Ends, Means and Falisfiability

[ipser]

I open carry because it is my right. I exercise my rights as I would exercise my muscles, lest they atrophy and become weak. Our rights have become weakened because nobody exercises them.

My purpose in this thread is not to attack or defend cmth. I simply noticed his very clear statement of beliefs and thought it worth a seperate discussion.

Generally speaking, we all share the same goals. There may be some variations in priority (e.g. CCW vs. LOC, self defense vs. hunting, etc.) but I think by now everyone understands the holistic nature of the RKBA and the ultimate goals of prohibitionists. Gone are the days when the anti-gun lobby could pick off the politically weak among us without arousing the ire of all.

Nevertheless, there remain significant disagreements on means. Whle everyone pays lip service to a multi-pronged effort, there is a considerable debate regarding what are the best means to the shared ends and which activities should be subordinated to others or entirely avoided.

To help set the context, let me remind everyone what our friends at the NRA suggest:

http://www.calnra.com/actvist-tips.shtml

(I hope everyone's been calling and writing Barbara Boxer to help her make up her mind on this issue!)

Cmth describes a commonly held model of how rights are preserved and defended. Others prefer a much quiter approach of working through the courts or lobbying politicians.

The question I want to pose her is not which approach is best but, rather, whether or not it is possible to resolve this disagreement at all.

I would like to invite everyone to think about, and present a falsification test for his own beliefs. What evidence, available right now, or by some reasonable experiment, would change your mind? Or is your mind so firmly made up that you can imagine nothing that would change it?

[bsim]

Unfortunately, the 2A in CA is a priveledge right now, not a right. Priveledges can be easily trampled on.

Hence the stand-down notice until appropriate.

[MudCamper]

:beatdeadhorse5: :beatdeadhorse5: :beatdeadhorse5: :beatdeadhorse5: :beatdeadhorse5: :beatdeadhorse5: ad nauseum

[Librarian]

Interesting. I'd just been thinking about this.

Let's try setting some background, useful to think about the collection of problems.

1) There is no enforceable RTKBA in California.

It isn't in the State Constitution. The Legislature certainly acts is if there is no RTKBA. State courts agree. Federal District and Circuit courts agreed, up until Nordyke.

Nordyke (http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/index.php/Nordyke_v._King) en banc is on hold for SCOTUS McDonald (http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/index.php/McDonald_v._Chicago); Federal District Sykes (http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/index.php/Sykes_v._McGinness) and Pena (http://wiki.calgunsfoundation.org/index.php/Pena_v_Cid) are on hold for Nordyke.

2) The general run of thought is that it is likely that McDonald will be resolved in favor of applying Second Amendment protection to RTKBA, and that resolution will be given in June 2010.

3) Even after McDonald, should it incorporate the 2nd against the states (and all inferior jurisdictions), it will take court cases challenging specific laws to clarify the extent of RTKBA - and we can't know in advance how those will fall out.

4) In California, a large part of the public hates/fears guns; the reasons for that are many, but the irrationality of much of that tends to mean that those hatreds and fears cannot be much affected by facts.

'A large part' isn't very easy to quantify, but we do know it's large enough that our legislators pander to that fearful group, and seldom allow themselves to be swayed by facts, either.

So far, vocal anti-gun politicians get re-elected, and 'fellow traveler' supporters also get re-elected. The only measuring stick that counts shows that the public either likes (or does not much dislike) what the legislators are doing about guns, or feels there are other redeeming characteristics of those legislators that offset their error on guns.

5) Unloaded Open Carry, outside of GFSZ and a few other restricted places, is legal. It is neither prohibited nor spelled-out as a legal behavior, but it carefully avoids violating the laws against carrying concealed without CCW and carrying loaded in public.

It appears that at least that much is getting through to many police departments. Each department's policy about UOC is proving to be variable.

I think those are the relevant facts.

Are there others?

[GrizzlyGuy]

I think those are the relevant facts.

Are there others?

Nice fact list, Librarian.

Your 1-3 relate to court cases. Other than to continue to donate money to CGF, there isn't much that the general membership can do to influence those outcomes.

Your 4 and 5 relate to politics, the legislature, and activities that could influence the legislature or public perception as a whole (and the voting public elects the legislators, of course). Unless the legislature changes, there will always be the risk of them passing more gun laws that are either "reasonable" and constitutionally sound, or unconstitutional/illegal that could be challenged (but may still go into effect pending the outcome of a challenge). Influencing voters who elect legislators (or call/write them on issues) would seem to be the only "actionable" item at this time for the general membership.

So... who are the voters? The fact I'd submit is this 2009 Field Poll Report (http://field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2309.pdf) that shows voter and population demographics, and changes relative to 1978.

Those people, and the people they will be in the future as the trends continue, are who we need to influence. As usual in politics, the key is to influence those in the middle, who don't yet have strong opinions for or against gun control. Who are they within the overall set? I don't know, I haven't seen data that correlates 'gun attitudes' to political party, age, race, religion, income level, education level, etc.

What could we do if we had that data and cross-correlated it to the Field Poll data? I imagine we'd better understand the people of our state and could do a falsification test on a variety of beliefs we may have. Beyond that, could we better tailor message content, or better target messages to the people we want to reach? I don't know, hopefully someone else does. I'm a geek, not a political scientist. ;)