What are we doing wrong

[gaseousclay]

The thing to remember is that the gun culture isn't really unified. Glenn and others have pointed that out well.

There are, what, 90 million gun owners? 4 million belong to the NRA. That's 4.4%. Out of those, how many can we expect to take even the most basic of political actions? Ten percent? That puts us at 400,000 voices.

Even those folks can't unify on even the simplest things. Look at debates about Presidential candidates the last couple of election cycles.

agreed. the political divide among gun owners speaks volumes as to why we aren't united.

case in point:

I wish I could say this without being crass... but...

Protest marches are most effective when they appeal to the unemployed (who have the time to participate) and are targeted towards politicians who cater to the unemployed.

Think "Occupy Wallstreet"... The accountants, bankers, and lawyers in Manhattan did not organize their own "occupy" movement in response. The used the power of their wallet. In the end, the only thing the "occupy" movement succeeded in doing was putting a few unlucky restaurants out of business, spreading a lot of STDs, and smoking a lot of weed.

We, the gun-owners, tend to have full time jobs and disposable income. Well-written letters and campaign donations are our best weapon.

it's this type of rhetoric that further erodes unity among gun owners. there's absolutely no need for it in the gun debate and to paint a cross section of this country as deadbeats is doing more harm than good. this is why I don't stand in solidarity with fellow gun owners because I for one will not be persecuted because of my political beliefs

[shafter]

I would be willing to guess that a large amount of those 90 million gun owners are pretty casual about it. They may have a deer rifle or a shotgun in the closet and while the enjoy hunting and the occasional Saturday at the range they aren't very passionate about their sport.

Here at TFL we're all passionate about our sport and regularly shoot, hunt, CC, or simply admire our firearms. We take the 2nd Amendment (and all the other amendments) seriously. We follow gun related issues on a regular basis and keep informed. We also do our best to educate others.

Unfortunately we're only a fraction of the 90 million who probably don't even think about firearms until the week before deer season when they wonder if their rifle is still sighted in.

[wingman]

he thing to remember is that the gun culture isn't really unified. Glenn and others have pointed that out well.

There are, what, 90 million gun owners? 4 million belong to the NRA. That's 4.4%. Out of those, how many can we expect to take even the most basic of political actions? Ten percent? That puts us at 400,000 voices.

Even those folks can't unify on even the simplest things. Look at debates about Presidential candidates the last couple of election cycles.

I could probably find you 100,000 hardcore antis in this country. Add in another couple hundred thousand who can be easily swayed, and the numbers don't look good so far.

I think the above pretty much nails it, over the past 30 years I've encouraged people to join the NRA many will say "oh I don't like them" or "I can buy a box of ammo with that money".

Money talks join the NRA, past couple months I've given NRA memberships to family and friends. I will not purchase products from hard core anti-gun states and certain will never visit same and tell them why. May sound dramatic but we're facing evil people in DC who simply want to control our lives so we better come together soon.

[thallub]

US gunowners are far from being united. i make the case we are in near complete disarray. We have gunowners who are willing to accept UBC, magazine bans and even an AWB.


Now for the off topic thing. Oklahoma has little federal land. Oklahoma receives $1.36 for each dollar paid in federal taxes.

http://www.businessinsider.com/red-s...-queens-2011-8

[Tom Servo]

Posts have been deleted for overbroad red/blue politics. We don't do that here.

[OEF-Vet]

I wrote this in another thread and it holds true for the direction this thread is going.

I belong to several other forums that quite honestly get out of hand at times with political, conspiracy and revolutionist banter. Though I feel politics do obviously play a part in firearms related issues, pure political discussions very quickly become heated and lose value. The fact that TFL has these policies in place

5. Topics and conduct that will not be tolerated:
a. Multiple registrations
b. Drive-by cut and paste posting
c. Cross posting (Posting the same, or substantially the same, thread/topic in multiple forums)
d. Political Advocacy posts, or any purely political topic. However, some very few exceptions may be made.
e. Conspiracy threads or posts
f. Posts or threads on Race, Religion, and Sexuality
g. The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI), AKA: SHTF or Doomsday threads and Zombie threads
h. Knowingly and willfully advocating violation of a standing federal or state law (any state)
i. Violating our Copyrighted Material Policy

is what makes this forum a civil place to have intelligent discussion.
If we have any aspirations of being a unified collective of gun owners we have to recognize gun owners come from all walks of life and political affiliations and bashing one another’s beliefs only serves to divide us.

[Wyoredman]

Apologies.

If we have any aspirations of being a unified collective of gun owners we have to recognize gun owners come from all walks of life and political affiliations and bashing one another’s beliefs only serves to divide us.

^this, 100%

[Newton24b]

we stayed as independent thinkers, cowboys till the end.

we never banded into massive politicall money groups like the rest.

remember back in the 60s every smart person laughed at the hippies as morons and loosers? the problem is they grew up, got jobs for the most part, and have money. if you look closely, they love to take guns away. and spend accordingly.

'free love" my butt.

the whole gun culture dies when mr. wayne died. the western slowly faded and instead of learning values and important things like self control and morals. it became a standard communistic approach to corruption. why care about doing anything when medical relief was one clinic away?

[Justice06RR]

I would agree that gun owners are not all united when it comes to being active about the cause.

Its not that most don't care, but more so because each gun owner has a different level of involvement and passion when it comes to firearms. The very few active and passionate gun owners are those members of NRA, gun clubs, and activist groups that voice out their concerns and attend the rallies. The rest of the majority are only casual shooters, hunters, and maybe those that only have a single firearm for home defense (revolver, shotgun) and not an AK/AR type rifle.

[LogicMan]

I agree that a major protest march in Washington would probably be ignored by the media, or whatever of it was covered, they'd try to make gun owners look like maniacs.