It took me a while for my brain to distill this simple concept. I am sure somebody else had said something similar using different words.
If you ask Gun Owners what we should do to make progress regarding Gun Rights, 9 out of 10 answers will be stuff like “No compromise”, “Respect for the First and Second Amendment,” “elimination of NFA” and stuff like that. Those are goals or general philosophical platitudes, but not strategy, not what needs to be done to win.
In a discussion in Facebook about the NRA lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen and the need for a new set of headliners, once again I saw the same generic philosophical stuff and I decided to add my ideas of what the NRA should do to face the new dangers:
1) We need financing. and I mean 9 figures worth. We are fighting against Big Capital now and we need the ammunition to do so.
2) We need nasty lawyers. We need effing buccaneers to go to court and suit the crap out of Chase and Cuomo and whomever is trying to screw us and make them bleed financially. Do keep the cool collected lawyer cats that will argue the fine points of the Constitution, but let us have a corps of assholes with legal yellow pads.
3) We need more and more effective lobbyists. Not quite “bucannerish” but I do want the best relentless suckers that will go to DC and make a pain of themselves till we win.
4) Teaching State Organizations to be also smart fighters. Train local lawyers to craft legislation and teach local people how to lobby effectively. We lost that or maybe we never did have it. This is what Everytown is fighting now to great success and we should be copying and improving on the formula.
That is not a full list or perhaps even a smart one, but it is stuff that needs to be done and not talk about it.
If we keep the effort in the collegiate contemplative level, I fear we are headed for disaster.
There are some interesting articles over in AmmoLand (posted yesterday) re where the NRA, especially the board, is at the moment. Worth a read if you haven’t already.
Basically the concern is they could well be taken down by Cuomo & Co.
I read them. I fear it some of it is a payback campaign by Jeff Knox because his dad got set aside after the Cincinnati Revolt. If you are holding a grudge fo four decades, you do not need to be part of the NRA reconfiguration.
Fair point.
But whatever his personal reasons I think there are some good points, some of which dovetail with yours. Basically that it seems unlikely things can continue as they are for the indefinite future.
Personally, I tend towards the “hate the sin, love the sinner” school of thought re the NRA these days.
Do we really want to put our entire future on courts? Think of the 9th Circus out in Califruitopia that rules against 2A virtually every time. All it takes is one bad decision, a couple of judges rule the wrong way and we end up starting over. With the Supreme court apparently afraid to touch another 2A case, the “final word” might take decades.
Suing Chase and New York state means nothing. Chase probably has at least one floor full of lawyers at corporate HQ. They’re going to be getting paid anyway, Chase may as well have them swat the flies suing them. Same for NY state – they have a flock of state’s attorneys. When you make your living in court, getting sued is not as big a hardship as it is for normal people
When you’re fighting budgets that big, you need lawyers that are so good the other guys start trembling when they walk into court.
Courts absolutely have to be part of if, but it’s not going to be smooth and it’s not going to be fast. Things could get a lot worse for long periods. “Buccaneer” is good, but the smart guy who wins the big majority of his cases is better.
Again, there are two groups of lawyers: the Buccaneers and the ones we should call Constitutional. One become the assholes harassing states and counties at pragmatic level and the others deal with BOR issues.
I want Buccaneers to make sure anybody does some nasty shit against the NRA because they can do it, abuse power , etc, they will be sorry and spending half their lives under a legal microscope.
I want the 1960s Chicago Bears defensive line and the Oakland raiders when they collected scalps for fun.
Make politicians shit their pants again
Get involved, send emails, write letters, go to marches and demonstrations. Be a pain in the ass to elected Dems.
The main thing we need NATION WIDE is gun owners to get off their ass and join any gun rights group AND SPEAK UP. it only takes 30 seconds to call “law makers” and tell them no on all gun control bills. They take phone calls more serious than anything else. Stop the key oard commando shit and take that time to call/write those that want to pass these crap laws. All you ones sayin online “ no compliance, I will fight to the death” what good are you dead? And ARE you dead serious?
Truer words….
While I agree with the sentoment wholeheartedly and am a member of a number of local and national organizations, some of us have the unfortunate pleasure to live in a state that is bluer than the primary color.
I used to wirte my officials for every bill. Occasionally I’d get a form letter response, one actually personally responded a couple of times I think only because I went to school with one of her sons. They don’t give one flying fuck about guns because it’s a non issue in a state guaranteed blue; the consequences aren’t there to care. So why should I bother writing my officials for some standard or tepid (to us, extreme to them) pro gun legislation when I know it won’t make a difference in the least because they are opposed by virtue of their party, past principles, and the fact that it is gun? You might say well it lets them know there are still people out there they represent who think differently. to that I say bull and refer you to above. I’m saying this because I know my representatives and I know their positions from prior contact.
So I might sound resigned to defeat, and in some senses I have given up, as explained above. But it is strategy as you say is necessary and my strategy now says ignore and don’t expend effort on a guaranteed loss. You must evaluate each situation in regards to this. Token resistance is not always worth the resources IMO.
Our best bet unfortunately for my state are the courts of other states. Getting split circuits to eventually get a favorable scotus decision is all we can hope for and just about any even mildly progun decision is extremely favorable.
Incremental improvements are our second best bet. We occasionally get something progun that is mostly uncontroversial come up like allowing carry in state parks. That marks a somewhat easy incremental improvement and is actually now a useful opportunity to contact those who are typically anti gun to see if you can move them a bit and move the needle a bit. It is frustrating and slow but it works.
That’s my strategy. As you say, I am in the camp of roll back all the restrictions, but you rightly point out that you need a clear way to get there.