Remember: They don’t want to take your guns
Except that they do. So, pretty much everyone in the gun blogosphere is talking about Eric Holder’s statement today:
“As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons.”
Nancy Pelosi is, unsurprisingly, quick to lie through her teeth and claim that a new “Assault Weapon Ban” is not on the table. There’s a lot of talk over at Snowflakes in Hell about what we can do and whether we are completely fucked or not. My take: I don’t think we’re fucked. We gun owners have a great deal going for us right now. Pro-gun legislation is being passed througout the country, and appears even to have a chance in Illinois this year. 48 states now allow some form of concealed carry and most of those are shall-issue. Now is not the time to undo all of our hard-won progress by using our minute-of-politician rifles on live targets.
So what can we do?
1) Write our congresscritters. Let our senators and representatives know that we expect them to stand up for your natural, constitutionally-protected rights. Join the NRA if you aren’t a member and donate if you are. Join or donate to JPFO, GOA, and SAF. You might disagree with the NRA on some points (or even a lot of points), but they are the largest gun-rights organization and the more money and the more members they have the more they can lean on politicians to make sure we never have to answer our doors to find a government confiscation squad on the other side.
2) Get active at a local level. Every state has local pro-rights groups. Here in Arizona we have the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Association and the Arizona Citizens Defense League, among others. AzCDL has introduced or supported a great deal of amazing legislation over the last few years that has been gradually expanding state recognition of our right to keep and bear arms. I highly recommend membership in this organization to anyone in Arizona. If you’re in college join Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Get involved with your local chapter or start one at your school. There will be other local clubs near you, usually associated with a shooting range or shooting discipline.
3) Do not hide the fact that you are a shooter. I’m not saying that you should tell everyone you meet “Hi, I’m [ ] and I have a gun!” but when people ask you what you do for fun, don’t say “Oh, you know, I read and I play golf on the weekends”. Let them know that you shoot! Be proud of your hobby! If more people are open about their positive shooting experiences we can make sure that gun owners are not marginalized into the red-necked hicks that the mainstream media would like their readers to think we are.
4) Invite your friends to the range. Many people who are fence-sitters or even anti-gun have no idea how guns work. They’ve never handled a firearm or fired a shot in their lives. They may never have seen a gun in person before. They’ve been indoctrinated their entire lives that guns are bad, guns kill poor people, guns kill cops, etc. Impress upon them the importance of the four rules. Take them to a range frequented by safe shooters with competent range officers. If every time you go to the range there’s some jackass sweeping people with his weapon or ignoring the range masters, that’s probably not a good place to bring new shooters. Don’t get political with them, just show them that gun owners are by and large extremely safe, responsible people. Keep the politics separate from the guns; trust that your friends are smart enough to connect the dots for themselves.
The point of this post is simply to provide people with some ways to fight back against an ideology that seeks to curtail individual freedom and responsibility, one facet of which aims to disarm private citizens. Remember the four boxes: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge. We should be using the first three right now. The time for the cartridge box has not yet arrived, and I hope that it never does.