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It's because we don't have an organized "political victory fund" like the NRA-PVF.
The Calguns Foundation fights mostly in the courts. We need a parallel organization that fights California politicians where they fear it most: at the ballot box.
To some degree, all of Calguns is doing this, but not to the point where Calif. anti-gun politicians are afraid for their jobs.
Case in point: today on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Diane Feinstein was there proudly bringing out her old, tired argument against magazines with more than 10 rounds capacity. All this while even Obama is too cowed by the NRA to even mention the word "gun" in his first public statement about the Aurora shooting. Why the difference? Because Feinstein has no fear about us Calif. pro-gun voters. She knows she's got a lock on her office.
But we've taken down anti-gunner politicians before--Roberti and Roos were defeated after their infamous gun ban, but not until after the damage was done.
We need to organize and communicate with each other better and form up a much more united front against anti-gun politicians running for office. This past election, I posted a question about the gun position of Judge Deborah Chuang--nobody had a damned clue (me included) about whether she had been pro-gun or anti-gun.
That simply means we need to be paying far more attention to what's going on in our own backyard. We've got to vet all candidates (like Yee) and remind them that we're watching their votes and bills. We've got to back pro-gun candidates with dollars and votes and grassroots get-out-the-vote programs. And we've got to be doing this all the time.
It starts here at calguns.net. We can start sharing info about local politicians who have proven to be anti-gun. Call it "situational awareness." It might be as simple as using sticky threads to compile ongoing info on politicians and their challengers. Somebody, somewhere, has to have read something about Judge Chuang or actually encountered her position on guns, but that info was kept to themselves.
The next step could be getting the CRPA's election guide out to people in a bigger way and early enough to matter. I remember once getting the CRPA election guide AFTER I'd already voted absentee.
Someone might say to me: well, if you care so much about this, go do it yourself. Well, that's not how grassroots movements work. It's not one or a handful of people--it's only when there are gazillions of people that the politicians get scared. We can all do this together if we each take a small bite.
I keep thinking that somebody has to have read something about St. Sen. Yee's anti-gun tendencies long before he caught us off guard. All it takes is posting that little something--maybe a link to an article--on Calguns and spreading the word. Now, a bit late, investigative journalists are digging up dirt on Yee--that stuff could've been seen earlier had we been actively looking.
So that's what I'm calling for--we need to be far more vigilant and vocal moving forward about our state and local politicians, all towards the goal of eventually gaining the political clout the NRA enjoys at the national level.
That's a good point too--if we did it there, at nationals, we can do it here, at the state level. We can follow the NRA's template and playbook and win at home! We can later create a CGF-PVF: the Calguns Foundation Political Victory Fund and start stuffing it with money (in addition to funding the regular CGF). First, we'll start by helping to dig up dirt on anti-gun politicians. Then, we'll support pro-gun opponents of these anti-gunners (yes, even if they are liberal Democrats--all we really have to do is show the incumbent we have the power to replace them, even if we don't like the replacement any better). Eventually we'll groom some pro-gun politicians of our own.
Bit by bit, we'll get there to critical mass and reclaim our rights!
The Calguns Foundation fights mostly in the courts. We need a parallel organization that fights California politicians where they fear it most: at the ballot box.
To some degree, all of Calguns is doing this, but not to the point where Calif. anti-gun politicians are afraid for their jobs.
Case in point: today on Fox News Sunday, Sen. Diane Feinstein was there proudly bringing out her old, tired argument against magazines with more than 10 rounds capacity. All this while even Obama is too cowed by the NRA to even mention the word "gun" in his first public statement about the Aurora shooting. Why the difference? Because Feinstein has no fear about us Calif. pro-gun voters. She knows she's got a lock on her office.
But we've taken down anti-gunner politicians before--Roberti and Roos were defeated after their infamous gun ban, but not until after the damage was done.
We need to organize and communicate with each other better and form up a much more united front against anti-gun politicians running for office. This past election, I posted a question about the gun position of Judge Deborah Chuang--nobody had a damned clue (me included) about whether she had been pro-gun or anti-gun.
That simply means we need to be paying far more attention to what's going on in our own backyard. We've got to vet all candidates (like Yee) and remind them that we're watching their votes and bills. We've got to back pro-gun candidates with dollars and votes and grassroots get-out-the-vote programs. And we've got to be doing this all the time.
It starts here at calguns.net. We can start sharing info about local politicians who have proven to be anti-gun. Call it "situational awareness." It might be as simple as using sticky threads to compile ongoing info on politicians and their challengers. Somebody, somewhere, has to have read something about Judge Chuang or actually encountered her position on guns, but that info was kept to themselves.
The next step could be getting the CRPA's election guide out to people in a bigger way and early enough to matter. I remember once getting the CRPA election guide AFTER I'd already voted absentee.
Someone might say to me: well, if you care so much about this, go do it yourself. Well, that's not how grassroots movements work. It's not one or a handful of people--it's only when there are gazillions of people that the politicians get scared. We can all do this together if we each take a small bite.
I keep thinking that somebody has to have read something about St. Sen. Yee's anti-gun tendencies long before he caught us off guard. All it takes is posting that little something--maybe a link to an article--on Calguns and spreading the word. Now, a bit late, investigative journalists are digging up dirt on Yee--that stuff could've been seen earlier had we been actively looking.
So that's what I'm calling for--we need to be far more vigilant and vocal moving forward about our state and local politicians, all towards the goal of eventually gaining the political clout the NRA enjoys at the national level.
That's a good point too--if we did it there, at nationals, we can do it here, at the state level. We can follow the NRA's template and playbook and win at home! We can later create a CGF-PVF: the Calguns Foundation Political Victory Fund and start stuffing it with money (in addition to funding the regular CGF). First, we'll start by helping to dig up dirt on anti-gun politicians. Then, we'll support pro-gun opponents of these anti-gunners (yes, even if they are liberal Democrats--all we really have to do is show the incumbent we have the power to replace them, even if we don't like the replacement any better). Eventually we'll groom some pro-gun politicians of our own.
Bit by bit, we'll get there to critical mass and reclaim our rights!
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