Category: Gun Rights

David Codrea has this to say:

If gun owners would get off their lazy, apathetic butts and consistently and proactively devote time, effort and treasure to the cause, we would be invincible. It’s easy to point the finger at politicians for attacking us, or NRA management for compromising, and I’m not saying that should stop, but put in perspective, politicians wouldn’t betray us if they didn’t dare–and compromises wouldn’t be made if they weren’t perceived as advantageous or necessary.

Yep. If every gun owner were active and involved, we could walk into legislatures around the country and dictate terms. This past week in Pennsylvania we were told, by Ed Rendell I believe, that it was calls to the legislators, spawned by certain interest groups, that had legislators scared.

That’s a great result, but if it was more than a few thousand motivated gun owners, I’d be surprised. If every Pennsylvania gun owner, and I don’t just mean someone who has a rifle up in the attic, I mean people who go out to the range or to the woods to shoot, hunt, what have you, on a regular basis, had called or e-mailed, the staffers would have been overwhelmed, and few legislators would have dared vote against us.

It all comes down to numbers, and sadly, there are a lot more people who are interested in enjoying the shooting sports, and enjoying their right to own a firearm for self-protection, than there are people who are interested in preserving those rights.

… in Bruce’s neck of the woods.  One thing though:

At Skip’s Gun and Sports store, dubbed “Daycare for Men” on their signature red shirts, the GOP hopeful admired different types of guns and talked about his support for the 2nd Amendment.

Daycare for men?  That’s so 20th century shooting culture.  Get used to it fellas: the times they are a changin.

Ahab has the digs on Darfuris being denied their right to bear arms.  I think we can predict where this one is going.

I managed to find a copy of the polling data Governor Rendell was touting, bought and paid for by CeaseFire PA. Let’s look at some of these polling questions and you tell me how loaded you think the questions are:

In the last week in Philadelphia, three police officer were shot, including one fatally. Which statement do you agree with more:

1. These shootings represent a crisis that needs to be dealth with immediate, and a part of the solution is to pass common sense handgun safety laws to protect our police officers

2. The shootings are a tragedy, but we should not rush to trample on our right to bear arms to address the problem.

61% of 600 Pennsylvania voters went with 1, and 32% with 2. The questions for the lost or stolen bill, which garnered 96% approval, were:

Support for handgun safety measures: Require handgun owners to immediate report lost or stolen guns to the police?

What if you phrased it this way?

Support for gun control measure: A firearm owner convicted of failing to report a lost or stolen firearm to the police can face a felony charge involving several years in prison?

Of course, that might not get them the result they want. There was a time when politicians might have paid attention to these polls, but when they did, gun owners voted a lot of them out of office. How did that happen if we’re such a minority? Because polls don’t matter. What matters is what motivates people to vote, and when we get screwed, we show up at the polls and pull the lever for the other guy. Hard core gun rights activists may be a minority, but a lot of people care about our issue. People who care bout implementing gun control enough to vote it? Now there’s a minority.

Want to help out with the DC v. Heller case?   Donate to Academics for the Second Amendment so they can file a friends of the court brief on behalf of Dick Heller.