Some thoughts on anti-gunner worldview & making real progress

[divert_fuse]

I have nothing to say other than i just read this thread and with what i read I see no hope of regaining gun rights in california in my lifetime and that should be a while.

I know the feeling, man, but you gotta keep your head up. Nobody's gonna do it for you.

you are doing the leftist socialist's anti-gun side's work for them and negating each other with personal attacks, demanding evidence to back up statements without offering any, and i have seen more intelligent arguing on a primary school ground. you have insured the worst is still to come with your collective attitudes.

"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

--Some dude, a long time ago.

See, if you turn around and call him names for not collaborating effectively, it doesn't actually increase the overall level of effective collaboration. Like Ghandi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

[fiddletown]

....Okay, that was just frustration talking. But I really get the feeling you're treating this too combatively. I'm trying to brainstorm here. If whatever you're doing is somehow ultimately aimed at getting us more gun rights, great, but you might want to make that more explicit in the future, because it's easy to get into worthless fight spirals on internet forums.

"Brainstorming"? I gave up late night, dorm room bull sessions 50 years ago.

First, this is a lousy environment in which to do serious, productive brainstorming. I've done that sort of thing in the real world seeking real results, and it's most effectively done among people who know each other and who have worked together. It also helps when there is a clearly defined goal or desired result. And it doesn't obviate the need to support opinions with evidence.

Also, if we're really going to have a real and meaningful discussion of ways in which to further the RKBA, it's not the sort of thing one wants to do in public. If I have some great, secret ideas about how to further gun rights, I don't want everyone in the world with Internet to have access to them.

My personal focus has, for quite a few years, been introducing people to shooting. That's helpful, I believe, in a number of ways and for a number of reasons -- not the least of which is reducing misconceptions and ignorance about guns.

For about the last ten years I've been with a group of instructors who put on a monthly Basic Handgun class (originally it was an NRA Basic Handgun class -- our class hasn't changed but the NRA class has). Probably 80% to 90% of our students had never touched a real gun before. Our class enrollment runs roughly 30% female. We have students of all ages from early 20s to us more seasoned types. We've had entire families attend together.

We're older guys, most of us retired or close to it. We've all done a fair bit of shooting and training -- multiple classes at Gunsite, classes with a number of instructors like Massad Ayoob or Louis Awerbuck, USPSA or IDPA competition, NRA instructor certifications, and three are POST certified. Our training group is organized as a 501(c)(3) corporation. We're all volunteers, and none of use receive any compensation (except the company buys us dinner after the class where we do a debriefing). Our class fees are set to just cover our expenses and operating costs. We supply everything -- guns, ammunition, eye and ear protection, a book on California gun laws, etc.

I also spent a few years helping a late friend, a champion trapshooter, put on his periodic beginning wingshooting classes. And I helped coach a youth trapshooting team.

I also provide information on legal issues in hopes that I can help keep gun owners out of trouble.

And there's the matter of being a good ambassador for gun ownership and the RKBA -- as a multilayered, well rounded person; active and contributing to society in a variety of ways and spheres -- in our career, in our community, local charities, the arts, etc. We're not just "gun nuts." We're active, participating members of our communities, and we just happen to own firearms and are interest in, and knowledgeable about, them. The points are (1) to break down stereotypes; and (2) to increase our credibility.

That's what I do. But there is certainly a lot more to do, and we hope it's going to be done by people who know what they are doing. So we hope that our advocacy organizations have skillful and knowledgeable legislative advocates, and we do nee to help financially support those efforts.

We also hope that our advocacy groups have engaged qualified lawyers to pursue important and useful litigation.

....The reality is, we have to work with the resources we have, not the ones we feel we ought to have according to some abstract theory....

So exactly what are you doing and what have you been doing? If you're confident that you're correct and if you think what you laid out in the first post is meaningful and doable, go for it.

Try to get people involved in the shooting sports. Make your arguments. If you think you have a good plan, execute it. Let us know how everything is working our.

[bool1tholz]

The "If someone breaks into your house you are the first responder" argument should resonate with all people but anti-gun people will still fall back to "people don't need guns for protection, that's what the police are for". Usually magical and wishful thinking that police will always be there in time to fix their problem still persists.
However in the more protracted emergency disaster scenario where the police aren't there for days sometimes sometimes gets better success.

Most people are somewhat familiar with Hurricane Katrina (2005) and those a bit older can remember the Rodney King Riots (1992). During Katina hundreds of NOPD officers chose to evacuate or hunker down with their families and didn't show up for work; lawlessness filled the vacuum.
Back in 1992 the LAPD leadership wasn't prepared for the backlash from the not guilty verdicts and more than 1000 buildings burned and 50 people died. For five days there were no police in the no go areas.

Propose the question: what happens when the big earthquake happens and the roads are broken, services are unavailable leaving you on your own for one or two weeks? Even if the person doesn't want to own a gun themselves usually they can't manage to make the logical leap to no one has the right to protect the life of their own family.

The fire extinguisher gun argument punts on the larger gun rights 2A issue and makes a narrower more basic appeal so maybe it doesn't sit well with some but I think it's a starting point for some individuals.

[ja308]

I like to ask anti gunners what the murder rate is in USA. Not once has one provided an answer,this works best when there are a few people observing but just getting the ignorant to admit they know nothing of the subject is a small win.

Naturally the next phase is where does the USA rate on murders per 100,000 population, again a simple web search gives this person new information for changing attitudes.

The work on genocides done by JPFO can also get an antigun self defense person to think further along the lines of historical oppression by governments gone bad. Although I haven't said anything about what would you do if a dictator like Trump tries to round up progressives like Hitler did to the 6 million they put in rail cars. This could be risky because there are some libtards who have so few morals and even less brains that they should not be armed. As a side Trump is close to the most progun president in US history. A point not lost on the libtards who hate him for it !

Other talking point include Kleck data and the old standby would you object to a yard sign stating you are opposed to guns and would never have one in the house!

Its obvious that a few gun owners try to mimic the media stereo type of gun owners being slovenly, unkempt and boorish! Thats why its always a good practice to wear an NRA lapel pin when wearing a suit or attending a symphony, play,concert or other activity gun owners are not credited with enjoying!

[The War Wagon]

They already made a movie about a gun-free utopia, and leftards STILL don't get it.







Feel free to knock yourself out, though. Every minute YOU'RE talking, is one less minute of their yammering.

[tommyboy1966]

I think mosin virus has a great idea that will never happen. The education system sticks it's nose in our kids lives on sex ed, social views, (always leaning left),religion. But they will never teach hanggun safety, because that might have a positive effect and they don't want that. Gives them less to shout about. They don't want a country with guns in the hands of safe citizens. They want a gun free country.

[divert_fuse]

First, this is a lousy environment in which to do serious, productive brainstorming. I've done that sort of thing in the real world seeking real results, and it's most effectively done among people who know each other and who have worked together.

This is true, but I live in San Francisco where I'm not exactly surrounded by a community full of people with whom to do this sort of brainstorming. So I start doing it on the biggest CA gun forum I know of in hopes of getting there.

It also helps when there is a clearly defined goal or desired result.

I thought I made it pretty clear what kind of goal I was aiming at. Criticism of ways in which my goal was insufficiently clearly defined is of course welcome.

And it doesn't obviate the need to support opinions with evidence.

Sure, but I think you were jumping the gun a bit in terms of holding my opinions to high standards of evidence. When I do engineering projects we of course want to validate our assumptions with evidence before we expend a lot of effort building something. But we don't start demanding evidence before we've actually thought a bit about what we might build in the first place.

If I have some great, secret ideas about how to further gun rights, I don't want everyone in the world with Internet to have access to them.

This is a fair point. However, my point is that I don't know whether I have great ideas about how to further gun rights, which is why I'm sharing my ideas on this forum. It might be better to share them in private with my circle of shooting buddies, but I don't really have one.

If you thought my ideas were worth keeping secret, you could PM me to say so, we could take them down and arrange to discuss them in private. But if they're not good enough (as you appear to think, which is fine), there's no particular downside in having all the bad ideas we won't use available to anyone on the internet.

My personal focus has, for quite a few years, been introducing people to shooting.

Me too, although probably not as long, Still, I often feel the need to try and think bigger than that. Maybe it's no use, but it's not like I was passing up the opportunity to take somebody shooting today.

For about the last ten years...

I apologize for any suggestion that you were doing nothing of use. I was going to qualify that statement, but I just didn't bother because I feel like I write too much to begin with.

[divert_fuse]

The "If someone breaks into your house you are the first responder" argument should resonate with all people but anti-gun people will still fall back to "people don't need guns for protection, that's what the police are for". Usually magical and wishful thinking that police will always be there in time to fix their problem still persists.
However in the more protracted emergency disaster scenario where the police aren't there for days sometimes sometimes gets better success.

In my experience, the latter is not very persuasive because anti-gunners are all too aware of how rare these situations are. This is the same reason why I say that mass shooters are not at the top of their emotional concerns (even if it's a common debating point) because there aren't all that many of them.

Home intruders are not as rare as natural disasters, but still rare enough that in my experience most anti-gunners don't really worry much about them. They tend to feel that to want a gun for defense against home intruders, you'd need to be worried about the possibility. They aren't. They also tend to assume that gun owners must be worried about such possibilities, and in my experience it's usefully mind-expanding to tell them that I'm not. I explain that while I could in theory use my kitchen knives very effectively against an intruder, I really have them for making dinner not because I expect an intruder. The same goes for my guns, which I mainly use for taking girls to the range (this is almost unfair in San Francisco).

[divert_fuse]

I like to ask anti gunners what the murder rate is in USA. Not once has one provided an answer,this works best when there are a few people observing but just getting the ignorant to admit they know nothing of the subject is a small win.

I don't know how exactly you sound when you do this, but it's important to keep firmly in your mind the difference between debating and persuading. Debating is aggressive and tends to make people cling to their beliefs more tightly. They see you as an enemy trying to fool and control them, so even when you appear to have an unstoppable argument, they just assume that a rebuttal exists and they'll figure out what that is in due time.

Maybe try to adopt a more charitable attitude. Try to think of people not as anti-gun libtards, but as future 2A supporters. When they're ready to try to expand their minds, you'll be there to help them.

[unusedusername]

This is a fair point. However, my point is that I don't know whether I have great ideas about how to further gun rights, which is why I'm sharing my ideas on this forum. It might be better to share them in private with my circle of shooting buddies, but I don't really have one.

This seems like the first thing you could fix. It's very difficult to get involved in a political endeavour without personally knowing the people involved.

You might start by joining a shooting club of some verity. I am personally in the Santa Clara Valley Rifle Club, but there are a bunch of ranges around here with club type activities. These activities usually lead into political discussions of this type.

[divert_fuse]

You might start by joining a shooting club of some verity. I am personally in the Santa Clara Valley Rifle Club, but there are a bunch of ranges around here with club type activities. These activities usually lead into political discussions of this type.

Look at that, my secret plan is working already!

Thanks for the suggestion.

[ja308]

I don't know how exactly you sound when you do this, but it's important to keep firmly in your mind the difference between debating and persuading. Debating is aggressive and tends to make people cling to their beliefs more tightly. They see you as an enemy trying to fool and control them, so even when you appear to have an unstoppable argument, they just assume that a rebuttal exists and they'll figure out what that is in due time.

Maybe try to adopt a more charitable attitude. Try to think of people not as anti-gun libtards, but as future 2A supporters. When they're ready to try to expand their minds, you'll be there to help them.

Im very charitable when politely asking what the USA murder rate is! In fact I am almost always polite.

Thank you for the reminder that it is the goal to make them into educated, truth seeking, pro liberty republicans !

My post didn't really reflect that !

Always ask an ANTI if they would object to a yard sign stating NO GUNS HERE !or similiar.