“I’m convinced there’s a lot more of us than there are of them.” Protester Brian Druschel, quoted in Gun-rights advocates rally at Maryland capitol, vowing continued fight against tough new law [via washingtonpost.com]
“I’m convinced there’s a lot more of us than there are of them.” Protester Brian Druschel, quoted in Gun-rights advocates rally at Maryland capitol, vowing continued fight against tough new law [via washingtonpost.com]
We probably outnumber them something like 10-1. Even in jersey I see quite a few NRA stickers or NAGR stickers.
Every time I see “NAGR” I think of this South Park clip. Please tell me I’m not the only one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwrUkeYxUF0
You are not the only one.
Not even close…
I think I know it, but I don’t think I should say it.
We outnumber them by a substantial amount, yes. But they are better organized and know how to manipulate the victim card for the media. Just think if our side, even as small groups, could get better organized!
Not only are there more of us, we are more likely to vote. It will be impossible for them to mobilize any kind of opposition in an off year election for gun control. It is time to start focusing on the upcoming elections. Get your buddies to vote!
We’re not necessarily more likely to vote. “Vote for me and I’ll protect your Constitutional Rights” certainly has appeal. But “vote for me and I’ll protect your entitlements” has even more.
There’s also a certain amount of “I’ve been taught since childhood that it’s my civic duty to vote. Too bad the pro-gun candidate also hates everyone who’s not a white hetrosexual christian and I’m not one (or more) of those things.”
Numbers don’t matter when it’s “for the kids”
Our kids outnumber them, too.
Yeah, they’ve seen to that.
Their may be more but they’re fractured. Too many gun owners still fall for the “common sense” garbage or support nonsensical regulations on things they don’t like and all the Fudd’s havent died off yet.
Those on the other side have one singular cause to get behind: banning guns.
The fudds will never die off. As you get older you become more cautious. You’ve spent a lifetime building and you have much more to lose than a young hot head. It’s easy to shout”Man the barricades” when it’s you doing the manning. It’s a damn site harder when it’s your sons and grand sons doing the manning.
This^^^^
As some of us age, we become less patient and are even more determined to see true Liberty in our time. When I was younger, I fought for my children and future grandchildren. Now I fight for myself… they’re all old enough to fight for themselves! As the time grows closer for me to move to my final real estate purchase, it becomes more important to actually be free; now.
Be cautious all that you want but remember that you can’t take it with you. If we have all of the possessions and comforts of this world but have not Liberty then we really have nothing. I’ll die free or die trying to be.
THIS!
“As the time grows closer for me to move to my final real estate purchase, it becomes more important to actually be free; now.”
I fight for me.
Yep. And if my actions benefit others so be it.
Sorry JWM but you cant take it with you. Whatever you built, whatever you own is meaningless. It is because you have kids and grand kids that you should be the first to man the barricades.
Because when the guns are gone, they will take what you have built. Your children and grand children will never have the chance to build something of their own.
The freedoms that enabled you to amass whatever fortune you hold so dear will not be available to them. Should they somehow manage to become successful by their definition, how will they protect their chosen way of life?
^^^ This ^^^
If I can’t take it with me I’m not going.
+1000
Whatever their numbers, we have the guns.
There is alot more of us than them. What’s even more encouraging and has the anti’s tearing their hair out is a growing amount of people changing their minds about firearms and exercising their rights.
It took wholesale registration to get most of those people mad enough to protest the gun laws in Maryland, and lets be real, the laws were un-Constitutional long before that. This tells me that we may outnumber “them” by a large margin, but that most gun owners dont care enough to fight unjust legislation until the 11th hour, which is far too late to do any good.
You are right! That is why America still has Prohibition and Slavery. Oh, yea, we don’t. Wonder how THAT happened?
Well, Prohibition was repealed by the ratification of the 21st amendment (the only amendment to repeal another amendment [the 18th in case you were wondering]). And slavery needed a war and a subsequent amendment (13th). We already have an amendment protecting gun rights, but the interpretation of this is the problem. It’s much easier to fight the enactment of unjust laws than fight them in the courts later costing much time and money.
So, you admit that removing invalid and un-Constitutional laws is done using the Constitution? Cuz your initial comment does appear to say the opposite. It seems you believe that once a law is passed it never goes away, which is wrong. Lots of laws have been removed using the Constitutional process for doing so. Or are you saying that is not good enough for you, that you want some other manner in which to remove laws?
The US Constitution exists, it is the people who refuse to obey its strictures placed on government that are the problem, not the Constitution itself.
ADMITTED registration. Maryland essentially already had de facto registration for regulated firearms before…
IMO, the divide is this.
One, gun owners as a whole are a divided sort. There are an estimated 150 million gun owners in America.But the NRA membership is only about 5 million strong.
Two, the antis don’t rely on grassroots activism.Gun control supporters dont march in the street and yell “take the guns!!”. Theyre doctors, lawyers, teachers ,professionals , and quiet intellectuals who simply think the RKBA is obsolete.They vote,and our side for the most part doesn’t. See Obama’s reelection, CAs laws,etc.
First of all, something like 37% of the voting population in the U.S. owns firearms, not the 63% or so that you suggested. (Roughly 90 million people own firearms in the U.S. among the roughly 240 million citizens who are old enough to vote and legally own firearms.) Obviously 37% is not a majority. Furthermore, not all of those 37% of the U.S. population who own firearms are passionate about their rights and not all of them vote.
To make matters worse, that 37% of people who won firearms are not spread evenly across the nation. Clearly there are a lot of people on the West Coast and East Coast who despise firearms. Thus we have the situations that we do in California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. And I imagine there are broad regions of the nation where 50% or more of the adult population owns firearms and votes for firearm rights.
The real wildcard is how firearms owners vote. I think the major difference on the West Coast and East Coast is that liberal gun owners still vote for gun control candidates. In other regions, liberal gun owners will vote for candidates who support their right to keep and bear arms.
As it is , then.
Lets assume 90 million gun owners is the magic number. If we had a 50 million member strong NRA, Congress would never even DARE hold a press conference on gun control.
We don’t , because most people who own firearms don’t care.Us politcially active gun owners go online, protest, sign petitions, etc. The typical gun owner votes with the crowd, and so it goes for the gun grabbers. They dont wave flags or march in front of buildings, but they do support restrictions on EVERYONEs right to Keep and Bear Arms.
In the case of Maryland there were a lot of dirty tricks played on those who tried to testify against the bill, and it was passed by what some view as an illegal roll call vote stoppage and back room deal in the House of Delegates.
The passage of this bill was worthy of the third rate banana republic that Maryland has become.
Oh, and this:
https://medium.com/p/1873a505ce2a
Yeah; when I go to the linked articles proposing more gun control in various publications,even fairly liberal ones; the comments are about 10 to 1 against the idea of more gun control. That is in the publications that haven’t disabled their comment sections.
There is either more of us or it’s just that gun owners have been shown to be better educated, (so we read more) with higher incomes and that we vote more often when it comes to our 2nd amendment rights. Which is why all fifty states now have some form of concealed carry and 5? now have Constitutional Carry.
Do not say MD has concealed carry. It is “may issue,” and effectively “will not issue.”
I agree, all states have some form of CC; like CA as may issue; inland from the coast there are many counties with effectively shall issue depending on the sheriff; but along the coast it is only the rich, powerful and connected that get a CCL.
But forty one states have shall issue and five are constitutional carry. This wouldn’t have happened except a lot of people called their government and got out to vote.
We may have numbers on our side…but how many of those huge numbers regard it as their TOP issue?
I know plenty of people who think the gun laws are too onerous. But not many of them will make that their top issue, and could therefore vote for a Democrat (very likely to be a grabber, if not, will vote in the legislature to put a grabber in the leadership position) for other reasons more important to them than the gun issue.
We have an interesting situation in CO where a majority of the State Senate (18 out of 35) has co-sponsored the mag limit repeal. In other words, if it came to a floor vote in our state senate (which we’ve done some corrective maintenance on over the past few months) it would pass. However, one of the co-sponsors is a Dem, and voted for their current Senate President (who won, 18 to 17)–who assigned the bill to the “kill committee” which is loaded with Dems who will never lose an election in their heavily liberal districts. It comes up before the committee Monday. We will see what happens, but I am certainly not holding my breath.
Numbers and anger.
Illinois IGOLD brings a tear to my eye. It’s beautiful.
Anytime there’s a rally, one or two antis show up, and they stand a block down, across the street lol.
Any time that weasel Pat Quinn has some BS it’s for the children speech, they zoom way in on his face, because there’s about 5 supporters there.
Here in The Little Easy (aka Rhode Island) I also get the sense from watching what is happening on social media that either the pro-2A crowd vastly outnumbers the antis, or we are just way more focused on this issue than the opposition. The leading candidate for Governor, Gina Raimondo, has been getting politely pilloried on her FB page for her intensely aggressive stance on guns (She wants to ban all semi-autos!). I mean, it’s not even close.
Here in The Little Sleazy (aka Rhode Island)
FIFY
It’s not called the “silent majority” for nothing. Although, it seems many are no longer remaining “silent.”
Comment attributed to a 101st Airborne private when told the Germans had them surrounded at Bastogne: “Good! We got ’em right where we want ’em!”
BRING IT! Gun grabbers!
More people showed up for this than the rally for the minimum wage. The only rally that counts is the one in the voting booth in Nov.
Seriously, what kind of a small mind would say “I have a pen & a cell phone”, only thing better was “if I had a son”. They are relegated to spitefull playing at this point. We have the numbers & we have hitler in the bunker. Hopefully we can fix it for them in 14 so they can see how their bigotry blew up the democratic party, Randy
It’s pretty clear that the pro-gun folks aren’t the majority everywhere. There is a reason places like CA, NY, NJ, MA, etc., have the laws that they do.
Another reason is that these are single party Democratic (in name only) states.
Dave357, you are correct, in the states you mention as well as CT, gun owners are in the minority. Yet, without a catalytic event like the massacre at Newtown, the new laws in these states would not have passed. The people in the ideological middle on the divide between gun controllers and gun rights advocates are normally neutral on this issue, until it might threaten their kids or families. Logic is put aside for a bit and a little control is allowed to creep in, much as Franklin and other Founders warned.
From my own experience, I believe that gun owners of all types outnumber the truly active gun-control advocates out there. The difference is engagement and organization. In CT, CT Against Gun Violence, a 20-year gun taking advocacy group was sucking fumes financially and morally. They failed in their attempt to limit mag capacity as a stand-alone item in the 2011 (or was it 2012?) legislative session because enough legislators did not see a political reason (i.e. benefit) to back it. This was a high profile rebuke of an organization that was behind every gun-restriction measure in the state going back to 1994.
Yet, as soon as Newtown happened, local and national journalists and news talkers sought out the CAGV principals (mainly greasy Ron Pinciaro) for “expert opinion” on what happened and how it could be prevented. Money started to flow in to CAGV, especially after the rise of March for Change founded by some smart and social-media moms in the Newtown area. CAGV co-opted those ladies’ talents and network to the point where March is now a formal “program” of CAGV (sounds like the absorption of MDA into MAIG, doesn’t it).
What these people have is organization. Politically, they punch way above their weights and intellects because they have been able to organize. But like a cobra that flares its back to make it look menacing, CAGV/March now has an email list of 4-5,000 people that they can activate when needed. For example, when the matter of “amnesty” came up and CAGV was proposing swapping an extended registration period for a repeal of pre-ban status, their email/website capability produced 1,400 emails sent to the legislative leadership and state-wide officials in Hartford. Now 1,400 many not sound like a large number but I will bet you that 1,400 gun rights advocates did not write in regarding the potential appeal of the pre-ban exemption. That is the difference organization makes when combined with just a little bit of technology.
Generally, pre-Newtown, CT gun owners have generally been dormant and fragmented. Clays and bird shooters don’t necessarily own rifles or pistols so their concerns about the blowback from Newtown were not acute. I have more than a few shotgun owners tell me they were ambivalent about, or even in favor of, the restrictions on “assault weapons” and mag capacity limits. Even some pistol owners in my club seemed to not be particularly engaged on the black rifle issue. Guys like that saw no need to affiliate with CTCarry nor CCDL though they may have been supporters of Bob Crook’s Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen. The point is, owners were very were ideologically and geographically fragmented and unorganized.
BUT, that has started to change. The scattergun guy who was ambivalent was suddenly “shocked” to hear that he had to get a permit to buy shot shells and possibly another shotgun. All of a sudden, he became a bit more engaged. Same thing happened to pistol owners and even conventional rifle owners who thought the post-Newtown legislation would have no impact upon them. With all of the media attention leading up to the vote in April, these folks apparently were paying little to no attention to developments.
I am rambling. The point remains, there are far more gun owners around than there are rabid gun controllers and the controllers know that. What they fear is the potential of gun owners to get organized beyond the 4-5mm who are NRA members. If 2X or 5X or 10X of that number of gun owners were to suddenly start paying attention and voting smartly, the gun-takers would be in for a world of electoral hurt.
Engagement. Mailing list. Voter registration drives. Get out the vote phone centers. And showing up on Election Day.
It is tough to “throw the bums out” when too many gun owners stay home because none of the candidate choice check all of the voter’s boxes. Romney, love him or not, lost because too many folk on the right side of center chose not to vote. If they do not show up to vote the national ticket, then they are also depriving the lower ballot candidates of votes.
In CT, Gov Malloy won in 2010 against Foley by a margin of less than 7,000 votes. As we have all read, upwards of 50,000 CT owners have registered AWs by Dec 31st, and that is far from the total number of such owners. So if a subset of those folks are non-voters and can be converted to voters in 2014 and 2016, a close election can be turned. By all indications, Malloy is vulnerable on taxes, jobs, etc and can be beaten. He is polling below 50% (has been for two years) so another close election is not out of the question, even against Foley.
Food for thought for those who vote with their feet and stay home.
THAT’s what it will take – get the media buzzing about us and protecting our civil rights vis a vis 2A. Joe Voter never heard of us and doesn’t care one way or another about the RKBA because it “doesn’t affect them.” We need to change that.
My picture’s on TTAG! Yay!
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