and “common sense”, etc, and have seen what it means. For GCA ’68 I was 22 years old. And a gunowner, semiauto (gasp!) rimfire rifle and .357 magnum revolver. I have seen it happen, over and over, all we want is this, its for the children, we have to do SOMETHING, why are you so unreasonable? Don’t you CARE? And as soon as the meaningless and stupid-on-its-face legislation is passed, the call begins all over again. Well, that won’t accomplish anything, we need common sense gun laws blah, blah, blah, exactly the same, it worked last time, why change. We are really tired of the precise same shit over and over, and we’re supposed to believe that this time it is for real, universal background checks are all they want, REALLY! Anyone who can think can see that will do f**k all to decrease crime, mass murders, illegal transfers, etc, it would not take a WEEK before the next demand would be pinging around the fruitcake fringe. All the demands are already written, approved, waiting in the wings for the next push. The fallback position, for us, is finally to say NO! “Shall not be infringed” has absolutely zero chance of actually being misunderstood, but we keep being told it does not mean what it says, it means what *I* say it means. Because elitist buttwipes think they are so sly, and that they are discussing common sense slavery with savages on some South Sea island. A zero tolerance policy is not as silly as you may think. It has to stop somewhere.

        • Hear, hear!

30. Glad to have you with us, Josh. Welcome to flyover country!

31. The question is…………Would a Liberal abandon their core beliefs, and vote against an anti-gun Democrat, if it meant they would retain their 2A rights?

    • I will jump in here and say that as a rule I don’t vote for 1 issue over every other issue. A lot of conservatives think that Obama hating is their #1 priority. I’d look at a range of issues and firearms are only 1 of those.

      With that said I don’t expect there to be any sort of sweeping gun control any time soon. This nation has bigger problems right now.

      • That means, in plain English, no.

32. I don’t resent your being a Liberal, Josh. It’s the New Jersey part that bugs me. 😀

33. @Dan: You sound like an imminently rational, reasonably intelligent guy. This makes me wonder, exactly what makes you identify as a liberal? The reason I ask is because to me, other than the freedom in your personal life (which I like, being Libertarian), ‘liberal’ implies socialist.

    Can you ‘splain how a person can be a “liberal” but not a socialist?

    • @Rich Grise –

      How do you define socialist? Got national examples?

      • Greece, France, Argentina, Haiti, need more?

        • France is doing very well. Last time that I checked Sweden, Norway, and several other northern Euro nations had a higher standard of living than the USA. In most of those “evil” Euro nations you had healthcare, education, and a retirement pension.

          What’s not to like other than regressives in the USA make up nonsense to diss them?

          • I see your mind is made up so there’s no point in trying to confuse you with facts.

    • Rich; word police; eminently, not imminently. And “liberal” implies Socialist today. It did not always. Just as conservative did not always imply slavery to ridiculous claptrap about magic and miracles.

34. A proud second amendment supporter and gun owner who is a Liberal? If you vote the Democratic platform, you are not a second amendment supporter, you are simply a gun owner voting to take your gun rights away along with everyone else’s.

35. Liberals CAN BE gun owners and 2ND Amendment supporters ,but a lot of them still support universal background checks and other infringing regulation,in the belief that that is what stops crime,when indeed it does not.

36. What, new continental army, did I read you bs right, you didn’t vote for Romney, because he was anti Gun, shit no wonder we are in this jam, people like you suck! I have now obama, because in your mind you didn’t vote, crap! Well I guess that explains it all, I’m going outside to Puke.

    • Necessity would be reduced with fewer libations!

37. Lots of 1st time trolling on this one.

38. Glad to see this article. I suspect there are many liberals who support the Second Amendment, but they don’t speak out because they are silenced by social sanction.

39. What you said. I remember the time, 40+ years ago, when the term “liberal” meant someone who was passionate about supporting the Bill of Rights.

    The following quote is from Hubert Humphrey – not someone one who would be considered a “conservative”: “Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.” (Sen. Hubert Humphrey’s statement, Know Your Lawmakers, Guns, Feb. 1960, p. 4 (1960)).

    Sadly, over that time period, the “progressives” who took control of the Democrat Party have destroyed that meaning of liberal.

    • “Liberals” seem to support all of the BOR except the 2A, “Conservatives”, today, seem to support none of the BOR except 2A.

    • My Mom and Dad were staunch I Like Ike Republicans. Speaking of HHH, whom Minnesot’ns affectionately called, “Hubie,” my Dad said he was on the wrong side. (HHH was a Democrat.)

      When he was Johnson’s veep a running joke was “Vice President Who?”

      Toward their later middle age, they (Mom and Dad) gradually became more Libertarian, but alas, they’ve passed away. )-;

40. Liberal gun owners are hardly exceptional. Been a shooter 40 years, and probably 1 of 3 gun owners I know are liberal or not conservative nor republican. They don’t consider owning a gun to be a litmus test for political POVs. To think that gun ownership is a giveaway for conservative/libertarian thought, is a sucker play for under-informed thinkers.

    • Excellent post.

    • OK, I have a simple mind, or maybe I’m just brain-damaged, but can somebody please explain to me how one can be a “liberal” but not a socialist?

41. If you voted for Barack Obama you are not part of the pro-Second Amendment community, you are an enemy of the Constitution and the Second Amendment.

    • Partisan BS.

    • Romney had more of an ANTI 2A History than BO did before the last election.

      I dont identify with Either Party, i go candidate by candidate. I am and always have been a 2A supporter but i also believe in many social programs. voting is very difficult, but i keep my ears and eyes open.

      I know a lot for Liberal gun owners and voters, after all i live in the northeast. It annoys me when i hear Liberals this and Liberals that. its not about Liberals its about ANTI SECOND AMENDMENT people, they are the bad guys!

42. IMO, it would be great if TTAG posters would separate their gun politics from the rest of their politics. Too many individuals like to put others into a box, or build a strawman of the beliefs of others.

    To rephrase what koolaidguzzler said above, politics are not a good litmus test for someone’s views on gun rights.

    There is no sense alienating or insulting fellow gun supporters over non-gun issues.

    There are plenty of websites where establishment Republicans can fight with the Tea Party, and both can fight with lefties, and theocrats can fight with libertarians, etc. etc.without doing it here

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