Open Letter from Duane Liptak, Magpul VP & NRA Board Member

[Bartholomew Roberts]

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/20...-duane-liptak/

A great “state of the RKBA” address as we go into the midterms. Very straightforward and direct.

[5whiskey]

Very well written and we'll played

[Wag]

I'm also a single-issue voter with 2A rights being my highest priority. One thing is certain, I will not mark a box next to a Democratic candidate. I simply abstain if there are none but Democrats for a particular seat.

My state of New Mexico is not the most gun rights state in the nation but we're okay. At the moment. Our new governor's race is between a noxious anti-gun Democrat and a pretty decent Republican. Guess who's going to get my vote, regardless of any of his other positions?

We just HAVE to get out there and vote. I think we're on a precipice. As it's been said, we get the government we deserve and if we sit this one out, we're going to get a government handed to us that we don't want.

--Wag--

[Tom Servo]

Please understand that “taking a hard line, no compromise stance” publicly is great for fund raising and grass roots activation—and the goals behind the scenes can be exactly those no compromise positions, as they are in the offices of the NRA—but if a legislator doesn’t believe it’s in his or his constituents’ best interests or will keep in office to support something… your stance isn’t going to sway him.

This can't be repeated enough. Rhetoric like "what part of 'shall not be infringed' don't you understand?" may play well on the internet, but I've seen legislative sessions turn into a room of blank stares when somebody crows that.

[thallub]

This can't be repeated enough. Rhetoric like "what part of 'shall not be infringed' don't you understand?" may play well on the internet, but I've seen legislative sessions turn into a room of blank stares when somebody crows that.

i've been an NRA member for about 60 years. An unsubstantiated political rant by Wayne Lapierre in the March, 2018 issue of American Rifleman turned me off at the NRA. i steadfastly refuse to support the total agenda of any political party.

[rickyrick]

Unfortunately, only one political party supports the 2nd amendment.

[CowTowner]

Unfortunately, only one political party supports the 2nd amendment.

Not entirely true. Libertarians also support the 2nd Amendment.
Your statement would be more accurate if you had said:
Unfortunately, only one major political party supports the 2nd amendment.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

A more realistic statement is that one major party has more support for parts of the Second Amendment than the other major party.

It is also the case that the first major party can, in a moral panic, turn against even the more modest implementations of the 2nd Amend.

I would also add that (as the author acknowledges), single issue voting is really acceptable when you know that the single issue supporter also supports most of your other political ideas.

It would be an interesting empirical test for a totally, all the way with the RKBA , left wing ('democratic socialist', sexual behavior libertarian, etc.) candidate to face a 'conservative' social issues, economic conservative candidate but who thinks that assault rifles, higher capacity magazines and the like are weapons of war, mass destruction - ban them as only the military needs them.

You can actually find these folks out there. So what would the author do?

[FITASC]

Sorry, I am too independent to be a 1-issue voter; ESPECIALLY when it comes to local issues and candidates

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by Glenn E Meyer

A more realistic statement is that one major party has more support for parts of the Second Amendment than the other major party.

Which parts of the 2d Am. enjoy greater support in the democrat party than in the republican party?

If the answer is that no part of the 2d Am. enjoys greater support in the democrat party than the republican party, then the statement is untrue.

While I would encourage any democrat seeking office to set forth a strong 2d Am. stand and explain why protection of that explicit constitutional language is important, at a national level that wouldn't be where most of his party is.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

As seen in reports, there were Democrats who supported the 2nd Amend. Google will bring them as it will analyses that the polarizations of the parties have forced them to change their positions.

I leave it to the reader to search if they are ignorant of this history and processes.

Since I never said, if one reads what I said, that there are parts of the 2nd Amend. that enjoy greater support from the Democratic Party, what I said was quite true.

The GOP has support, in general, for more of the 2nd Amend. However, you can find quite a few Republicans who have espoused support for gun bans that match or are very close to those proposed by some Democrats.

I would encourage any Republican seeking office to set forth a strong 2d Am. stand and explain why protection of that explicit constitutional language is important, and why the Republicans such as GWB, Mitt Romney, Bob Dole in the past and some current Republican governors in supposedly gun friendly states have supported various bans and limitations. Even more, why some East Coast Republicans are out and out banners. I would encourage any Republican politician to counsel President Trump to stop going off the rails on these issues. Yes, he gets put back on track but can you trust 2nd Amend. purity in the White House?

I hope that clarifies it for you.

[zukiphile]

Since I never said, if one reads what I said, that there are parts of the 2nd Amend. that enjoy greater support from the Democratic Party, what I said was quite true.

That's incorrect.

I didn't suggest to you that you had written that there are parts of the 2d Am. that enjoy greater support in the democrat party.

Originally Posted by Glenn E Meyer

A more realistic statement is that one major party has more support for parts of the Second Amendment than the other major party.

Emphasis added.

Unless there is a part of the 2d Am. that doesn't have more support from the republican than democrat party, the bolded portion suggests a limit that isn't true at all. Partisan equivocation doesn't serve clarity.

There is no doubt that there are people who identify as a member of a group but adopt atypical positions for that group. That's a different proposition though. A democrat seeking office should espouse a heterodox position on the 2d Am., but at a national level it's unusual.

[Ben Dover]

Even if your local democrat is 100 percent 2A, when he gets to Washington, he will be a part of the democrat caucus. If they get a simple majority, the ultra liberal dems from the coasts become the new committee chairmen and set the agenda for congress.

For this reason, I will not vote for a dem for national office no matter how pro2A he is as an individual.

I have, and will sometimes vote for a dem for local or state office, but never for national office.

[Art Eatman]

Save the nit-picking squabbling for elsewhere. Glenn's post is quite clear.

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by Art Eatman

Glenn's post is quite clear.

I agree. I hope mine is as well.

[Armed_Chicagoan]

Originally Posted by Ben Dover

Even if your local democrat is 100 percent 2A, when he gets to Washington, he will be a part of the democrat caucus. If they get a simple majority, the ultra liberal dems from the coasts become the new committee chairmen and set the agenda for congress.

For this reason, I will not vote for a dem for national office no matter how pro2A he is as an individual.

I have, and will sometimes vote for a dem for local or state office, but never for national office.

This cannot be emphasized enough! No matter how pro-2A your Democrat Senate or House candidate is if the Democrats win the Senate they will control the Judiciary Committee, and a pro-2A Democrat will never be seated there by leadership. No pro-2A judge will even be voted on let alone confirmed. And any pro-2A bills in the House will never even get a vote. It matters which party controls the Senate and the House, it really does.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by Ben Dover

I have, and will sometimes vote for a dem for local or state office, but never for national office.

I have on more than one occasion told a local party member who came canvasing to my door that while I might wish to vote for them I simply can not because of the party platform position their party holds on one issue or another. Invariably, I get the response of 'Well, I don't hold that view...", to which I reply "Then why are you a member of that party?"

Voting for them simply tells them that it's ok to align themselves with others who hold that belief... even if they do not (or more likely claim to not).

I have told more than one straight to their face that such alignment cost them my vote. I let them do the math to decide if it's worth it.

Above the local level... I can't recall a major party candidate that convincingly held a position opposite the party platform on an issue of major social import.

[Ben Dover]

[/QUOTE]Above the local level... I can't recall a major party candidate that convincingly held a position opposite the party platform on an issue of major social import.[Quote]

AMEN, brutha! And again I say AMEN!

[Glenn E. Meyer]

The major problem for liberty loving Americans is how to break the polarization and litmus tests of the parties that demand ideological purity driven by their fringes. They each have liberty constricting idiocies.

One way the gun community can do that is to avoid the rhetoric of the other 'conservative' social issues. Despite its appeal for fund raising, it is a long term bad idea.

Similarly, I would advice the Democrats to do the same - realize there is a reasonable point to gun rights and not to demand a shift to complete bans as we have seen for all their candidates.

However, I have little hope that this will occur as both parties are failing us.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

One way the gun community can do that is to avoid the rhetoric of the other 'conservative' social issues. Despite its appeal for fund raising, it is a long term bad idea.

A worthy goal, but perhaps practically impossible?

I see from both sides, although more strongly on the left I think, silence on an issue is no longer acceptable. I can't see an organization being "pure" gun rights without very quickly being asked about Hot Button Issue B and then being attacked for not supporting it. "No comment" or "We don't address that issue." would make them the enemy. It would be said that if you supported Issue B then you would say so, since you don't say so, you must not, so you are the enemy. I'm sure we can all think of current examples of just that, easily.

That, and any person involved with an organization who becomes known for having made a private comment unrelated to organizational activities will instantly become the "proof" that the organization supports (or doesn't, depending on who's throwing the tizzy) Issue B. See this with baseball and other sports players recently who have the nerve to innocently comment about an issue, personally and privately, and are then forced to issue a written public apology and make a donation to an organization supporting the issue which they had the nerve to disparage. Tolerance?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Good points, while I encourage individuals to speak their minds against the political tribal correctness of their perceived group, I do think that organizational leaders have the responsibility to decide if they tie their issue focused group to other issues that weaken their overall position.

Thus, when I was working - I could express my views on political issues but not evoke my institution as implying that it gave some imprimatur to my views on such.

Living in litmus test, tribal purity world is not helpful.

[Ben Dover]

Glenn, your approach would be wonderful if it could be implemented.

The problem that I see is that many, perhaps most folks have a "basket" of beliefs. Most anti-gun people tend to be left- liberal on social, moral and political issues.

Most pro-gun folks tend to be individualist/ conservative.

I see no practical way, among average voters, to separate gun control from foreign policy, taxation, abortion, welfare, etc.

A sad situation, but one that I fear we will always have to live with.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I grant you that is a problem. We circle around to the idea of the one issue voter screed only works (as I said before) because of the assumed correlation of the one issue with the other issues you agree with.

If there are 'other' one issue topics - what to do? Some assume that this or that issue is paramount and can't see that folks might disagree.

We aren't going to debate the merits of the other 'one issue' items though. That leads to madness and closings.

Can the one issue segment carry the day for that one issue if linked to one political subsection - that is an empirical question.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

...We circle around to the idea of the one issue voter screed only works (as I said before) because of the assumed correlation of the one issue with the other issues you agree with.

If there are 'other' one issue topics - what to do? Some assume that this or that issue is paramount and can't see that folks might disagree....

I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people are not "one issue" voters. Each candidate has a platform -- an assortment of positions on a variety of issues such as gun control, minority rights, welfare, immigration policy, gay rights, women's issues, foreign policy, free trade, etc. To some extent a candidate's platform is defined by the platform of the party with which he's affiliated.

Different voters have different core, or defining, interests. For example, someone might have a very strong interest in minority rights and will favor a candidate whose platform position on minority rights most closely aligns with his own. He will do so even though that candidate's pro-gun control position is inconsistent with the voter's [weak] pro-RKBA view.

In many ways, in a number of States especially, the RKBA community has severe "packaging" problems as far as available candidates go. Too often a pro-RKBA candidate's position on various social issues make him an unacceptable choice for some voters who are pro-RKBA but also more aligned on various social issues. I see that a lot here -- where I know some shooters who just can't seem to bring themselves to go along with the one reasonably pro-RKBA candidate because of his positions on other issues.

[Ben Dover]

Glenn, I think "one issue" works or not according to the perceived threat.

With Mrs. Clinton, there was no doubt that ultra repressive, "Gestapo" style gun control would have been a very high priority. Many social conservatives voted for the president regardless of disagreements on social/moral issues.

If conservative "gun people" do not perceive an imminent threat, they will vote "one issue" on some other issue.

And that, IMHO, is the danger.