What Happens Next? We Need A Plan

1. PLAN? We need BODYGUARDS! DEMAND A BODYGUARD!!!

2. When there isn’t enough shootings in the US to report I see the media is latching on to overseas ones. I still think we are winning in the long haul, Randy

3. I ask myself this all the time. Its clear we need to assemble and get unified, but also what is too far? where is the line in the sand? We cant keep letting them take our rights.

4. I believe that we’ve got to use emotions the same way the anti-gun left uses emotions. It’s relatively easy, and common, for our “president” to trot out children to use as props, or parents of murdered children for the same purpose.

   Yet, we have literally millions of people here in America who are alive today because of the presence of a handgun. There are intact families today because a modern sporting rifle was in the home and the family member at home when violent home invaders decided to come calling knew how to use that MSR. There was a recent case in Texas where this very thing happened and made the news there (though only locally; for reasons we all understand this story was deemed of insufficient interest to the national media). There are women aplenty who have saved themselves the grief, physical and mental torment of a violent rape, all because they had a handgun when they needed it, and they knew how to use it.

   WE need to get these people in front of cameras. I’m stymied as to why the NRA has not done something like this yet. For a few hundred thousand dollars they could pay for plane tickets for a few hundred of these people, have them fill an entire gymnasium, and film them telling their own personal story.

   We’ve got to face it: WE have the facts on our side, but their side has been much more effective pulling the public’s emotional strings. Well, how about the emotions which would surely be brought out by the heartfelt testimony of a young woman who saved her family from a home invader by using her firearm to defend them ? How about some closeups of those children’s eyes ? As the voice-over announces “Little Sally here is alive today … because her mother took her responsibilities to heart … and protected her family.”

   We must learn to use emotion as effectively as our enemies. Then we’ll have the facts AND emotions on our side as well.

   • Yes but I think the emotional battle is failing in the long-run. People are beginning to grow tired of it and our side is using logic and fact, all the while saying that “of course it’s horrible, I have 2 kids of my own…fact…fact…more facts”. I think this adds to our argument’s credibility.

     • Ash and J Roberts are both correct and incorrect. We need to use BOTH emotions and facts, and find a way to send our message in that way. We need to appeal to the ‘feelings only’ people and the ‘thinkers’. We can not win this war by appealing to only the thinkers, which is what we have been doing so far.

       J Roberts talks about using a large meeting with hundreds of “I’m alive today because of my gun” people. Then we should create several ads from that. Have someone describe one of their DGU experiences, and then an announcer quotes a statistic telling us how often the same thing happens around America. The common Slogan should be something like “Guns save lives!”. The general message we want to promote is that Gun Control COSTS lives, because it makes it harder and harder for good people to save their own lives (poorly worded, but you get the idea).

       The NRA has the necessary funding for such an effort, but doesn’t seem to have the kind of leadership to make it happen. The three new NRA News people (Colion Noir, and the other two who I can’t remember) are a step in the right direction. Now we need to really use them in a major mational ad campaign to get our message out there.

       We also need to appeal to new parts of the American demographic. Stop just ‘preaching to the choir’. We need to start making ‘new converts’.

   • On the following website, there’s some good examples of images that may appeal to people on an emotional level, especially under ‘Why People Own Guns’. This kind of material doesn’t depend on Constitutional arguments or statistics to get it’s point across. With our meme-driven internet, propagating this kind of material wherever we can might help us gain traction with the short-attention-span segment of the population, and at least get them thinking.

     http://www.a-human-right.com/introduction.html

     Some of the examples I like:

     http://www.a-human-right.com/s_alive.jpg

     http://www.a-human-right.com/s_getwhat.jpg

     http://www.a-human-right.com/s_whichone.jpg

5. We need to be more than just defensive. The voices of those who demand ‘Compromise’ will view a ‘small’ infringement of our right to keep and bear arms as ‘fair’.

   Proactive movements to regain liberties are required. “Repeal the NFA” could be a rallying cry. Then, when they demand compromise, say “we will look for delisting of supressors/SBRs and allow new select fire weapons as a compromise for a background check overhaul”. That will probably shut them up.

   • I don’t think that would shut them up at all. Instead, they’d howl about how the “gun nuts” want “silenced machine guns” in exchange for background checks that “keep guns out of the hands of criminals”.

     They are very good at manipulating the story, and the majority of media outlets are on their side. It’s like we’re in a boxing match, and the referee is also our opponent’s cut man.

     That said, I think we should be pushing to overhaul some of the stupider provisions of the NFA (preferably repeal the whole thing, but that ain’t gonna happen). Just don’t expect anything to shut the other side up.

     As unfortunate as it is, I think there might be some good that comes out of a few states going full retard. When their crime rates don’t go down, even with draconian anti-2A laws, that’s just one more nail in the coffin for their argument that guns are the problem.

6. Illinois WILL be a shall issue state. We have the votes, we have the court ruling, and the clock is ticking.

   • I certainly hope so. I have my CCW all picked out.

     Elgin area …

7. The best way to counter the lies is with truth. A PSA that has normal people who have used guns to save their lives telling their stories is a powerful tool that stirs up the protective instincts in all of us.

   • The question is, would the NBC, CBS and ABC networks even ALLOW pro-2nd Amendment PSA’s to be aired?

     I doubt it. The 2nd Amendment cause needs to go viral on the Internet in order to reach new minds. Big media is not our friend.

   • > The question is, would the NBC, CBS and ABC networks
     > even ALLOW pro-2nd Amendment PSA’s to be aired?
     >
     > I doubt it.

     Please provide specific examples of a pro-2A PSA that the major TV networks refused to air.

     • I don’t have specifics which is why I said “I doubt” rather than “I know.”

       Have you ever seen a pro-2A ad on a major network?

       NBC, CBS and ABC all have clear anti-2A agendas as evidenced by their nightly news coverage, and these agendas must be endorsed by the shot-callers at the top elsewise they would have been nipped long ago. Am I missing something?

     • > Have you ever seen a pro-2A ad on a major network?

       No, but I have no knowledge of anyone paying for one.

       > NBC, CBS and ABC all have clear anti-2A agendas
       > as evidenced by their nightly news coverage,

       Agreed. You’ll get no argument from me about this point.

       > Am I missing something?

       Any evidence that somebody paid for a pro-2A PSA and that a major TV network refused to take his money.

       • I fail to see where I made any indication that a major network has turned away a pro-2A ad, and I explained how I inferred that a major network is unlikely to run a pro-2A PSA. YMMV.

         By all means I encourage 2nd Amendment advocacy groups to pursue the PSA route, but I wouldn’t count on it being a cornerstone of our efforts. And if NBC does in fact turn away our dollars, then we’ll have an even better case to present (via grass roots and viral campaigns) that the MSM has a decidedly anti-gun agenda and is attempting to deceive the people at large.

       • PSAs are just that – Public Service Announcements. They are provided free by the networks. The networks are required to offer a specific number of minutes per week for PSAs. Anything that qualifies can go into the hopper, like the dangers of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or driving without a seatbelt, but the network decides which to air. How much time do you think we will get?

       • > PSAs are just that – Public Service Announcements.
         > They are provided free by the networks.
         > The networks are required to offer a specific
         > number of minutes per week for PSAs.

         OK, so I shouldn’t have referred to “PSA”, when I meant “paid ad”.

         Has anyone even tried to air a pro-2A ad on a major TV network? Or are we just going to bitch about how the networks won’t air pro-2A ads?

8. “If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail.”
   ~ Benjamin Franklin

   The anti-gun machine is well prepared and well organized, certainly as well as the British were when they set forth to strip their “subjects” of their rights. What saved us was a unification against a common foe, strong leadership, and a careful plan of attack. We did not win our freedom by being reactive, we won it by being proactive. Again, we face a common foe, and I agree, the time has come to set aside the smaller differences for the greater good – for our liberty and for the liberty of our children as well. To think that another mass shooting will not happen, and that they won’t capitalize on it, is Pollyanna thinking we cannot afford. The time to plan, is now.

9. “What concerns me is that we fail to unite. We don’t rally on a common message.”

   And there you have it. The problem is diversion and dissipation of resources. You can either spend your day swatting flies, or you can close the GD screen door. The disarmament crowd has us swatting flies all over the country, working hard and dissipating our limited resources fighting against the passage of civilian disarmament legislation piece by piece wherever it pops up. We can never win this game because we do not have the people (pro-gun people tend to have jobs to go to) or the financial resources to throw at all these distracting problems. But we DO have the trump card. The Second Amendment supersedes any and all individual state legislation. Unless I am mistaken that makes every state passed gun control legislation unconstitutional. Rather than spend our time and money on these distracting brush fires we need to focus entirely on filing suit in federal court not just on the grounds that these laws are prima facie unconstitutional, but they also violate our civil rights. And this needs to be done BEFORE BHO has a chance to appoint the next justice to SCOTUS and wins the constitutional argument by liberal default.

   In the history of this great (usually) nation there has never been a successful attempt to amend or modify in any way any of the original Bill of Rights. I think it would be political suicide for any politician to even attempt to do so because if you can amend one, where does it stop? And if the government can amend a basic civil right, is that right any longer basic, or is it a right granted to you by the government that now sets its parameters?

   “…shall not be infringed.” THAT needs to be our rallying cry and our laser beam focus, otherwise they will overwhelm us with their tsunami of piecemeal legislation in every jurisdiction they can possible influence.

   • The problem is that many of these state laws are based in some part on the 1994 AWB, which I believe did stand up to court scrutiny. Even the most recent decisions on 2A (heller for example) stated that the 2A is not an unlimited right. It is subject to “reasonable restrictions” (whatever the hell those are).

10. My plan is to wedge my M-14 up the azz of any gub’ment thug that shows up at my door for for my guns.

11. After the next shooting we say, over and over again, the truth.

    Once again, laws preventing effective self defense have caused more tragic, senseless, and unnecessary death. Every dead child is blood on the gungrabbers hands. Heroic adults tried to step up and became martyrs rather than heroes because you wanted feel good legislation that has never resultsed in anything but dead babies.

    • I think that we demand armed security for our schools and other public places. If we don’t get it, likely the blockers are the same ones who want our guns. If another shooting happens after that, we lay the blame squarely at their feet.

12. Every time Wayne LaPierre appears on any of the Sunday morning TV shows based out of Washington DC, he needs to have a 30-round AR-15 magazine with him, and taunt the authorities to come after him.

    Don’t do this just once. Don’t do this just twice.

    Do this every time, even it means doing it for years and years.

    The District’s attorney general has already gone on the record that

    “prosecution would not promote public safety …nor serve the best interests of the people”.

    What better way to show how useless gun control laws are, and how hypocritical the Civilian Disarmament Lobby is?

    The problem is that

    (1) LaPierre doesn’t have the guts to do it, since such an action does carry a risk of doing time in prison, and

    (2) LaPierre has more in common with fellow Washington-insider David Greogry than he does with 4 million NRA members, and 10s of millions of other gun owners. To expose NBC’s hypocrisy would be a violation of “professional courtesy”.

    • This is such an inflammatory reply I suspect trollery.
      Money talks and you know what walks. Use all the tools n your toolbox and encourage the leadership to at least work without this kind of circular firing squad sniping if they cant synergize. NRA SAF GOA nationally and any effective groups state level. Keep spreading the word thru friends co-workers relatives and use the facts and resources of those entities and TTAG to help make your case. Write a letter to you reps on isues that matter and keep it simple straightforward professional and polite but tell them what you want. All of the above IS WORKING. So just keep doing what works.

13. Step 1: Take someone who is on the fence shooting.

    • Step 2: Provide informative materials to these people showing them that guns do not cause crime, gun control laws are ineffective, and that we’ve had a huge drop in crime from what Democrats want to call the “good old days” of the 80’s.

      • I agree with you, sort of.

        Do not forget the 80s was when Bedtime for Bonzo enthusiastically signed FOPA with the Hughes Amendment, which took away our right to buy new autoguns, and even old ones, at reasonable prices.

        I remember that because I was buying them then, I’m still displeased with that senile old fool, and is one of the many reasons Reagan wasn’t even slightly ‘pro-gun’. Not to mention his pathetic history in CA as Gov.

        Net net, that argument kinda leaves open the suggestion that those restrictive laws had some positive effect. Ergo, even more restrictive laws would be even more effective.

        • My “Good old days” comment was sarcastic. Democrats want to pretend we had less crime 20-30 years ago which is completely false – we have far lower crime now than we did in the early 80’s when you could easily buy new full auto firearms.

        • That’s kinda my meta-point. The grabbers will try to point to FOPA and whatnot as see, “regulation is working”.

          I know, I’m over thinking it. They’d realistically never actually follow that logic tree, but that’s how my brain works… I never want to underestimate my enemy.

14. We need our own media outlet.

    What allowed the Black Civil Rights movement to progress was the enthusiastic cooperation of the national media, who was unafraid to show the government at its worst.

    Today the media may as well be another Federal Bureaucracy as far as firearms are concerned, and its killing us softly. With every slanted anti gun article ,and hit piece we lose a vote , and probably more then that. The anti gun movement would die a quick death if 20/20 had a panel interview with a group of home invasion survivors who used firearms to save themselves.

15. For those of you in California we are beginning to become unified. For our April 16th committee hearing in Sacramento we are coordinating with:
    Californians Opposing Gun Restrictions
    GOA California
    CalGuns Foundation which covers FPC, Cal-FFL.
    CGSSA.ORG
    Tea Party California

    The GRAA is putting a primer together for local political activism.
    You are quite correct, we can no longer remain silent anymore. If we do, we will see the rights we have evaporate. California, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Colorado are all now the front lines. We are already seeing political action taking place in Colorado. I suspect we will see more political action in states where these laws are being passed.

    • Good work! Thank you especially for leveraging all the good Calguns has done building awareness with great legal talent from SAF and for the effort to secure shall issue Sheriff by Sheriff with a model policy.

16. We kill the Batman.

    • +1

17. People made “reasonable” arguments for segregation well after reconstruction and the fourteenth amendment. It took the Courts to say “we freakin mean it!” We are in that period again with the 2A. In the time between reconstruction and desegregation, we had the Bolsheviks and Nazis doing “reasonable” things. They were “reasonable” because they sold it to the right portion of the population. We must not allow ourselves to be “Reasonable” we can not compromise or discuss. We must EDUCATE and raise money. We must send it to mass movement organizations, the SAF, NRA, GOA, local affiliates, law firms backing local cases, everyone! My personal donations are up 600% over last year and I’m giving up other discretionary (and not quite so discretionary) funding choices. But really, the most important thing I’m doing is talking. Talking to everyone I know who is pro gun control. I don’t even need to preach “pro -gun” I rely on “PRO-LIBERTY.” Walk them through that kind of thing and let them decide for them selves that the Bozos have to go. Then play the “Zombie game” of “What if” and when the answer turns into “you can’t because you don’t own a gun or even know how it works!” It’s time to take them shooting. My record is 9 since january and I’m not quitting.

    THIS is “grass roots.” You can do it too.

    • +1000 !

18. I think the problem is 1) pro-gun people are more independent and hence, when not defending 2A from direct assault, go back to “leave me alone” 2) gun-control is taking every little opportunity to push their propaganda and position.

    So “what after”? 3) need to set aside some time each year, or look for opportunities to strengthen our position when NOT playing defense (i.e. go on offence). How?
    – gun appreciation day: i.e. take someone shooting who hasn’t before. Have a fund-raiser or event celebrating individuals who used guns for defense successfully.
    – Start your own local Political Action Committee: Meet once a month or two to take the opportunity to get statistics out there that disprove/expose gun-control propaganda. Practice debate skills. Help spread the word on what’s going on. Check up on your local government. Are there indirect bills (mental health issues for example) to support?
    – With or without the support of your local gun group, sponsor a representative or other public figure to a gun-safety class. Take local media heads and celebrities (even the local independent free-newspaper publications) to the range, or gun-safety class. (help cure the gun-phobia).
    – Something more NPR related – Public service announcements on gun safety. Help with risk assessments (i.e. if you have kids around are your firearms secured properly? Do they know the Eddie-eagle actions? Cardinal rules of gun safety?)

19. Sell your safe queens in order to buy practical weapons, ammo, food, and medical supplies. Know your surroundings and terrain. Find like-minded individuals you can trust. Sit down in silence one night and truly ask yourself if you want your child to grow up as a citizen or slave. Draw a line in the sand and abide by it.

    In the meantime, go to rallies, take people shooting, inform the ignorant, do all that jazz that hasn’t been working if it makes you feel better.

    • “Sell your safe queens in order to buy practical weapons, ammo, food, and medical supplies”

      Ive known two people that have liquidated their pretty ARs, ammunition, and magazines (with no problem) for AKs and SKSs, gobs of ammunition, and magazines/stripper clips. They had some money left over so they took a training course or two and purchased some body armor and plates.

      I agree with their sentiment 100%. If you are on a budget, I would rather you buy a Mosin and/or Makarov and a bunch of ammunition and train with it than pay ridiculous prices for ARs or a WASR.

20. I read a lot of history and play a lot of strategy games. One common theme is that if you’re thinking defense—stopping someone else, you’re losing. That’s because you are reacting to what the other guy is doing. He is dictating the terms of your conflict, be it military, intellectual, or what have you. Ask dyspeptic gun smith and others of his generation and what you’ll hear is that 50 years ago we didn’t have the case law we do now supporting the second amendment. What we did have back then was a real national gun culture. Since then the gun control machine has methodically attacked our position. They have won over and over again because:
    A. They have convinced the media that 80 million households are a statistical anomaly and that the other half of America represents both public opinion and common decency.
    B. They have actively financed and ruthlessly built a political machine.
    C. They have used these resources to define the language, terms, and scope of the gun control debate.
    D. They have never-ever let up.

    A media campaign simply isn’t enough, nor is attacking carry laws in the hopes of further changing the legal landscape. Those are good steps, but ultimately aren’t working quickly enough. What we must do is change the political landscape and make the second amendment a bipartisan issue. We must raise public awareness of gun ownership and detoxify it in the public view. Law can be changed. We need to elect people who are willing to change existing code at the state and federal level that will not only vote for those changes, but begin the tectonically slow process of changing the legislative process. One president won’t do it.
    How do we do that? We find the knowledgeable luminaries who have the know-how to get the job done. Then we find wealthy people willing to throw serious (as in hundreds of millions) of dollars at those problems. What I hear constantly is that if we yell loud enough, if we repeat the facts often enough, if we peacefully demonstrate in large enough numbers, the politicians will lose their nerve. That’s an idealistic view, and one that isn’t supported by history. Look at every one of the recent packages passed in Maryland, Connecticut, New York…etc. Thousands of protesters made their voices heard and the laws still passed. Politicians are elected by people. People in specific districts support gun control. Their motivation can’t be swayed through logic or science. They don’t fear our wrath because we didn’t get them elected.
    Protesting is important. Media campaigns are important. Fighting through the courts is very important. But the only way I see us winning this war is by redefining the terms, the ground, and the stakes.

    • +1 bazillion

    • The NRA is spot on this strategy. I know some people here don’t like them but they excel at framing the conversation and not straying from the points THEY want to make. They do not let anyone dictate to them what the conversation is going to be.

      We should all take a page out of their book as far as that goes.

      For the record I have agreed with everything they have said thus far…

    • Awesome post. In have an idea for the name of this campaign – we could call it “Zerg Rush for Your Rights” 🙂

21. The author is spot on.
    He says “we need a plan” and then, knowing or not, he gives it to us.
    I recently retired from large multi-national corporation where I served as a marketing manager. When I went to work for company X I had absolutely no marketing experience. But they hired me because I had a very high level of expertise in the use of the high tech products they wanted to sell.
    So, I sat at my desk for about two weeks wondering what heck I was doing there. Then, one day thinking I’d probably be fired, I just flat out asked the guy that hired me what it was I was supposed to do.
    He just laughed and simply said, “find ways to get people excited about our stuff and make them want it.” “It’s about wining hearts and minds.”
    Could it be that simple? I had a great career doing just what he said.

    The author suggests that we flood the TV with real ads of real people who escaped death, rape, and who knows what by being prepared to respond and being armed. Could it be that simple?

    He couldn’t be more right. We need to in the game of winning hearts and minds, put legs on this and then SUPPORT IT WITH OUR POCKETBOOKS.

    I’m in. How can I help?

22. I agree with other commentors that trying to fend off the hundreds of new states laws in the courts is a losing strategy.

    First and foremost, we need a show of force. I keep suggesting that as many citizens as possible — in the millions — all assemble on July 4th at a few key locations in every state. Imagine if 10s or even 100s of thousands of pro-2nd amendment citizens assembled at a few cities in every state?

    Second, we need grass roots activism. The best method, as many have suggested, is taking as many people as possible to a shooting range: teach them gun safety and show them how fun and responsible gun ownership is.

    Third, we need a primer to teach everyday gun owners how to share a few key points with people who are not 2nd Amendment supporters.

    Fourth, we need the media campaign that others have described — showing the people who are only here today because they saved their lives with a gun.

23. BTW:
    Need a spokesperson?
    Anyone catch Larry Gatlin on the Huckabee show?

24. Gun owners also need to be educated.

    The following article – http://www.pressherald.com/news/mainers-not-easy-targets_2013-04-07.html – mentions that, “King’s staff said the roughly 6,000 people who have contacted his office on guns since the Newtown shootings have been about equally divided on the bills”. King is a Senator from Maine, and it is a State with a high rate of gun ownership.

25. They have dead kids and can count them. We have live ones and only God knows how many were saved. That is hard to overcome but must be attempted. I live in a rural, upstate New York countywith more cows than people. We are going to be heard.(not herded)

26. We are all rugged individualists and all we really want it to be left alone. Which is why we will always find it difficult to speak with one voice. Under the circumstances, the NRA must be given kudos for managing to have a voice at all.

    Our enemies are the collectivists, weak minded fools who are delighted to parrot whatever they’re told by the gungrabbers. They always speak with one voice since they don’t have one of their own. They are happy when their slave states go full retard and ban everything in sight. They are Judas goats, leading their country straight to the slaughterhouse. And when it gets there, they’ll blame it on us.

    • Dear Ralph: yes. It is useful to remember how many border collies there are vs. the number of sheep. Hint: we are the border collies.

      • +1. I prefer German Shepard as flock guardian.

27. More gun owners. We need more gun owners, especially in the authoritarian fascist states. It’s that simple. You won’t have to fight the battles in the courts if you’ve already won in the legislature.

28. The most important thing we need is the NRA, SAF, GOA, TTAG – SOMEONE to start getting interviews with people for “I used a gun to defend myself” commercials. We need to air these all year long, every year.

29. And not one of you has suggested the one thing that is most common to gun violence – Drugs. For the love of Pete end this War on Drugs. Decriminalize, regulate and tax the whole drug trade. Did we learn nothing from Al Capone, the Mafia, and the whole Prohibition Era? Is the War on Drugs that much different than the Prohibition Era?

    Personally, what I want to tell all politicians is ‘Great, you passed another anti-gun law but it does nothing to stop the ‘Why’ there is gun violence. You addressed the ‘How’ but neglected the ‘Where’ too. Banning guns in white suburbia does what to stop the gang violence in the ghetto?’

    • You are correct imho but that is a complicated enough topic that polarizes people especially LEO who are willing to speak out on 2A.

      I’d rather KISS while we have the momentum and wins on 2A and let libertarians and pot smokers carry the ball on that “legalize drugs
      ” issue for now.

30. Benjamin Franklin said it very succinctly, “We’ll either hang together or we’ll hang seperately.”

31. 14′ midterms will tell the tale. If the people have learned nothing and voted for the libtards (democrats) yet again, then we are all truly skull effed. Remember, all of these state laws that are in place, and the federal laws that are not, are due to the control (or lack of) by democrats in certain political bodies.
    Liberalism is a mental disorder.

    • We cant let up as the momentum turns in PRO-2A favor. Remember the 2012 election and complacency among Repubs. Obama has his Google Geeks and OFA multi-millions and the State Run Media that is terrified to admit they blew it or worse are doubling down and all in. We’d be foolish to forget that this fight is only beginning.

      • Yes. This is indeed a critical juncture. If another school shooting happens before the midterms………its over.

    • you are not helping the cause with the name calling and mixing political ideology with psychology.

      • This IS a political problem. This IS a libtard (democrat) problem. There are democrats who are progun (rare as Dodo birds….and kicking themselves for falling for the lies of ‘the One’, Obummer) and who do not argue with what I am saying.

    • I don’t know if he is helping or not, but he is not wrong.

      • No, Pat is correct.

32. For our part, all we can do is show the truth to those who have been lied to. Show them how they were duped, who was doing all this deceit, and why they were lied to.
    From the Violence Policy Center website:

    “The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun— can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.”

    What they mean:

    The American public is generally ignorant about guns, so we can lie to them very effectively by equating “ugly” rifles like the AR-15 as “the same thing as the Army M-16”, after all they look alike, don’t they? That is enough “proof” for these stupid people. The “confusion” of the public about guns is not to be eliminated by telling them the truth. That would ruin our plans to advance our goals for more useless “gun control”. We must cultivate this public ignorance about guns, and exploit this ignorance as much as we can, to fool the public into thinking the way we want them to think.
    We can stress the point that these guns are not good for hunting, which is what most urban citizens think of as the only “good purpose” for guns. We will ignore the fact that the Armalite Rifle 15 (AR-15) was marketed as a “varmint rifle” for hunting woodchucks before it was adopted by the Military and re-designed to allow “machine gun” fire. Of course we will not mention any other “lawful uses”, such as target shooting. Just keep repeating, over and over, “Nobody needs a machine gun to hunt deer”.

    When the “gun muggles” learn how they have been duped, they won’t have a very high opinion of those who bullsh1ted them blind.

33. The best plan is for well prepared good guys with guns to stop the next mass shooter before mass casualties. And the next, and the next…. Pretty soon the mass shooters will get the idea, probably sooner than the politicians will.

34. Part of me wonders why we are even conversing with the civilian disarmament crowd. Is it because they wear nice suits and dresses and have famous, wealthy people in their camp? Is it because they use “nice” words?

    Suppose you were walking into your local car dealer to purchase a pickup truck. On the way in, a man steps out of the shadows and insists that you NOT buy a pickup truck. Of course you tell the man that it’s a free country and you will purchase whatever vehicle you want. Then he brandishes a gun and tells you in no uncertain terms, “If you buy a pickup truck, I will come and take it away from you. If you try to stop me from taking it away from you, I will kill you.”

    No one in their right mind would think it is a good idea to sit down and talk with a person making such demands. So why do we “sit down and talk” with gun grabbers — regardless of how nicely they are dressed?

    • For 2 reasons.
      1. Not everyone who is for gun control is beyond redemption. There are some people who are simply not aware of the truth and simply need a calm reasoned individual to show them the light. For those who genuinely want to change public opinion and win converts, willingly walking into the other camp is a necessity, all be it a thankless and often hopeless one.
      2. Because as much as I hate to admit this, guns and second amendment rights aren’t the only priorities facing our nation. Why are we talking to the other side? Because modern politics has become an exercise in conflict. The only way to accomplish anything is to have that discussion, to influence that dialog, to inject the opposing view into the conversation. Do we want to repeal the NFA? Sure we do. Are we going to do so under the current political landscape? Hell no. Talking to the other side allows us to amend and limit anti gun policy, provide a reasoned counter argument to the record, and ensures that gun control isn’t presented as inevitability. Really though, it’s because we’re going to have to work with these people to fix the numerous problems facing the country. Not every anti-gun politician is against everything I believe in. We can engage in dialog without compromising our principals. No less important, presenting ourselves as the reasonable, principled, plausible movement is essential to demarginalizing gun ownership in the public eye.

      The truth is that gun control has become a liberal crusade. There are parts of this country where thousands of demonstrators were insufficient to stop the worst kind of 2a infringements. Opposition is important. But changing the shape of the conversation and watering down that which we can not stop outright are important too. We can’t do those things if we become the intractable enemy. Doing so effectively absents us from the process. We need to fight smarter, not harder IMHO.

35. The problem with the Pro Gun Control crowd is that they don’t let a little thing like facts get in the way of promoting their message.

    As for those of you who think this should be an intellectual argument, based on fact alone, you are living in a dream world. Emotion drives the Liberal machine, period. When was the last time you read a well reasoned, fact based position from a Liberal…on ANY issue. Emotion is the major tool in their war chest, and it works, so emotion based arguments is how to improve our position.

    With that said, the best strategy that has been on the table for some time is to use DGU success stories, and this will work with those Conservatives who are just to lazy to get informed, as these folks are helping to put nails in the coffin of the 2nd amendment. This “emotional” appeal will also help sway those Democrats who have not thought through the real impact of Gun Control and Gun Free Zones. Use Obama’s own words in the ad, “,,,if there is only one life to be saved…”, and trot out the DGU story.

    Right now, all I see from the NRA and others is preaching to the choir, so the Liberal machine of emotional argument is working, plain and simple. Liberals have shown that they will simply ignore SCOTUS decision and pass restrictive laws. This leads to more litigation, but the Liberals get what they want in the short term. When a new SCOTUS decision comes down, the Liberals pass new restrictive laws and the process starts all over again. If we ever see a change in the Court, the 2nd amendment is doomed. Stay on the same path, and you will see the US thrown into a civil war…

36. That’s almost the right question. Yes, “What next?” but not when / after the next media-catalyst event. The time is now, and the goal is framing the conversation before it starts.

    This is a PR game. The time to do PR is before you need it.

    The problem isn’t the hair-trigger deluge of legislation and emo-stampede pieces, just waiting for the call to arms. (See what I did there?) The problem is the assumptions built into the culture before it happened. Guns are for thugs. Guns are fetish-objects for OFWGs. Guns cause violence, are involved in most violence, and have no protective or non-violent uses. “The authorities” are always there and never screw up. Blah, blah, blah.

    We aren’t just pushing back against the orchestrated stampede but against a host of (flawed) arguments and (wrong) assumptions about the world established before it started. Fix that.

    “What next?” is now. Do everything suggested in the article. Do everything suggested in the comments. But, do it starting now, in a steady, relentless, omnipresent drumbeat of small, calm, reasoned facts and images.

    The hardest part is going to be staying out of the mud – since they’ve cast gun folk as “other” and deranged, first stay calm. There’s a Jackie Robinson movie bio movie coming out soon. To change baseball (and in part the US) he had to be a good enough player. He also had to keep his cool, all the time, every time. (Can I say “keep his cool?”) He refuted the haters’ claims by being talented, by being calm, and by being there.

    Get them out of their heads and into reality. For the advocates it won’t matter, but we don’t need to convince them. Convince the essentially reasonable low-experience citizen, and the frothing provocateurs will look like what they are.

    – Report every DGU.

    – Write a letter to the editor about every DGU they misreport. Be calm. Be positive about the good stuff the citizen did. Don’t bother slamming the boneheads.

    – Get involved with groups or organizations that have positive experiences with guns: scouting, vets, shooting orgs, reenactors, hunters.

    – Invite friends along to places where there may be guns. *Not* where guns are the subject, at first.

    – Insist on a line, or a word or mention of the gun part of the good stuff in every article, announcement, press release, brochure, blog post, where guns are *also* there. It’s about normalizing the normal.

    For example, in my area there’s a week-long crafts / reenactment festival that also includes black powder shooting. That last never makes the press write-ups and is barely on the published event schedule. A simple, “Hey, we’re here, too. How about a mention?” would help. (Way more effective than calling them – press, for example – on their bigotry. Make them carry the argument of why they choose to exclude you.)

    – Speak up as not a gun owner, first. I, myself don’t own a gun. Yet, I think the spasms and flailing around this topic are ridiculous & disingenuous and the policies harmful. Being not a “gun guy” first reframes the argument from “those crazy gun guys” to “normal folks who have a different opinion about guns.”

    – Notice and re-use quick, well-crafted *and perfectly accurate* points that reframe the question. “The evil NRA, the powerful and nefarious lobbying group that dominates congress in the name of a batshit tiny minority” is how they have been portrayed for years. (Decades?) A quick riposte might be: “Well, the xx million or so American gun owners who never shot anyone might need a lobbying organization, given the repeated attempts to turn them into criminals.”

    Here’s another: “I think it’s lovely that whats-his-name who lives and works behind armed security has come around to allowing our kids the same protection in school. Too bad he had to bad mouth the guys who first proposed it. Of course, I expect to be able to protect my kids just as well when they’re home. I’m certain whats-his-name agrees.”

    – Use and contribute to forums that collect & index useful facts. Facts make great one-liners. The problem is you can’t fume at the ignorance. Drop the fact then move on.

    – Always remember, most of the time in a gun-topic “debate” you are playing to the audience. You won’t convince the frothing apparatchik . It’s not an honest debate. So play to the people you can sway – they certainly will.

    For example, why did the po-po write and somehow release that particular report after being told that no, they can’t inspect the whole damn house based on an anonymous tip to *child services*? Playing to the galleries, and dirtying up the other guy to discredit what he said … for the audience.

    This is a PR game. The time to do PR is before you need it.

    • BierceAmbrose. Excellent points. One of the things we are up against is that many big-city dwellers never really leave the big city environment and are never exposed to anything other than bad uses for guns, so it’s the only thing they understand. Education is very important.

37. Hey folks,

    I live in Blue Minnesota and you might know that we “gun guys” are fighting hard to keep our 2nd Amendment rights as well. I just arranged to take my local elected representative to the gun club soon, for a little shooting one afternoon. I asked, she said “Absolutely and can I bring my husband” and I replied “Absolutely”. I will have her running my black -bull-barreled 10/22 and my heavy-barreled Bushmaster flattop target set-up as neither have much recoil and are very accurate and great fun to operate. At least one of our club officers will participate and we hope we can turn it into an enjoyable afternoon “photo-op” for her and us. There might be a few hoops to jump through on the “photo” thing but we’ll work on that. If all else fails, we just want her to have a good, safe time and hopefully something really good to take back and share with her fellow legislators.

    One other thing I did was to go on the Minnesota BCA site and compiled all the information I could about murders (1124) over the last ten available years. Interesting stuff. As I expected, handguns were involved in 50% (581) of the murders; Rifles in slightly over 3% (37); Knives were almost 16% (178) and hands/feet were used in about 12.5% (140). After compiling the info it was e-mailed to my list and to several state senators and reps. Interestingly, some were not aware of the actual figures. BTW, the BCA gets the info from the County Sheriffs and does not break out the type of guns used in the murders (ie: semi-auto, bolt, pump or revolver) so there is no way to legitimately claim they were “assault weapons” without fabricating it.

    Do what you can. Jim

38. Easy formula, promote responsible peaceable gun ownership and get gun criminals off the streets. The School Shield program is very positive. Volunteer teachers need professional level training to conceal carry as they are the new ambassadors of our 2nd amendment (and thusly the targets of antis). A slim majority of states are expanding their initially cautious, albeit successful, conceal carry programs. But it’s progressives and their politicians that have the blood of mass murders on their hands for their wrongheaded pretend ‘Gun Free’ zones. Even more difficult, some of the extreme prone to violence types (ie; Tucson, Aurora, SandyHook) need incarcerating for their and society’s safety. Pansie progressives, can’t even separate evil away from mainstream America.

39. Oh, forgot my main point, never comply with being disarmed to a level weaker than law enforcement (miltia). Civil disobedience may need to play a role in the near future. Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King

40. The ULTIMATE GOAL of Intl Communisim is the destruction of America, it was true in 1922 and it is true today.
    America cannot be destroyed as long as it’s PPL are armed.
    Communists will NEVER stop trying to disarm Americans!

41. The NRA should be our voice. I know many gun owners find it difficult to associate with the NRA (myself included), but they’re the only organization big enough to counter the political onslaught we’re getting from the leftist media and gun-grabbing politicians. We can work from within the NRA to make it a body that represents all gun owners and to shape our message, but we first have to make the collective decision to stand behind it and let it be our megaphone in the debate.

    Once the “who” is decided, we have to work on the “how”. For every victim of violence held up by the gun grabbers, we must hold up two who were saved by guns. We have to counter their proposals for gun control with alternatives — solutions that address the real core problems instead of blaming inanimate objects. This should be easy for us, given our enlightened perspective. Appeals to emotion work, and we cannot rely on statistics and cold logic alone to win the war. We have to craft emotional arguments too — use the enemy’s weapons against them.

    These are all things we should be doing now, not waiting for the next mass shooting. We can’t worry about “what happens next” at the expense of the present.

42. It is simple. The Second Amendment, protects the First, and the First protects the Second. You can not have one (which is not infringed upon) without the other. Just imagine the uproar from the liberals (ACLU) if congress was considering limitations to our freedom of speech. If we allow our government to edit the Bill of Rights just because it makes us feel safer, don’t be surprised when they start whittling down the other parts of it. If we loose the Second Amendment then we might as well say good bye to the rest.

43. So many people have touched on things that are important. Most of them are things we need to be doing or need to be doing more.

    It’s been said before by those far more talented than I am, that we don’t get to go into this war with the NRA/GOA/SAF we want. We go into it with the one we have. In spite of our misgivings about one or more of these organizations, or those who speak for them, we absolutely must support them! And they must support each other.

    This is going to be a long fight. Long as in never-ending. The anti-rights folks will never quit. So, we must win and we must continue to win…and teach the next generation of pro-rights people to do the same thing.

    When the current flurry of activity ends, we will have no time for rest. Rather, we must increase our efforts. It’s easy to believe we can rest, or coast along. We do so, forgetting the lesson of nature. In nature, and in all human activity, there is no such thing as stasis. We either grow or we decline. To believe in stasis is to accept decline and a slow, gradual death. Our only choice is to grow.

    We must absolutely understand how the other side understands the concept of “narrative”. Narrative is not a story or a collection of facts. Narrative is the TELLING of a story or collection of facts. In post-modern thought, which is so prevalent among those who are anti-rights, truth is not simply (or sometimes ever) found in the facts. Rather, truth is found in that “encounter between the hearer/reader and the narrative”. Until we understand this, and learn to use the narrative to our advantage, we have little chance of reaching many of those in our current culture. This doesn’t mean we must (or even should) lie as our opponents sometimes do. It means we must understand the absolute importance of narrative as well as our opponents…and they understand it very well, indeed. As a result, they are very successful in appealing to a huge percentage of the population.

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