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We have had much focus on the second amendment and the courts finally agree with us that it is a "individual right".
While we have had a lot of focus on our individual right, we have had little focus on our collective duty (Militia Responsibilities) to be trained and ready to serve to protect a free state.
I am working on how to present what the second amendment means in such a way that it will be more than just a "gun right". Limiting gun rights to "Self Defense" or "Sporting purposes" significantly limits our ability to do public outreach.
Much of our effort has been on defending gun rights, I believe that the best defense is a devastating offense. Our opponents are off balance, they don't know what to do because all of their policies, much of their efforts were based on the foundation that the second amendment was a "Collective right of the states".
The concept that the National Guard was the Militia is without merit, everything is failing apart on them.
Our problem is that if we maintain a defensive strategy, they will have time to regroup, we must not repeat our mistakes of the past.
In 1982 when prop 15 failed, that was the time to go on major offense for gun rights and that did not happen.
This time around, we have no excuses.
Right now our base is pretty solid, we have picked up most of the "Low Hanging" fruit and we must reach higher.
Since I am making notes and I figure many of you are in the same position, I thought I would share my thoughts on this.
If a person lives in a urban area, they probably don't hunt. In fact many people view hunting as a barbaric sport. The only exposure they see with guns is that guns kill and they see it on a ongoing basis.
When people fear for their safety, they are willing to sacrifice the rights of others so that they can be "SAFE". Of course in the same newscasts, we see human rights abuses from all around the world and for many people who immigrated to America, they remember firsthand.
My goal is to create a explanation of the second amendment that I can articulate with someone, one on one. It will take time, but the assumption is that it will be done one on one or in a small group anyway. Here I go.
My view is the second amendment not only recognizes an Individual right to keep and bear arms, but it also confers a "Collective duty" on all of us to be trained and prepared to protect a "Free State" from foreign and domestic enemies.
This brings up the question, what is a "Free State".
The "Free State" our founders were referring to was a state that got it's power from the "Consent of the Governed" and that it operated under the understanding that it existed to "protect our rights".
The first amendment was put in to give us peaceable means to revoke our consent if the government got out of control, the second amendment was put in there to give us violent means should peaceful means fail.
We can deal with our government peacefully to redress grievances because we have the violent means to do so if peaceful means fail.
Our relationship with our government is supposed to be MASTER/SERVANT and we are supposed to be the MASTERS.
"this right shall not be infringed" was put in there because if the government could regulate what arms you could keep or how you could bear them, a government would restrict the right to effectively eliminate the ability of the people to control the government by force.
The people who founded this country knew that if a population loses their arms, then all of their other rights become government revocable privileges.
Now of course all rights are not absolute, there has to be a reasonable balance between our individual RKBA and our collective militia duties and legitimate public safety concerns.
I am not against GUN SAFETY, I believe it is irresponsible that GUN SAFETY is not taught in the schools, we should be doing this to SAVE OUR CHILDREN.
I am not against GUN CONTROL, I believe people who own and carry guns should be competent in their shooting skills.
What our opponents are really advocating is not gun control, it is victim disarmament (VD). Promoting VD is a horrible social policy, to deliberately strip the general population from the ability to protect themselves from violent offenders only promotes crime.
Increasing crime results in increased government spending for law enforcement, expansion of the legal system and more curtailing of other rights in the name of safety.
VD leaves victims helpless to protect themselves against common criminals, and when it mutates into complete civil disarmament (CD), we are then at the mercy of whoever controls the government.
If whoever controls the government is honest and fair, we may be okay, but what happens if our government is controlled by corrupt evil politicians. What if special interest groups seize power of the government, then what?
What happens if we elect someone like Hitler? How about if the elections are stolen, what if the government is overthrown either openly or covertly.
Without a violent means to enforce our rights, we have no rights, all we have is government granted privileges and if we get a bad government like most of the worldwide governments, you better hope that you are not part of a minority group that the government has targeted.
Human rights abuses are standard operating procedures for most governments, it is we who are rare in that the government even recognizes that we have any natural rights.
As long as the majority of the population doesn't understand that the real purpose of the second amendment is to ensure that we maintain all of our other rights, we may get victories in the court of law, but we still will be losing in the court of public opinion.
Ultimately this line of reasoning will eventually lead someone to understand the whole concept behind the values of the American revolution and many people will be really pissed of at what we have today.
Of course my view is all of our other rights are interdependent on each other anyway which means using this line of reasoning will expand our reach to beyond just gun rights.
Large standing armies and select militias are dangerous to liberty, yet our country had to be able to defend itself which is why the bulk of the military power was left in the hands of the people.
If we had stayed with original intent, our national defense structure would be similar to modern day Switzerland. Of course the Swiss system is under attack since many in Europe want to eliminate sovereign nations.
Traditionally most gun owners are white Republican males and up to 1986, whites were the majority in this state. The demographics of California have shifted in the last 20 years that whites are a minority.
Routinely I talk with a broad cross section of the populace and I personally have flipped many people to our side on the gun issue.
Many of those who I flipped were immigrants who came to America.
When I mentioned corrupt government, everything else just flowed.
Now of course there is the issue of violence with guns and that I will save for another posts because there are many sub issues.
The common thread on most societal problems are side effects from failed government policies and rather than address the failing government policies, the politicians divert attention.
For example. the Parolee who killed 4 Oakland cops. There will be a lot of focus on the guns used, Politicians are using that incident to try and get us to register our hi cap magazines.
What I have seen is little if any focus is how the Parolee got to where he was at.
There are many criminals who are just PURE EVIL, but I believe many violent offenders are the by products of broken families, the Welfare State and the NARCO ECONOMY.
Pushing gun control allows politicians to avoid dealing with these issues, it doesn't matter that the gun control policies can't work, what matters is they go back to their districts and show that they are doing something.
We should consider that rather than just attacking the gun control proposal, that we attack the politician as using gun control legislation as a means of AVOIDING doing the right things to serve his constituents.
The issue then becomes not that he was anti gun, but that he continues supporting government policies that kill people's dreams of a better live and keep them in poverty. That changes the nature of the debate and shifts attention of our guns back to where things should have been.
Due to a foreign film that I am negotiating to distribute in the LBGT community for distribution that I am in, it was critical for me to think way outside the box because right now the LBGT community is very anti gun.
The film I will be distributing will appeal to the LBGT community because it humanizes them and will appeal to them because it will provide a tool for them to show non gays that most the people in the LBGT community are just like most Americans other than their gender/sexual orientation.
Little chance that the LBGT community will become CONSERVATIVE, but there is a high chance of them shifting from liberalism to LIBERTARIANISM.
I and others in the Pink Pistols have been making inroads with this population and have started to make progress.
Initially many of us in the Pink Pistols were viewed as "Heretics", but progress is being made. The fact that a Pro Gun Pink Pistol contingent could get into the Gay Pride parade in San Francisco, then march and only get a a few hecklers, I only remember one of hand, is a sign that progress is being made.
People will support our gun rights provided that we show them that protecting our gun rights doesn't endanger their safety and it protects all of their other rights.
Long post, sorry guys, I was on a roll.
Nicki
While we have had a lot of focus on our individual right, we have had little focus on our collective duty (Militia Responsibilities) to be trained and ready to serve to protect a free state.
I am working on how to present what the second amendment means in such a way that it will be more than just a "gun right". Limiting gun rights to "Self Defense" or "Sporting purposes" significantly limits our ability to do public outreach.
Much of our effort has been on defending gun rights, I believe that the best defense is a devastating offense. Our opponents are off balance, they don't know what to do because all of their policies, much of their efforts were based on the foundation that the second amendment was a "Collective right of the states".
The concept that the National Guard was the Militia is without merit, everything is failing apart on them.
Our problem is that if we maintain a defensive strategy, they will have time to regroup, we must not repeat our mistakes of the past.
In 1982 when prop 15 failed, that was the time to go on major offense for gun rights and that did not happen.
This time around, we have no excuses.
Right now our base is pretty solid, we have picked up most of the "Low Hanging" fruit and we must reach higher.
Since I am making notes and I figure many of you are in the same position, I thought I would share my thoughts on this.
If a person lives in a urban area, they probably don't hunt. In fact many people view hunting as a barbaric sport. The only exposure they see with guns is that guns kill and they see it on a ongoing basis.
When people fear for their safety, they are willing to sacrifice the rights of others so that they can be "SAFE". Of course in the same newscasts, we see human rights abuses from all around the world and for many people who immigrated to America, they remember firsthand.
My goal is to create a explanation of the second amendment that I can articulate with someone, one on one. It will take time, but the assumption is that it will be done one on one or in a small group anyway. Here I go.
My view is the second amendment not only recognizes an Individual right to keep and bear arms, but it also confers a "Collective duty" on all of us to be trained and prepared to protect a "Free State" from foreign and domestic enemies.
This brings up the question, what is a "Free State".
The "Free State" our founders were referring to was a state that got it's power from the "Consent of the Governed" and that it operated under the understanding that it existed to "protect our rights".
The first amendment was put in to give us peaceable means to revoke our consent if the government got out of control, the second amendment was put in there to give us violent means should peaceful means fail.
We can deal with our government peacefully to redress grievances because we have the violent means to do so if peaceful means fail.
Our relationship with our government is supposed to be MASTER/SERVANT and we are supposed to be the MASTERS.
"this right shall not be infringed" was put in there because if the government could regulate what arms you could keep or how you could bear them, a government would restrict the right to effectively eliminate the ability of the people to control the government by force.
The people who founded this country knew that if a population loses their arms, then all of their other rights become government revocable privileges.
Now of course all rights are not absolute, there has to be a reasonable balance between our individual RKBA and our collective militia duties and legitimate public safety concerns.
I am not against GUN SAFETY, I believe it is irresponsible that GUN SAFETY is not taught in the schools, we should be doing this to SAVE OUR CHILDREN.
I am not against GUN CONTROL, I believe people who own and carry guns should be competent in their shooting skills.
What our opponents are really advocating is not gun control, it is victim disarmament (VD). Promoting VD is a horrible social policy, to deliberately strip the general population from the ability to protect themselves from violent offenders only promotes crime.
Increasing crime results in increased government spending for law enforcement, expansion of the legal system and more curtailing of other rights in the name of safety.
VD leaves victims helpless to protect themselves against common criminals, and when it mutates into complete civil disarmament (CD), we are then at the mercy of whoever controls the government.
If whoever controls the government is honest and fair, we may be okay, but what happens if our government is controlled by corrupt evil politicians. What if special interest groups seize power of the government, then what?
What happens if we elect someone like Hitler? How about if the elections are stolen, what if the government is overthrown either openly or covertly.
Without a violent means to enforce our rights, we have no rights, all we have is government granted privileges and if we get a bad government like most of the worldwide governments, you better hope that you are not part of a minority group that the government has targeted.
Human rights abuses are standard operating procedures for most governments, it is we who are rare in that the government even recognizes that we have any natural rights.
As long as the majority of the population doesn't understand that the real purpose of the second amendment is to ensure that we maintain all of our other rights, we may get victories in the court of law, but we still will be losing in the court of public opinion.
Ultimately this line of reasoning will eventually lead someone to understand the whole concept behind the values of the American revolution and many people will be really pissed of at what we have today.
Of course my view is all of our other rights are interdependent on each other anyway which means using this line of reasoning will expand our reach to beyond just gun rights.
Large standing armies and select militias are dangerous to liberty, yet our country had to be able to defend itself which is why the bulk of the military power was left in the hands of the people.
If we had stayed with original intent, our national defense structure would be similar to modern day Switzerland. Of course the Swiss system is under attack since many in Europe want to eliminate sovereign nations.
Traditionally most gun owners are white Republican males and up to 1986, whites were the majority in this state. The demographics of California have shifted in the last 20 years that whites are a minority.
Routinely I talk with a broad cross section of the populace and I personally have flipped many people to our side on the gun issue.
Many of those who I flipped were immigrants who came to America.
When I mentioned corrupt government, everything else just flowed.
Now of course there is the issue of violence with guns and that I will save for another posts because there are many sub issues.
The common thread on most societal problems are side effects from failed government policies and rather than address the failing government policies, the politicians divert attention.
For example. the Parolee who killed 4 Oakland cops. There will be a lot of focus on the guns used, Politicians are using that incident to try and get us to register our hi cap magazines.
What I have seen is little if any focus is how the Parolee got to where he was at.
There are many criminals who are just PURE EVIL, but I believe many violent offenders are the by products of broken families, the Welfare State and the NARCO ECONOMY.
Pushing gun control allows politicians to avoid dealing with these issues, it doesn't matter that the gun control policies can't work, what matters is they go back to their districts and show that they are doing something.
We should consider that rather than just attacking the gun control proposal, that we attack the politician as using gun control legislation as a means of AVOIDING doing the right things to serve his constituents.
The issue then becomes not that he was anti gun, but that he continues supporting government policies that kill people's dreams of a better live and keep them in poverty. That changes the nature of the debate and shifts attention of our guns back to where things should have been.
Due to a foreign film that I am negotiating to distribute in the LBGT community for distribution that I am in, it was critical for me to think way outside the box because right now the LBGT community is very anti gun.
The film I will be distributing will appeal to the LBGT community because it humanizes them and will appeal to them because it will provide a tool for them to show non gays that most the people in the LBGT community are just like most Americans other than their gender/sexual orientation.
Little chance that the LBGT community will become CONSERVATIVE, but there is a high chance of them shifting from liberalism to LIBERTARIANISM.
I and others in the Pink Pistols have been making inroads with this population and have started to make progress.
Initially many of us in the Pink Pistols were viewed as "Heretics", but progress is being made. The fact that a Pro Gun Pink Pistol contingent could get into the Gay Pride parade in San Francisco, then march and only get a a few hecklers, I only remember one of hand, is a sign that progress is being made.
People will support our gun rights provided that we show them that protecting our gun rights doesn't endanger their safety and it protects all of their other rights.
Long post, sorry guys, I was on a roll.
Nicki
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