Robb speaks Truth about culture being very important, and we’re ahead of the game than we were in 1994 on that front. But one has to understand the dynamic here. What a cultural fight involves is essentially the people who care about and follow an issue getting their message out there in an attempt to influence people who are only peripherally involved.
There are plenty of Americans who believe you should be forced to give up your rifles and magazines. They are out there. Most of them aren’t very committed to it, which is why they’ve traditionally struggled politically. They might say that if asked, but they don’t give much thought to it, don’t vote on it, and don’t typically act on it. What puts us in danger now is that if these people were motivated to act, there are a lot of them. Many of them are types that let the perfect become the enemy of good. They don’t vote because they can’t stand the choices, and don’t write lawmakers because they either don’t think it matters, or just hate the whole process.
Most of us are very committed to our position, and will vote on it, and do what we have to. But that’s not everyone in the gun community is political. In fact an uncomfortably large number are not. When I say political, I don’t mean they read gun blogs, or get involved in activism. I mean that they even vote. You’d be surprised by how many people are into shooting, buy guns, and care about the issue, but don’t vote and don’t write lawmakers. If we had all those people in the fight, we’d have nothing to worry about. But we don’t. All we can do is try to reach them. That’s largely what we need to do in the short term. In the long term, we still need to influence opinion makers, especially on the right.
We are going to be in for some tough times. If Obama seriously puts the full weight of the White House behind gun control, it will be difficult to stop it. Obama would love to see the right arguing amongst itself about who needs to get thrown under the bus. This whole thing is meant to stress the center-right coalition to the breaking point. That’s what the second term is going to be about.
I’m not too worried. We have a decent amount of numbers behind us. http://in-defense-of-liberty.com/2012/12/31/is-gun-ownership-going-up-down-or-staying-the-same-part-2/
After voting faithfully for 35 years it occurred to me that there is no good evidence that voting does, or ever did, do any good. If someone could come up with some convincing evidence I might change my mind but so far I haven’t seen any. Also, has anyone in history ever voted their way to freedom?
No, but if liberty loving people don’t vote, other people can sure vote it away from you. It’s a collective action. Your individual vote means very little, but collectively our vote means a lot.
That’s one problem liberty loving people have, they hear collective action and are turned off. But that’s what it is.
“Your individual vote means very little, but collectively our vote means a lot.”
I hear that a lot. Do you have any empirical evidence to support that statement?
In terms of gun owners, if we all voted consistently, we would make up at most, about 57.4% of all registered voters. Granted, this assume all gun owners vote, and this is in reference to national voting registration.
http://in-defense-of-liberty.com/2012/12/28/is-gun-ownership-going-up-down-or-staying-the-same-part-1/
Also, this percentage is dependent on the empirical evidence that shows that there are about 78-81 million gun owners, that they all vote, etc. I personally believe this number of 78-81 million to be on the low side as gun owners tend to not reveal their ownership to polling groups. Skewing the number down.
If Obama seriously puts the full weight of the White House behind gun control, it will be difficult to stop it.
Yes, and he’s put the full weight of the White House behind raising taxes on the rich. Not exactly going well for him on that front.
I’m cautiously optimistic about Obama’s chances at passing any new gun control measures – which is like saying there’s a 70% chance of sunny, muggy weather in Indianapolis tomorrow. Call me crazy, but I don’t see the votes necessary to pass anything in the Congress we have. And I think it’d blow up in his face if he forced anything through by executive fiat.
The Tea Party Republicans in the House are to date simply not willing to abandon the last remaining principle their leaders have yet to jettison (taxes). It remains to be seen if there’s the same sort of sticking to principle in the caucus for the RKBA, which I’m pretty sure is a lot less important for most of them. On the other hand I don’t see Team Boehner (who might lose their positions January 3rd) acting so thuggishly towards their own caucus to pass a gun control bill.
Getting reelected, though … either are losers that could get them primaried.